Rum + inations.
I was brought up in ‘old school’ GA; served my time in wrecks and relics – most of which had ‘Auto Pilots’ which, mostly, failed to perform design function. We went through the CASA flip-flop of ‘must’ work and not required until we all just accepted that some worked sometimes and some did not. About a 100 years ago, I flew a brand new Aerostar (Ted Smith version) which had not only a factory fitted unit – but it worked. In time I learned to partially rely on the beast: in cruise. Aircraft trimmed and set fair – then began the process of regaining my trim speed and getting the AP to understand what I wanted. This often resulted in a prolonged battle for two or even five knots; needless to say, rather than loose my speed, I’d turn the bloody thing off and ‘pole’ the aircraft. Never, not once, not in about 10.000 hours of IFR operations did I allow an AP to do anything other than cruise – as said – old school. However – I did pick up a wrinkle or two; for example:-
The AP decided it needed to go ‘down’ – Nope. So did I pull UP? Nope. A little weight in the ‘down’ direction seemed to persuade the AP that ‘UP” was a good thing. Brainless, the rotten thing would come back to my pre set selection. Many a boring hour happily spent confounding the AP. Such was life – way back.
If the AP elects to go down surely the wrong thing to do is pull ‘Up’. I’ll say no more, except if a thing like a BAC1-11 decided ‘nose down’ was the thing – a judicious assist in the same direction corrected this assumption pretty quickly.
Just saying…………
Actually – that’s a fib. I was really saying set ‘em up here barkeep, same as last time: the BRB is in full session and 737’s are on the menu. Not that any of us would have the first idea of how to fly one; nope, nary a one.
I was brought up in ‘old school’ GA; served my time in wrecks and relics – most of which had ‘Auto Pilots’ which, mostly, failed to perform design function. We went through the CASA flip-flop of ‘must’ work and not required until we all just accepted that some worked sometimes and some did not. About a 100 years ago, I flew a brand new Aerostar (Ted Smith version) which had not only a factory fitted unit – but it worked. In time I learned to partially rely on the beast: in cruise. Aircraft trimmed and set fair – then began the process of regaining my trim speed and getting the AP to understand what I wanted. This often resulted in a prolonged battle for two or even five knots; needless to say, rather than loose my speed, I’d turn the bloody thing off and ‘pole’ the aircraft. Never, not once, not in about 10.000 hours of IFR operations did I allow an AP to do anything other than cruise – as said – old school. However – I did pick up a wrinkle or two; for example:-
The AP decided it needed to go ‘down’ – Nope. So did I pull UP? Nope. A little weight in the ‘down’ direction seemed to persuade the AP that ‘UP” was a good thing. Brainless, the rotten thing would come back to my pre set selection. Many a boring hour happily spent confounding the AP. Such was life – way back.
If the AP elects to go down surely the wrong thing to do is pull ‘Up’. I’ll say no more, except if a thing like a BAC1-11 decided ‘nose down’ was the thing – a judicious assist in the same direction corrected this assumption pretty quickly.
Just saying…………
Actually – that’s a fib. I was really saying set ‘em up here barkeep, same as last time: the BRB is in full session and 737’s are on the menu. Not that any of us would have the first idea of how to fly one; nope, nary a one.