Auto Pilot Usage

Boeing because 'MURICA.

patriotic-bear.jpg
 
Depends on how long the day was, what the weather is like, step climbs or not, but I usually fly up to 18,000 and turn it back off with vectors to final.
 
Famous moments in Hacker's autopilot use:

It was a bit of a challenge to program this 20-degree strafe pass, but once I was done hand-jamming the lat/long of the target I selected FLCH and it worked like a champ...
gunpass.jpg


Here out at 500' AGL over the English Channel, I was sure glad that the ALT function was selected, otherwise....SPLASH!
DSCF2583.jpg


Man, am I ever glad that the FMS was on board when I got into this unusual attitude! Man...I was crapping bricks, this is like 100 degrees of bank! The simulator instructor never let me get this far outta whack! Right after this shot, I went heads-down, dialed up the next waypoint, hit NAV, and the damn thing recovered to wings level and started flying in the correct direction. Whew.
03-06-06_0833.jpg


Of course, there's no way to fly safely inside of 500' vertically and 1NM horizontally to another aircraft, but in this case I needed gas, so I ignored the TCAS RA (I know, RIGHT?!) and let George fly me into this perfect track right on the Jet Route. Turns out the KC-10's autopilot is so accurate that we were close enough that he could give me some gas!
osw_04_small.jpg


Dear God, I'm so thankful for automation.
 
They were probably scared out of their minds, but you're an outlier...statistically insignificant. Well, not just statistically, but that's not important right now.
 
Back
Top