I whole heartily agree with that. As an IMC rated pilot(not full
instrument rated) I am able to fly in IMC conditions with relative ease,
when hand flying, trying to stay ahead of where I am going, dealing with
ATC and then studying the approach plates add to that a bit of good old
fashioned turbulence and you can image things get a little busy. For me
the purpose of an autopilot is to ease the workload and free up some
space in my limited brain capacity, thus making the whole process less
stressful, so the 180 option, whilst not particularly important to me,
could potentially be dangerous if it leads a VFR pilot to be over
confident where IMC conditions prevail. There is no electronic or
mechanical substitute for actually getting practice in IMC conditions
with a suitably qualified person on board of course.
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Fred
Fillinger
Subject: Re: Europa-List: Autopilot Advice
> I particularly like the 'get me out of IMC' button - just press and
> hold for 3 seconds - Autopilot comes on, turns you through 180
degrees....
I don't wish to start a debate over the concept of....if you need an
autopilot to 180 out of IMC...and arguable wisdom of periodic dual
instruction in that regard. :-)
IMO, the issue is how well the thing will do the job in turbulence, as
an instrument-rated pilot knows any +/- excursions from what you want it
to do don't mean anything. There's conditions where turning the
aircraft as per ATC or the approach plate is easier to do manually,
since there's simply less thinking to do in the instrument scan. But
for a VFR-only pilot, those excursions might be disconcerting, the first
of a chain of events potentially leading to a "problem."
With such a feature, I think it would be good to thoroughly and
periodically test it in turbulence, to get used to what the panel
instruments will be doing, so as to better monitor how well the
autopilot is bailing you out. Just like an IR pilot would do, with that
box optionally doing what the subconscious brain has been trained to do.
Reg,
Fred F.
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