SKYVIEW & Trutrac VS autopilot

[woneill]

My plane is set up with a Garmin 696 driving the Trutrack autopilot.

Can the plane be reset so that the Skyview drives it instead?

 

[skysailor]

The Skyview contains an integral autopilot computer but it will only drive it's own Dynon servos connected via the Skyview network. While the servos look very similar externally, the Dynon servos also contain other items internally which measure force, slipping etc.

You could probably sell the other servos for enough to purchase and install the Dynons. You might even be able to use the same brackets and mounts.

 

[dynonsupport]

Actually, not quite right anymore. With SkyView version 3.2, SkyView outputs NMEA data just like your common handhelds do. So If you direct-to or have a flight plan on your SkyView map, any external autopilot that can listen to, say, a Garmin handheld, would be able to take GPS guidance from SkyView.

The bonus answer is that 3.2 also has DYNON SYSTEM format output, which requires a second serial port on both the SkyView and AP side to send in addition to the NMEA mentioned above. But, an autopilot could choose to read those sentences and then listen to the SkyView bugs. I don't know that any autopilot maker has implemented this compatibility at this time, though.