I have had this happen before, and always written it off to my lack of experience. It's one of those "what's it doing now" items. I use the expert mode. Today I took a short flight and the following occurred: I set the autopilot to heading and altitude hold, with altitude set at 2800. All was normal. Then I had to punch off the autopilot and hand fly. At that time I changed the altitude setting to 3500, while climbing through about 3300. I again turned on the autopilot, and it began descending, I'm guessing to the previous 2800' setting. Had to go to pitch and command nose up. Shouldn't this happen automatically in his scenario? I get that it shouldn't if the autopilot stays engaged, but if I turned it off and back on?
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Altitude hold surprisess
- Thread starter hmanvel
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2005
- Messages
- 13,226
Suggest you give Technical Support a call at 425-402-0433 and ask to speak to one of the pilots on staff. They'll be able to talk you through this scenario. Note that we might be short-staffed on Wednesday in advance of our Thanksgiving holiday shutdown on Thursday and Friday.
I have had this happen before, and always written it off to my lack of experience. It's one of those "what's it doing now" items. I use the expert mode. Today I took a short flight and the following occurred: I set the autopilot to heading and altitude hold, with altitude set at 2800. All was normal. Then I had to punch off the autopilot and hand fly. At that time I changed the altitude setting to 3500, while climbing through about 3300. I again turned on the autopilot, and it began descending, I'm guessing to the previous 2800' setting. Had to go to pitch and command nose up. Shouldn't this happen automatically in his scenario? I get that it shouldn't if the autopilot stays engaged, but if I turned it off and back on?
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2005
- Messages
- 13,226
In this case, you didn't turn off the Flight Director because you are in expert mode. A single click turns off the AP, the second click turns off the FD. So the FD was still commanding you back to 2800, as evidenced by the command bars on the screen. So when you re-engaged the AP to the FD, it followed it back down.
If you want to fully clear the FD mode, double click the disconnect button, or press the FD button in the menu or on the control panel.
If you want to fully clear the FD mode, double click the disconnect button, or press the FD button in the menu or on the control panel.
Thanks! I actually thought of that while driving down the road today, I should have noted the command bars, whether they were showing, and whether they were commanding a descent (obviously they would have been). From now on I'll remember to check the FD, correct anything first, then engage the AP. Good stuff.