Autopilot Issues

intjmastermind

A couple of small issues in the autopilot where it doesn’t match the official Pilot Information Manual…

The ARM light should appear above NAV / APR / BC buttons until the signal is captured, at which time the Armed goes away and only NAV / APR / BC is annunciated. (Page 9.10.23)
When depressing the Go Around button on the throttle, the FD should command 8 degrees nose up. Currently it’s 12 degrees. It should also annunciate “GA” on the EADI.

Black Square

Thanks for the suggestions. Currently, MSFS has no native sense of mode arming, but the ARM light will illuminate if no radionavigation signal or GPS flight plan is detected. The go-around pitch in the configuration files is currently set to 8°, so I will have to investigate where the discrepancy is. Several of the GPS units in the TBM carry their own autopilot's, and not all of them handle Go-Around mode in the same way, so it might be dependent on what unit you're using. As for displaying a Go-Around annunciation, this is one of my biggest gripes with MSFS right now, because there is no variable accessible to developers to indicate when the autopilot is in GA mode. I fake this in the Dukes by a process of elimination, but it's not perfect. Thanks again! I'll look into the GA pitch depiction.

Black Square

As I suspected, the 12° GA pitch command only occurs with the PMS50 GTN 750, while other GPS units use the configuration file's 8°. I will ask the developer if there is any way to set this value for his software, though they appear to be hard-coded from a cursory look at the code.

intjmastermind

Thanks for the response!

Just a thought, maybe have the arm light turn on if both HDG and NAV are selected? And have it turn off once HDG disappears and NAV takes over?

intjmastermind

@Black-Square

Added the following lines underneath <PlaneHTMLConfig> in Panel.xml and now the FD goes to 8 degrees in TOGA!

<GTN750>
	<Autopilot>
		<TOPitchAngle>8</TOPitchAngle>
		<GAPitchAngle>8</GAPitchAngle>
	</Autopilot>
</GTN750>

Source: https://pms50.com/fs2020/gtn750/integration.pdf

Black Square

Interesting! I must have seen that go by while working on the G3X integration for my Velocity XL, but I didn't think to add it to my other aircraft. That will be in the next update. Thank you!