After struggling with this great freeware rendition of the Ilyushin Il-18 (available on http://il18.fluo.net/), I have managed to work out the idiosyncracies of the autopilot.I can now hold altitude, climb and descend, fly a coupled ILS approach and change my heading using the left and right turn controls.I just cannot get the heading hold to activate!!!If anyone has managed to do this, I would be very grateful for some illumination. :)

Not much help at all I am afraid!I was not as patient as you are and just gave up, put the birds in the shop, installed domestic (English/USA) gauges along with Bendix/King avionics including a 3-axis AP (Yea, I know it ain't too realistic), but she sure flys beautifully.Hope you are able to accomplish what you desire.RTH

Thanks RTH.Most of the Russian panels are not as fearsome as they seem.You can usually get a good idea of what the switches do by enabling tooltips.Unfortunately, the Il-18 panel doesn't have any!If you would like to give it another chance, just let me know. I would be happy to let you know what I've managed to work out so far. At least you can fly basic flights using the autopilot and make ILS approaches.Can be very rewarding when you get evrything working well.