I have a question regarding the Autopilot Plus feature.
While the flight is running in the background, does Autopilot Plus take into account wind speed and direction along the route and adjust the ground speed accordingly?
For example, during my recent flight from EHAM to TNCM, the expected duration was approximately 8.5 to 9 hours. I enabled Autopilot Plus while cruising at a ground speed of around 405 knots. However, even after more than 11 hours, the aircraft had not yet reached the Top of Descent (TOD), and the ground speed remained steady at around 400 knots. Interestingly, when I resumed the flight manually, the ground speed suddenly increased to 500 knots.
I would appreciate any clarification or insights you could provide on this behavior.
As of 25.1.4, it does not. Your groundspeed will remain locked at whatever the last saved value was whenever you are in AP+ mode. Laura has stated the plan is to eventually have AP+ react to winds enroute however for now this is how it is.
Gotcha, tks for such quick response.
adding to this, does this mean that long haul or ultra long haul flights could increase/decrease in duration by a lot depending upon where you engage autopilot+ and not based on your flight route?
One thing I do to help with this is periodically check back into my flight. That will reset all of the weather for your flight and make it a bit more accurate. Obviously this isn’t always viable as you might have it going overnight or something like that.
Great workaround solution! Honestly I personally feel that refreshing the flight resets the last saved value of GS / AS to a more updated version which is both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because if the last saved value is LOWER than the recently refreshed conditions, then the flight flies faster.
A curse because if the last saved value is HIGHER than the recently refreshed conditions, then the flight flies slower.
And once the refresh is made, at least for both training and expert servers, AFAIR, there’s no going back! Please correct me if I’m wrong!
I think a future iteration where AP+ takes into account prevailing wind conditions and actually adjusts the flying time, AND, showcases the entire flight even when AP+ flies in the background, as well as, the possibility of automatically integrating SimBrief flight navigation pathway into Infinite Flight would be great. The reason I’m saying twofold is because:
(a) AP+ currently only saves the “live” portions of the flight
(b) It’s a pain to constantly switching over from SimBrief to Infinite Flight before starting a new flight.