I have set up a flight plan with 36 waypoints 10 degrees apart with a radius of 10 miles. The waypoints will be 1.7 miles apart requiring a heading correction of 10 degrees and the flight time between waypoints will be approx. 1 minute. What I am trying to do is have my autopilot fly in a 10 mile radius circle. I have not tried it yet. Am I asking too much out of the autopilot?
Fly my RV12 in a circle with the Dynon autopilot
- Thread starter 2johns
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Depends on how fast the airplane turns at speed, whether you're overflying the waypoints or using turn anticipation (the default for flight plan waypoints) or not, etc etc (though you might basically get an overfly with a rounding off of the edges if you leave overly off, getting you something closer to a real circle, actually if that's what you're after). You can dial up your bank angle limit if you need it to be more agressive for the tightness of the circle, but generically, without doing math, I think you'll be OK. Let us know how it goes!
Today was the day to give it a try. 50 degrees F moderate turbulence up to 18 kts of wind. I flew the circle at 100 kts at 6500 ft altitude. The Dynon autopilot flew the whole 360 degree circle perfectly. It took about one minute between waypoints and 10 seconds before entering the next waypoint a message would appear listing the course to the next waypoint. The autopilot flew the RV12 precisely over all 36 waypoints. Amazing! The hardest thing for the autopilot to do was maintain the 6500 feet altitude as there was plenty of updrafts and down drafts. I was very pleased with the performance of the Dynon autopilot.