Hey my fellow IF pilots. As I’m constantly trying to optimize my flight procedures in order to get it as close as possible to rl procedures I’d like to know:
When is the best time to arm the autopilot?
And when is the best time to set the speed.
Especially the speed: I’m uncertain because when I arm the speed to let’s say 285 ias and the engines go crazy for a short amount of time. That’s not like they do in real life?! This also happens when I stick to the speed provided from a fpl planner.
I normally activate autopilot at or above 1000ft and set the speed to 250kts until I reach 10000ft or above then set the speed required for my aircraft and route
It may not be realistic but first I do try to wait until 1k AGL but I do heading first, then LNAV. Around 200 KTS I do my preset altitude then adjust VS and Speed is the last which greatly varies on my mood and SID and if active ATC. Speaking of, if there’s active ATC I go full auto pilot since I’m doing the job of 2 people and maybe 3 if my aircraft has a flight engineer
Thx for your answers. It seems that this is your personal approach on setting the AP. What do you guys think is realistic?
Setting the speed to my final speed the engines often go N1 100% for some seconds, what is really annoying….
Considering the game doesn’t have weather apart from winds and local airfield visibility, no radar on you instruments, every runway is dry; realistic is what you want or think it is
I personally increase the speed manually, then set the autopilot to maintain the new speed once I’ve reached it. Yes it may not be realistic but it’s definitely more realistic than the engines being at 100% the whole way
Everyday and every airport is different. You can get unrestricted climbs in El Paso every morning or very stringent climbs from Denver to New England or highly restrictive euro routes. In this game in can be like that “Barbie Girl” song from the 90s when you can get Nirvana
I do it the same way. Trying to keep the speed with trim and VS. I also do only slightly corrections to the throttle. (When I’m going to early tomorrow fast)
Do you set the AP at a specific hight?
It actually depends on how bad the cross wind is (are). If I’m fighting the aircraft I AP sooner. Like before, it’s a single player game doing the jobs of 2 or sometimes 3 people on aircraft that have flight engineers. Like flying an Ah-64 on War Thunder; one player on a multi pilot platform can only do so much especially when you have active ATC
Assuming no ATC, I usually fly manual all the way up to 10000 AGL. I then activate LNAV and my cruise altitude and adjust the VS to pitch to my climb speed. If my climb mach number foes not match my cruise mach, I disengage the speed mode and increase the throttle gradually to achieve cruise speed. I then reactivate speed mode and let the plane fly itself🤣
Sometimes it’s unavoidable but i find if you increase the throttle yourself until your mach mumber is 0.1 above what you desire and then activate speed ap, the N1 doesn’t go too crazy.
Hopeful in years to come, the autopilot has a rework to prevent the rapid throttle movements and the big changes in pitch you can sometimes experience when intercepting the glidescope in ILS