I wanted to open a request or discussion about the autopilot trim. I guess I am not the only one who is a bit scared when disconnecting the autopilot and you control the aircraft for the first time after the cruise. The behavior of the aircraft is sometimes unpredictable, even if you just calibrated your device in preparation for final approach. The problem behind this behavior is how does the autopilot works. The IF autopilot only controls the elevator but not the stabilizer, so when you disconnect the AP and you are holding your device in neutral position the aircraft will pitch suddenly leading you into a stall or an unstable final approach. Obviously I don’t know how hard is it to program the function but it would be definitely nice if the IF AP behaved more or less like real aircraft do, using the elevator for immediate pitch commands and using the stabilizer to try to keep the elevator in neutral for the long term.
This has been a problem for a while. IF does not have very smooth AP transitions. If you want better Auto Pilot transitions, rather than your plane jerking like its having a seizure, I would vote for this. The best thing to do is turn down the sensitivity of your controls and you can adjust much smoother. They have been considering an autopilot rework for a while not, however, I have no idea if they will greenlight it.
You can adjust trim before turning AP off. You have to adjust trim till magenta bar in the trim button is gone.
So it is stabilize/neutralized based on your calibration.
This quote doesn’t describe what I am saying. Im just asking for the autopilot to control the stabilizer so elevator is kept in neutral as much as possible. That about the transitions it is not so annoying as this, if you want to transition more smoothly instead of selecting 2000ft/min you can select 500ft/min.
Oh. Sorry, I got confused by what you meant. As I also stated, IF devs have been thinking about working on AP for a while now. I don’t know if it will be greenlit, but it is possible. The best thing to do for this, as I stated, is to adjust your trim and keep your control sensitivity low for the best flying.
I think an aircraft should be trimmed at all time properly. And of course particularly before switching the AP off! If this is done and the device calibrated, nothing wrong will ever happen when taking manual control.
My 2 cents.
Happy flying!
I do agree, the autopilot does need reworking, so go vote for that in the topic linked above , but to add on to @ChrisToxz this is what he means by the magenta line you might have to click on the images to see see what I mean as some of it gets cut off
As you can see by looking at the line, the autopilot is having to pull up so unless you manage to pull up straight away after you take control, calibrating isn’t going to help
However in this one, if you disconnect and you have calibrated, it will be fine because the trim is applying the back pressure for you, I hope this helps with the issue you’re having
