FD/AP issue

RVDan

I love flying!
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
279
Location
Frederick, MD
I have had things happen when engaging lateral modes, that I shrugged off as pilot error until I recently decided to do some testing in an orderly fashion.

I have had this problem with Ver 15 and Ver 16.0.4 SW. Below are the steps taken and the results which are not consistent with what I understand to be normal operation, and do not occur every time. In all cases I start with AP and FD not engaged and no modes selected.
Setup: Level flight with an active flight plan leg from SV GPS and selected as HSI source. Aircraft is heading in the general direction of and parallel to or intersecting the active leg.

1. Press and hold Heading to Synch heading (or track). Select heading (or track) mode, then nav mode. FD shows engaged and heading is active with GPS mode armed. Engage AP. Heading (or track) mode disengages, GPS becomes active and the AP makes hard turn to intersect the active leg at it’s closest point. Captures and fly’s the active flight plan. Comment- normally, these steps result in the FD modes showing Heading(or track) active with nav armed. When AP is selected and the heading is set to intercept the flight plan leg, the AP tracks the heading until capturing the flight plan leg.
2. Same setup as #1 with the AP engaged and tracking heading. I select ALT. The system drops the lateral mode, heading and nav are disabled and alt is engaged. Normally, the lateral modes would stay engaged and ALT hold would engage.

The problems can be duplicated but are intermittent. Due to the intermittent aspect of these issues, it results in some pilot head-scratching when the airplane isn’t doing what is expected. Any insight as to what I might be doing wrong would be appreciated.
 
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