All things being equal, no red herring. So many advantages. Lower stress/amxiety, options etc. An a/p could save your life. 54 years after first solo allows me to express an opinion. Don't tempt fate. "Requirement" doesn't come into it.


If you feel competent and safe without it - fine. I don't.

The valuable discussion about IMC flight and autopilot, and the varying opinion, is worthy of consideration. However, let's remember the context of the original question. Any of this is well beyond the initial student pilot, and probably not even in a context where the value of the discussion can be appreciated by a very low time pilot.

I have a 3 axis autopilot in my airplane.

It means I am not as scared of clouds as I used to be - still don't like them.

The AP has got me out of serious trouble once when I went into IMC (the dreaded cloud) - it doesn't really matter how it happened - it was a full on white out - I had watched the 178 Seconds to Live video - no panic just flicked a switch and pushed a couple of buttons - sorted - got out of the cloud and carried on to Trinidad.

If you have kit in the airplane use it:)

Me again.

This is rather good for those who like to avoid clouds - good for planning - here I know probably clouds with bottoms at around 3,000 and tops around 5,000 - but it helps to have confirmation.

This site is rather good

Form to request gramet aero

Seems to work all over the world and processes the raw data into a very good graphic - just put in the icao codes for the route, the time of commencement in hours from now, the flight level.

It then shows the clouds, your flight, the freezing level, rain/snow etc etc. along the route of travel - really, as I say rather good, for us nephophobics
:ok::sad:

Re auto pilot and IMC. I only fly one aircraft with an autopilot. I was IMC once and thought I would turn it on as a bit of a luxury. It decided to put me into a 20 degree right bank (no I didn't have heading selected or anything, this was just turning the thing on...). I switched it off and only use it in VMC now. I don't know if I'm in the majority here but I find flying on instruments quite relaxing.

Re. "178 seconds to live". With under 80 hours, I got into cloud in a C152. I did as taught. Went on Instruments, did a 180° turn. Flew back until I got out of cloud. My instructors had failed to teach me to lose control if I got into cloud. I later did an IMC Rating, which I never used and allowed to lapse. I now fly an aircraft with no AH so 178 seconds is much longer than I'd expect, but with an attitude indicator you should be able to survive. IF you don't lack confidence and panic.

I was once asked to fly a check flight in a Bellanca Viking, which had not flown in a few months, just make sure everything was working. While up, I decided I should check the autopilot too. I set everything up, heading bug on present course, and switched it on. Bellanca Vikings are fairly crisp maneuvering planes, and I was reminded of this as the roll angle commanded by the autopilot passed 60 degrees - too steep! I disconnected it. I decided that to properly report the defect, I should see just what it would do if allowed. The second test I aborted as the roll angle exceeded 120 degrees. I snagged it.

If you have an auto pilot you know and trust, excellent. If you don't quite know and trust it yet, get to know it in severe clear first!

CV


You very clearly illustrate the difference between the IMC skills of 'Sky Gods' and lesser beings such as myself !

If it's a good day with nicely formed cumulus then under clouds is where you will find gliders, along with strong up-drafts. Gliders are hard to see though easier when they are thermalling, so directly under a Cu isn't in my view the best place to fly. Most gliders flying cross country in the UK (and I believe SA) now carry Flarm so we have a little help to the Mk 1 eyeball to spot other gliders. Also we have had plenty of practise, which helps a bit.

Thing, I should have mentioned that my airplane is properly maintained and that I do all the preflight AP checks and set it up properly before I fly even if I have no plans to use the AP.

Generally on the 178 second thing - I would guess that 99%+ of the pilots who have killed themselves accidentally (or deliberately) flying in to cloud had a working AI on board.

Clouds'll kill ya - nasty puffy white b'tards!

Thing


"I find flying on instruments quite relaxing..."


Would you share your secret ? It would save some of us an awful lot of cash invested in IMC and IR ratings plus big bucks in maintaining good currency and practice and we could sell the a/p on Ebay !

No secret, it's just a matter of getting into the groove or zone for want of a better expression. You have a guy with a big radar looking out for you, all things being equal your kit is working correctly so just sit back and relax. All you have to do is watch a few dials and don't get over excited when one of them moves. Just ease it back in. Quite satisfying, to me at any rate. It's just the mental approach to it that's important rather than superman like ability (which I certainly don't have )

Obviously we still need lots of cash invested in ratings and currency as well!

fwiw I agree with thing. Sadly I don't get many opportunities to fly in real clouds round here, but I do enjoy it. I have an autopilot but I generally turn it off when I'm in actual, for the rare opportunity to hand fly on the dials.

Oh, but my a/p is only two-axis (STEC 30, no auto trim)... so by the standards of some on here I shouldn't be there in the first place I suppose. I mean, I might miss the "trim required" light and fail to hand trim, and what would happen then?

In my airplane I have an Autocontrol plus a separate STEC - no auto trim on the pitch - I do keep a good look out for the lights, but only for when I turn it off - the STEC can handle huge out of trim forces - but I always trim it the second the light comes on.

I still think you're a mug not to use kit in the airplane - OK hand fly in IMC but not a sensible thing unless one has been awarded official Sky God 1st Class with Clusters and have lots of hours - for us newbies with only a couple of hundred hours not such a good idea.

Still not a fan of clouds:uhoh:

Wot I don't get about the people saying this is how confident they would be at taking over when the autopilot fails? - surely only those who are totally confident at hand flying in IMC should switch the autopilot on?

You don't have to be anything near a Skygod first class. I get the impression that whoever you did your IMC training with scared you to death about flying IMC, it's no big deal at all to hand fly in it or hand fly an approach. I'm only a 350 hour or so bog standard club pilot not an 20,000 hour ex airline God. Mind you I did my IMC training and night training straight after the PPL as I saw it as essential, my PPL wasn't finished in my mind until I'd done it all. So I've always done it I guess.

Quite so. If you're depending on the autopilot, what happens when it stops working while you're in the clag? There have been fatals because of precisely this - pilot depends on autopilot, a/p dies in mid flight, pilot rapidly does the same. Not healthy.

It's certainly going to be tricky to pass an IPC or IR checkride just relying on the a/p.

Don't make yourself a 'hostage to fortune'. You're in a hostile environment, you might need all the help you can get.


If the fan stops do you fold your arms close your eyes and pray ? No, you plan for a controlled descent, and a glide approach coupled to an arrival on a friendly piece of terra firma - if you're lucky !


I sail small boats. The most useful bit of kit I have is an auto pilot slaved to a GPS. It frees me from the tyranny of the steering wheel in almost any kind of weather. It's much the same in the air.


If solo longish distance flying in changeable weather is your forte then stack the odds in your favour. It makes a lot of sense.

In my time as a commercial pilot I have flown with a few former military test pilots, one from ETPS (Empire Test Pilot School) and the others from equally respectable foreign equivalents, EPNER of France being one. What marked these exceptional pilots out was their humility and complete acceptance of their own potential to make omissions and mistakes. Apart from their handling skills, high IQs and scientific proficiencies, which might have led others to believe that they were "SkyGods", they exhibited remarkable humility.


Having been "put through the wringer" in the simulator at least every 6 months for some decades and flown with outstandingly capable colleagues in all weathers, I can vouch that none of them and least of all the test pilots would ever advocate flying IMC without the autopilot engaged in rough weather. We would all be relaxed enough to hand-fly on instruments for practice in benign conditions, including the ILS down to 500' QFE or lower, but only if there wasn't some distracting problem to deal with.

I was very impressed with one of those devices on a yacht I got to ride in for a few days. Tell it to follow the magenta line, and it just did exactly that - magic!


Until, that is, we came across some rather bigger seas, whose frequency seemed to induce positive feedback in the autopilot's control loop, which threatened to roll the mast out of the boat. So we turned it off and steered with the tiller by hand, and bloody hard work that was too!

Fine if your aircraft has an autopilot. I'm not advocating not using it at all. It's just that the vast majority of your normal club light aircraft don't have autopilots. I've flown a largish selection of different ones and have only flown one that has. And that didn't work when I wanted it to...I'm also pretty sure that your experienced friends would be quite capable and confident of flying without the autopilot in rough weather if they had to.

I wouldn't disagree with that at all. I just find it a little worrying that some posters who (I assume) have at least an IR(R) would find it uncomfortable flying in IMC without an autopilot. It's not the use of it that worries me, it's the lack of confidence they feel if they couldn't use it. I find that quite disturbing, and that is not an affront to their abilities, I'm sure they are capable pilots. It's the mindset that concerns me.

Edit: In the same way that I'm concerned about two pilots I know who will turn back, or even not take off if their Skydemon drops out. I use Skydemon all of the time unless pottering locally, however it's just a minor inconvenience if it stops operating as advertised. Five years ago we all flew perfectly well without it...

I'm with thing on this one.

As I see it new pilots are trained to be frightened of clouds and perhaps this makes many nervous even after getting IMC/IR ratings. It certainly took me some time to get over it. Now I am perfectly happy to fly a 6 hour leg in real IMC by hand. My aircraft only has a temperamental wing leveler.

IMHO if those who depend on autopilots turned them off and hand flew for a few tens of hours they would be just as relaxed.

I did a long day for Project Propeller last year consisting of IFR to Shoreham, NDB letdown, IFR to Church Fenton (Doncaster ILS cloudbreak), then back again. Round London in each direction I had to be in IMC due to the controlled airspace - oh, the irony - though on the long legs to Yorkshire I was mostly IFR on top in the sunshine, and we were able to duck through a hole and get into Shoreham VFR the second time. Final leg was VFR under the cloud base around 1500 to get back into my home base as ATC had closed and the ILS wasn't available. All this in a very bog standard (sorry A and C) PA28.

The dangerous bit? The VFR at the end. IFR in IMC without an autopilot really is no big deal; if IMCR/IR(R) holders can't do it they will quickly self-eliminate at their next renewal.

Oh, and PS, this doesn't count for CPL cross-country because it was IFR. More irony...

I remember that when I was learning to fly IMC the lesson periods were the most rewarding and most interesting exercises I had and I emerged a better flier for it. I would recommend it to anyone.

Disagree. For the IR(R) renewal you're probably mostly not in real cloud, and there are enough unconscious hints (eg, the sky is brighter than the ground, perhaps, but I haven't really analysed it) for me to keep the aircraft the right way up most of the time without doing the proper scan that's needed in real cloud.

Maybe it's the long legs I fly (100 miles is a short one and 400+ is more common) that makes me value the AP - just spend my time keeping clear of the clouds.

So down here - take off, AP's on at about 1,500ft, point airplane at other island, set alt hold at cruise height, switch tanks every half hour, keep away from clouds, switch off AP's when island spotted and land.

The clouds here tend to have bottoms at around 3,000ft and top out around 5,000 - some have CN columns growing out of them - I do keep away from those by several miles - tend to go over clouds as it is less bumpy (i.e not bumpy at all).

I am not saying one should not hand fly the airplanes, just that getting help from the AP when one gets into clouds makes sense - so long as the kit is properly maintained, one knows how to use it and one doesn't solely rely on it.

Still not liking them clouds:ooh:

Gertrude I think I disagree the other way. In real IMC you are seldom completely without any visual cues - e.g. as you say, it's brighter up than down, etc. Under a hood I find it hard to relax - it's uncomfortable and very restrictive of the view.

Shows we're all different, I guess!

I'm always saying it would be boring if we were all the same :)

Unless you were all like me. It would be a perfect world then.


;)

Romeo Tango


Deepest respect. I'm bowing deeply from the waist. I cannot begin to even imagine the sheer tedium of hand flying an a/c for six wearisome hours in clag and all the while not taking your eyes of the panel scan.


How anyone can even contemplate this much less maintain the level of concentration required is truly beyond my comprehension. How you do it I know not. If I was faced with a similar situation I'd shoot myself if I couldn't buy, borrow or steal an a/p !

I found when flying that lessons were far more enjoyable than general flying which, on the whole, was pretty boring.

I guess it's a matter of what you have to fly, and what you're used to. I used to hand fly two or three hour legs home, hard IFR, at night, often in winter icing, while my exhausted Captain "relaxed". I can't say I enjoyed it, but I signed up to fly, and that was the flying. The Aztecs did not have auto pilots. If I wanted to get home (let alone the employer expectation), the plane had to be hand flown. And, to be clear, that was old school panel - no HSI, no RMI, no RNAV... EFIS and GPS? Not thought of yet... It can be done, and was common "back then"....

Perhaps the basis of perception is different now....

Once you have trained your hind brain it does not require much concentration, it becomes a background reflex to keep straight and level with occasional course corrections. Of course just looking at water vapour for 6 hours is boring .... but usually it is made worthwhile when one gets to clear air and some breathtaking cloudscape.

Sometimes the weather is bad and there is a schedule to keep

Some people can watch TV for six hours at a stretch...I would rather stick pins in my eyes but I guess it's what they get used to. They don't get up and say 'My God that was boring.' Or maybe they do I wouldn't know.

6 hours inside a cloud is unusual .... but that is what the weather gods occasionally decree. No flight is the same, some are more interesting than others. One needs to be able to cope with what one gets.

Winter is what makes the summer nice.

"one needs to be able to cope with what one gets..."


So much easier with an autopilot !


I can see where we're going with this one. We need the application of a bit of Reductionist Theory here. Let's chuck out the AI/HSI/VSI/Turn Co-ordinator. Ebay beckons, plus a few quid.


Six inches of string glued to the inside of the windscreen with a nut tied to the end and we're in business ! Instead of being hypnotised by the scan, we can enjoy the hypnotic pendulum effect of our new cost effective auto pilot.


I might be able to do Cairo - Capetown nonstop with that kit - and solo or, has that already been done ?

I think you're missing the point here...no one is saying don't use the autopilot, if I flew a plane with a working autopilot I would use it myself on long legs. But being as I'm guessing the vast majority of people who fly GA fly aircraft without autopilots then we have to hand fly them in all conditions including long IMC legs and all the rest of it which you should, autopilot or not, be able to do easily and confidently. It's the lack of confidence in not using the autopilot which is the issue.

I think that I've got a kind of built in ability to frequently miss the point ! My attitude - forgive the pun - towards a/p's is that if the a/c has one then it might as well be used. It will fly the a/c much more precisely than any hand.


I fail to see any virtue in long spells of hand flying. Occasionally yes, to keep in good currency and practice. Of all the time spent aloft buried in clag, if 80% or thereabouts is spent on a/p and around 20% is given over to manual control, this I would have thought gives about the right balance for most.


I understand that my comments re the a/p have relevance only for the few GA a/c equipped with such and for those who frequently fly in marginal conditions.

Again please excuse my ignorance and please don't laugh but I didn't know small GA planes can have auto pilot. So how would that work on a plane such as a zenith 701 with a control column and how much would such kit cost?:8

If you contact Zenair (Google) in America, they'll have all the answers.