King Air Yaw Dampener in Checklists

FT

So far I am loving the King Air but I've noticed something in the checklists. In the Before Takeoff (Runup) section the Yaw Dampener should be set to engage, beyond that however it is not mentioned. I was under the impression that Yaw Dampeners should be disengaged for takeoff and landing, and was quite surprised to see this set in the checklists.

Is this an error or a normal operation for the King Air?

Black Square

Great question! That is my understanding too, but I found several King Air checklists that call for the yaw damper to be engaged at the same point in the checklist. One of them states, "Note rudder pedals respond to yaw damper engagement." I am aware that the King Air disengages the yaw damper in the event of differential torque readings from the two engines, which may have some impact on this. This is only a hunch, as I would have to walk myself through the checklists and double-check the logic in my code, but it's also possible that the yaw damper is meant to be disengaged by double-depressing the autopilot disconnect by the end of the run-up checklist, and only reengaged after takeoff. Some King Air checklists I found call for it to be engaged after takeoff, while others do not mention it again. Thanks for asking about this. I will be sure to review it when I do my significant King Air overhaul in the coming year.

danhenri

After reading this post, I found some info here : https://kingairacademy.com/home/cl/ (1st item on the list)
What I understand is that yaw damper should be engaged for passenger comfort, but for safety reasons, in case of an engine failure, it should be better to let it off before a safe altitude : with the yam damper on, action on the rudder pedal is more difficult, but that's something we can't experiment on a desktop flight sim...
Another instructive article here : https://kingairmagazine.com/article/yaw-dampers-what-theyre-not/
With an important note : "The yaw damper does not try to center the ball, to create coordinated flight. It just reduces yaw"

Cheers.

DrZGard

@danhenri Clements Corner is one of my resources for King Air education. I have Tom's book and the earlier video he published which can now be viewed in parts on Youtube.

FT

That's great to know thank you for the useful replies. The disengagement of the AP at the end of the run up checklist would make sense and is something I hadn't thought about!

intjmastermind

Are the Yaw Damper and Rudder Boost actually fictional in the sim? I haven’t noticed any differences in the flight model with them enabled or disabled.