New answers tagged autopilot
4
To my surprise, the FAA clause was added in 2006 after the 2004 notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) No. 04-11.
Three NTSB recommendations were part of the reason, with the earliest from 1992 (A-92-035).
(...) autopilot failures that can result in changes in attitude at rates that may be imperceptible to the flightcrew (...)
From the NPRM:
This ...
3
In all the jets I fly, the autopilot will always bank at 25 degrees. It doesn't worry about standard rate turns. As others have pointed out or alluded to; a standard rate turn with airspeed above 180 KTAS requires larger than comfortable bank angles.
The autopilots also have a half bank feature to limit banks to 13 degrees. Most often pilots will use ...
5
If your talking about standard rate turns, those are not really practical in large commuter aircraft. As true airspeed increases the maximum turn rate decreases when the bank angle is limited to a comfortable level of less than 30 degrees of bank. So please make this question more specific, which airplane category are you talking about?
Usually the ...
3
The amount of bank is that which is required to achieve the standard "Rate 1" or 2 Minute turn, being 3 degrees heading change per second, which takes you in a full circle in 2 minutes. This is a universal protocol for turns in the IFR world.
This varies with true airspeed (the faster you're going the higher the bank angle required to turn at 3 deg/sec) ...
13
You asked about commercial aircraft in general, so I will give an answer from that point of view.
Is there any obvious warning when auto-pilot is disengaged?
Yes, both visually as flashing lights, and aurally. Furthermore, the lights and tone does not go away until a second confirmation is received from the pilot. For example, pushing the button on the ...
0
Most autopilots feature both an aural warning siren or similar aural cue as well as visual cues on both autopilot units as well as cockpit displays, so there is a means to alert a flight crew of an autopilot disengagement.
As to changing autopilot modes, there a visual cues for this on autopilot units, flight displays and separate autopilot mode displays to ...
1
For non FVW airplanes:
Yes it will disengage if certain pitch and roll attitudes are exceeded. When it disengages, the controls are "let go" if the A/P was applying an input at the time, and the control column will move to whatever its natural trimmed state is at that time if the elevator is manually operated with trim tabs.
If the airplane has ...
13
The Boeing 737 allows a mode called control wheel steering (CWS). The A320 doesn't. For what is CWS, see: Is it possible to disengage only one axis of a two-axis autopilot?
The wording on Wikipedia doesn't emphasize this point; however, the final report does.
The pilots may also manually control the aircraft in a normal manner with the control wheel and ...
-1
It's hard to provide a specific answer because a lot of important context is missing from your question, but here goes.
In a conventional airplane, with any manner of control system, when the stick is released from a held position where there is deflection of the control surfaces, the stick should return to centre.
In salt-of-the-earth cable driven ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
