Autopilot?

[ivo]

For those real world pilots, do most of the GA planes have autopilots? Like for example the 152? I know that it can be installed, but do the aircraft
you fly have them? also, detpilot, I'm pretty sure that the seminole has one, but when you are on your flight with your instructor, does he let you
use it? if so, when?

[detpilot]

As far as 172's and Piper cherokees, most have an ancient autopilot that may or may not work. And if it does, the best you'll get is heading and
(maybe) nav hold (to track a VOR). At WMU, our airplanes are well equipped, our 172s all have a basic 1 axis autopilot (Just bank, it will hold a
heading or fly a VOR radial, but you have to control pitch), and the Seminole has a nice Garmin Autopilot. It is a 2 axis, meaning it controls roll
and pitch, and you can dial in a vertical speed, or press ALT and it wil hold your altitude. There is no altitude preselect though, so you have to pay
attention. In other words, if you want to descend to 3,000', when you get close to it, you have to manually reduce the vertical speed, and when you
are at the altitude then you push the ALT button. The seminole will fly a vertical speed, hold an altitude, hold a heading, fly a VOR radial, or even
fly an ILS (Approach hold). This is about the best autopilot you will find on a piston plane, and you can forget about any type of autothrottle.

As far as when we are allowed to use it, mostly on cross countries (long flights), and also we use it when shooting approaches, just so we have time
to get our charts out, set up the radios, etc. This all changes when an engine gets failed on you though, as we can't use the autopilot with one
engine inoperative, so you'd better know how to hand fly. Other than that, there are no real oppurtunities to use the autopilot. Most of our flights,
we're either shooting approaches with an engine failed, or doing patternwork, or doing maneuvers (stalls, steep turns), which the autopilot can't do
anyway. Hope that helps!

[ivo]

thanks for the reply. It has cleared things up. I was wondering becuase I thought it wouldn't be a common practice for a student pilot for engage the
A/P right after takeoff and disconnect it 50ft AGL. That takes all the fun out of flying.

[detpilot]

Yeah, I never used the autopilot during my private pilot training. I was allowed to use it on one approach per flight in my instrument training, (and
we usually shot 4 approaches per flight), and only now in the commercial course am I really getting to enjoy the autopilot.

[ivo]

well, if you constantly use the autopilot, your hand flying may get a little rusty. The only reason why I was asking is because I wanted to know if
you could do it on long flights. As much as I like hand flying, I certainly wouldn't want to fly a 3 hour flight in a C152 without an autopilot.
Thats why I wanted to know if you could engage it in the cruising part of the flight.



Post Edited ( 06-09-06 07:21 )

[detpilot]

Yeah, thats mainly when we use it is on long flights. However, most C150's don't have a (working) autopilot anyway, so you don't have to worry about
that

[AKLupine]

You CAN have a very nice "all-the-bells-and-whistles" auto pilot installed in anything from an ultralite to a ScAirbus 380, so long as you are wiling
to sacrifice payload and cash Down side is that it takes a LOT of cash.