I just feel I have more control of the aircraft during an approach.

Other pilots felt the same and many either flew the aircraft into the ground or made it spin out of control. This is not very reassuring when pilot flying AP equipped aircraft claims he has less 'control' with AP engaged - most often it shows lack of proficiency in AP operation. Richard Collins from FLYING had long series of articles in that magazine about AP in GA. Flying single pilot IFR is very challenging and any distraction can be fatal - he claims that flying with AP ON is a critical safety feature.

That's not a feature on the real thing, so no. Why would you need that stuff? You don't know what airport and runway you're landing on without having them always displayed haha?Just to make it clear here, we're modeling what the real HGS does on the real airplane, not just making features up or something.

Come on Ryan. We all know you guys sit around and throw darts at the board as to what made up features are going in the plane. :( On a serious note with all of this talk about autopilot. I do not have helicopter/tubeliner experience, but work on rotor craft so take it for what it is worth. The tubeliner/helicopter autopilots are a lot more complicated than your GA units. On the H-60 we have multiple electronic trim servo's, SAS actuators, and boost servos that control all of that mess along with it's associated computer & control panels. While RARE the AFCS can, and will drop offline occassionally for various reasons as I am sure happens on tubeliners as well. Any time an issue like that occurs it is always best to get it looked at/repaired. In my experience the stuff is pretty reliable though, and usually if you have some kind of fault it is due to water entering a cannon plug or a broken wire grounding the system out. Don't know why you would want to display the runway/ILS freq on the HGS. If you programmed it into the system by looking at the approach plates I hope you know what runway you are landing on. :(

The points made by Al do highlight the danger of putting too much faith in the AP and turning off your own mental monitoring of the aircraft systems and your situational awareness. That was actually one of the principles behind Boeing's moving autothrottles, to provide pilots an intuitive sense of what the engines are doing even when under control of the autothrottles. The upside is that autopilots are invaluable in relieving the workload of actually flying the plane and in theory at least, allow the pilots to better manage the big picture. The accidents he notes also prove the value of "sterile cockpit" rules below 10,000 ft and the risk of ignoring them.Bruce Campion-Smith

Like RR said, perhaps your beef is with rate-based autopilot. But take recent digital autopilots like the one in G1000 (GFC700). I can only dream about hand flying with half the precision of this autopilot. Also if you show up on your IFR check-ride with aircraft equipped with AP you will have to demonstrate proficiency in its use, including approaches. This is all for very good reasons - there were too many GA fatal accidents in which pilots lost control of the aircraft and never engaged a perfectly well functioning autopilot, of course John F. Kennedy Jr's famous crash is a prime example.

I've flown a coupled approach in a real-life G1000 WAAS equipped Bonanza - it's amazing, just like an airliner. Fully coupled in both the vertical and lateral, all you have to do is control the throttle and flaps/gear and then take over at the DH.

I know at Southwest they actually don't use autoland in CAT III conditions, use of the HGS is required for that and the captain must fly the approach. Not sure what the rules are at other airlines.

As someone else stated, it does depend on an airline's individual philosophy on automation. SWA's is best emphasized by this quote:

I don't want monitors here. I want pilots. . . . Our whole philosophy is that the pilot is in charge of the airplane. We're very anti automation here at this airline.

One should also point out, that when SWA started using the HUGS for CATIIIA, the MCP on the 737 was the Honeywell, which only went down to CATIIIA (Colins is CATIIIB certified). For no loss in operational capability, SWA was able to stop maintaining the autoland feature of of it's autopiots, and replace that feature with the HUGS, which only costs 25% of the maitenance of the the autoland.

Wouldn't an autoland be safer? Less fun, but safer.

Well, you forget that the PM is monitoring the flight instruments as well, and will instruct the PF to go around.

There is way to much arm chair qbing going on about my decision about using the ap on my plane. I mnow how to use it quite well actually. I use when setting up the approach in the aircraft. I use usually to intercept radials or locs. However, my ap doesn't control verticle speed. That being said. Its more cumbersome trying to descend while the plane is fighting you to stay on course. My autopilot isn't a g1000 or anything comparable to that kind. That being said, im the only one who knows how my ap works on the planes i rent. I agree about an autopilot being a crucial extra crew member in single pilot ifr ops. That being said, i don't really appriciate some of you guys implying im an incompetent pilot when i gave you barely any info on the ap and how it works.

There is way to much arm chair qbing going on about my decision about using the ap on my plane. I mnow how to use it quite well actually. I use when setting up the approach in the aircraft. I use usually to intercept radials or locs. However, my ap doesn't control verticle speed. That being said. Its more cumbersome trying to descend while the plane is fighting you to stay on course. My autopilot isn't a g1000 or anything comparable to that kind. That being said, im the only one who knows how my ap works on the planes i rent. I agree about an autopilot being a crucial extra crew member in single pilot ifr ops. That being said, i don't really appriciate some of you guys implying im an incompetent pilot when i gave you barely any info on the ap and how it works.

But in all fairness, this is a different audience. The people flying PMDG on MSFS are computer savvy. We who learned to fly on MSFS are shoved behind an instrument panel with no "seat of the pants" feeling and no tactile feedback in the control stick. We must trust the computer.Those who learn to fly on the real thing often learn to fly with minimal reference to the cockpit. They often end up fighting outdated and malfunctioning electronics. There is little need for and less trust of fancy computers.Glass cockpits and "smart" phones are starting to change all that. Computers are in the cockpits and must be trusted because there are no alternatives. The folks who previously used computers as expensive typewriters are now using smartphones for everything.Steve Perry

Aye. The amount of computerized Data in the G1000 is amazing. I was lucky to log about 70 hours in a G1000 C172SP. The moment I zoomed the "map" on the MFD to show the entire continental US, then saw all the weather for the US, then saw our max range with the currently loaded fuel - all on one display - I knew I was in love. :PI wonder if you can do the same in the 787 flight deck?

Aye. The amount of computerized Data in the G1000 is amazing. I was lucky to log about 70 hours in a G1000 C172SP. The moment I zoomed the "map" on the MFD to show the entire continental US, then saw all the weather for the US, then saw our max range with the currently loaded fuel - all on one display - I knew I was in love. :PI wonder if you can do the same in the 787 flight deck?

I have heard amazing things about the g1000 lol. I myself, fly a c172k model so i think that speaks for itself haha.

There is way to much arm chair qbing going on about my decision about using the ap on my plane. I mnow how to use it quite well actually. I use when setting up the approach in the aircraft. I use usually to intercept radials or locs. However, my ap doesn't control verticle speed. That being said. Its more cumbersome trying to descend while the plane is fighting you to stay on course. My autopilot isn't a g1000 or anything comparable to that kind. That being said, im the only one who knows how my ap works on the planes i rent. I agree about an autopilot being a crucial extra crew member in single pilot ifr ops. That being said, i don't really appriciate some of you guys implying im an incompetent pilot when i gave you barely any info on the ap and how it works.

Hey, no offence intended. My comment on AP use wasn't aimed at you. Just meant to highlight that it's interesting how technology meant to aid pilots has created new pitfalls. But certainly the overall trend has shown that technology of all sorts, be it autopilots, GPS, TCAS and head up displays, has made flying safer. Hard to imagine the kind of flying they did with four-engined pistons on a stormy night flying an ADF approach. Bruce Campion-Smith

Hey, no offence intended. My comment on AP use wasn't aimed at you. Just meant to highlight that it's interesting how technology meant to aid pilots has created new pitfalls. But certainly the overall trend has shown that technology of all sorts, be it autopilots, GPS, TCAS and head up displays, has made flying safer. Hard to imagine the kind of flying they did with four-engined pistons on a stormy night flying an ADF approach. Bruce Campion-Smith

I can't agree more with you. Automation has made flying much much more safer. It has improved situational awareness tremendously. I just had a huge issue wih folks comparing my statements to statements about pilots being unsafe. All this being on a flightsim forum made it sting a little more lol. Robert and yourself are very right on this issue. For the record...i would love to fly a ga plane with a more complex ap than i have now but i haven't had the chance. I have however flown quite a bit in an erj145 level d sim and that ap is impressive compared to mine...and that ap isn't as advanced as the 737.

It looks great!But there is something about the buttons/switches that don't look right, they don't seem to be connected to the background i.e. hovering a little, Maybe it's their colour as they look too light or have no shadow rendered.........but overall, it looks good.Chris Farrell

It looks great!But there is something about the buttons/switches that don't look right, they don't seem to be connected to the background i.e. hovering a little, Maybe it's their colour as they look too light or have no shadow rendered.........but overall, it looks good.Chris Farrell

They are not glued on the background Chris. This is how the switches is on the real thing! take a look at the video

in 0:22 you can see how the switches are connected on the overhead panel :)

Thanks Anders,Yes, I know they're not glued to the background.......but there is something about the buttons that looks wrong, maybe it's the way fsx renders light on 3d objects.Chris Farrell

Thanks Anders,Yes, I know they're not glued to the background.......but there is something about the buttons that looks wrong, maybe it's the way fsx renders light on 3d objects.Chris Farrell

Okay Chris, don't know what it is, but I think they look just as good as they can. I don't really see what you mean then :)