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rodger

RealAir SF260 AP confusion

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Okay, so I bought it. :) Looks cool, flies cool. Very nice to see such smooth gauges! I also LOVE the way you can set everything (click and drag). Man, it was awesome to see that heading bug turn round so smooth and quickly, JUST as if I was REALLY turning the thing for real! What a great difference from the annoying standard FS-method where you first have to wait an hour after which things flash by in seconds. ;)But er... I don't get that AP... Not at all. Yes, I read the pdf, but it doesn't help me too much. Sometimes when I press NAV it shows up in the ARM window, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes ROL (what's ROL anyway) comes up when I press NAV again and sometimes it doesn't. Pressing HDG switched between ROL and HDG. When I press ALT the plane doesn't react. When I press VS I sometimes see 700 and sometimes 0 and the plane won't go up or down, no matter what height I set. Well, in short: I do not understand one single bit of that AP!!! Specially all those arm modes and how to get them unarmed or working. I'm completely lost here. ;)BTW Made my first loops already and even had a good first landing. I did notice however it takes a LONG LONG time before speed goes down! It seemed it stayed above 100 forever, even though speed didn't seem that high at the low atlitude I was at. Also when on final (at 90) it took longer than I thought to reach 80 and 70. But when it did I flashed down to almost zero quickly. ;) But I managed to get it on something near 70 during touchdown. The view is indeed nice, although the wings prevent me from looking down like I am used too in the Cessna of course. Sounds are great too!BTW 2: Anyone knows how to get another one of the GPS's in the SF260...? And o yes, when switching between NAV and GPS the HDG-mode goes off: I suppose that's how it's supposed to be...? I think I should fly the plane by using HDG-mode to do it more realistic (using the heading from the flightplan...? NAV seems unrealistic because er... it just follows my flightplan without me entering anything anywhere, which seems a bit odd, or am I mistaken...? I've gotten su used to flying with GPS that I forgot how it all works with NAV... ;)EDIT!Yh, read the pdf again and it's coming back to me. Yes, you wouldn't believe it but I've flown all the populair airliners out there in FS9...! Anyway, I'm beginning to rememeber the ALT hode button, which actually HOLDS the alt... and things like that. ;) That's what you get when you fly default planes for too long!The HDG modes are still a bit of a mystery though, specially ROL doesn't ring a bell. Aren't there any tutorialflights for the SF260 somewhere out there?

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Guest Funky D

NAV follows the bug in the HSI, ROL is just the wing leveler? I don't know much about autopilots, but thats the impression I got from playing around with it...

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ROL is where when you initiate the auto pilot.. the first thing it does it ROL mode. "Wings level"


Manny

Beta tester for SIMStarter 

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Guest

>NAV follows the bug in the HSI, ROL is just the wing leveler?> I don't know much about autopilots, but thats the impression>I got from playing around with it...AFAIK HDG follows the bug on the HSI. NAV follows the flightplan, but I don't know where the AP get's the info from. >ROL is where when you initiate the auto pilot.. the first>thing it does it ROL mode. "Wings level"Hm I remember pressing NAV while nothing was activated and pressing NAV again gave me ROL.... Hm, anyway, when I press HDG and get ROL that means the plane will level off as soon as possible, to to speak...? SO it wil fly towards the current heading instead of following the HDG bug...?What confused me most was that I could not figure out what happens when I press a button: it seemed a bit random. Sometimes NAV is on top, and then it is at the bottom (armed). I thought that when something was armed you should be able to activate it or something, but I could not get that done.Well, I'm still confused. ;)

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Which GPS do you want? I have the stock GPS 500 in mine. Just change the line in the GPS window of the panel.cfg to read:gauge00=fs9gps!gps_500, 0,0,234,336Regards, Bob.

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Yeah, it's coming back to me... Armed modes are modes that are busy getting to where you want them to be. They don't need to be activated (as in a standby mode) but they will become the activated mode when they have reached their goal! I'm not at my FSX computer right now, so I can't check it all, but maybe someone can tell me if I'm thinking into the right direction! ;)So to let the AP climb to a certain height, you have to press ARM and then the plane will climb (or descend) to the alt set in the AP. Pressing VS let's you keep the current VS, just as pressing ALT let's you HOLD the present ALT. Changing VS is done with the - and + buttons. (This all is different from FSX-AP behaviour).Pressing HDG let's the plane follow the HDG bug on the HSI. When you press NAV at that point, NAV will be armed and start to intercept the NAV or GPS. When the plane is on the right track, NAV will go from armed to er.... wel NAV at the top. It works just like APR, when you are intercepting an ILS.Pressing HDG or NAV (depending on the mode you are in) will enable ROL mode, which just let's you level of horizontally. So when you are in a GPS-guided turn and decide you want to end the turn and go straiht forward, you should go to ROL mode.Yes, I am having big fun answering my own questions. ;)Only thing that does not come back to me, is where NAV gets it's info from... When in NAV mode, the plane follows the flightplan, right...? But how does it know the flightplan...? I am missing something here. I mean, I don't have to enter stuff into a FMC here...

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Guest

Thx! :) I want the one that's in the default Cessna 172: I guess I can simply copy the GPS line from that one into the SF260's cfg.

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The GPS I gave above is the same as the default 172. The window size and location are set to suit me. You can change the window size and location to suit yourself by editing the window. Here is my Window03[Window03]Background_color=30,30,30 size_mm=234,336window_size_ratio=1.000 position=0visible=0ident=GPS_PANELwindow_size= 0.339, 0.358window_pos= 0.000, 0.090gauge00=fs9gps!gps_500, 0,0,234,336Regards, Bob.

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>Only thing that does not come back to me, is where NAV gets>it's info from... When in NAV mode, the plane follows the>flightplan, right...? But how does it know the flightplan...?>I am missing something here. I mean, I don't have to enter>stuff into a FMC here... NAV mode on ALL autopilots comes from one of several sources. In FS, there are only two sources: NAV1 radio or the GPS.NAV1 - if you have an active VOR or localizer tuned, the AP will steer based on that signal's radial & the course knob's setting.GPS - if you have a flight plan loaded in the GPS, the AP will steer according to the fp's data.


Fr. Bill    

AOPA Member: 07141481 AARP Member: 3209010556


     Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Another thing. If you want it to track the GPS you will need to set a keyboard command for the NAV/GPS switch as there isn't a NAV/GPS switch on the real SF260. However, setting a keyboard command will switch the NAV function to the GPS flightplan and back again. You will have to switch it back to NAV if you want to track an ILS approach. There will be no tell tale indicator for which mode you are in but it is not to hard to fathom out. The SF260 will always start in NAV mode.Have a good day.John


John

Rig: Gigabyte B550 AORUS Master Motherboard, AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT CPU, 32GB DDR4 Ram, Gigabyte RTX 2070 Super Graphics,  Samsung Odyssey  wide view display (5120 x 1440 pixels) with VSYNC on.

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"Only thing that does not come back to me, is where NAV gets it's info from... When in NAV mode, the plane follows the flightplan, right...? But how does it know the flightplan...? I am missing something here. I mean, I don't have to enter stuff into a FMC here..."You have to tune in a VOR frequency in the NAV1 radio panel and thenactivate the NAV switch on the AP to fly to the VOR. It doesn't followa flightplan though.Hope this helps,Rodger

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Guest triangle

To add to all the other info, hitting altitude will capture and hold at the current altitude.Hitting altitude and using the right hand knob to set a desired altitude will capture that altitude and then level.Hitting VS on the top right of the AP will allow you to select your rate of vertical speed for the altitude capture - say, 500 ft p/min if you are ascending or -500 ft p/min if you are descending.As I understand it, ARM means that the AP is set but not yet in control of the aircraft. You hit the HDG or NAV or ALT buttons one more time to transfer each of these controls across to the AP once ready, at which point ARM should disappear from the LCD screen (hope I got this right - only flown with this plane and AP once). The point of ARM is to allow you to preset your preferences before, say, take-off, thus reducing your workload when on initial ascent. You just hit a couple of buttons when you are at your preferred altitude and position and the AP takes over from there.Andrew

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Okay fellows, this may sound persnickety. However, I am not trying to be. It is just the real world fighter pilot coming out in me. Screw the autopilot, fly the airplane!This plane is such a joy to fly. Why let


John
My first SIM was a Link Trainer. My last was a T-6 II
AMD Ryzen 7 7800 X3D@ 5.1 GHz, 32 GB DDR5 RAM - 3 M2 Drives. 1 TB Boot, 2 TB Sim drive, 2 TB Add-on Drive, 6TB Backup data hard drive
RTX 3080 10GB VRAM, Meta Quest 3 VR Headset

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>You have to tune in a VOR frequency in the NAV1 radio panel>and then>activate the NAV switch on the AP to fly to the VOR. It>doesn't follow>a flightplan though.Yes, true, I completely forgot that. I've been flying with the Garmin GNS430 during my last FS9 years, and in FSX I used the G1000 and lately the GPS500. So I completely forgot about having to manually dial in the right VOR freqs before NAV can follow them. ;)>You hit the HDG or NAV or ALT>buttons one more time to transfer each of these controls>across to the AP once ready, at which point ARM should>disappear from the LCD screen (hope I got this right - only>flown with this plane and AP once).Well, no, this is what I meant when I said it does not work like a stanby mode, like on the radios. When a mode is armed it IS working, but rather working TOWARDS it's unarmed mode. So when I fly in HDG mode and I press NAV, NAV will be armed and the plane will turn towards the NAV heading, but NAV will stay armed, in the lower screen, until it actually intercepted the VOR-radial and THEN it will replace HDG with NAV in the upper screen. So ARMED means a mode is on it's way to get there. (Still talking out of my head and not out of experience because it will be another 10 hours or so before I am back at my FSX computer...).>This plane is such a joy to fly. Why let

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Guest triangle

On the mixture, I just do the usual and it is fine - lean it progressively and watch the RPM needle rise. Once i get to the point where the RPM starts to fall I return the mixture setting back to the point that deliovered the highest RPM - it's easy with those smooth gauges.Andrew

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