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Personal Autopilot Altitude Warning presetting on ground

Am I the only one to think this is a non-issue, at least on an EFIS that shows a bug on the altitude tape?

I don’t think of these bugs as autopilot controls. They indicate what I want to fly / am cleared to, and if I happen to use the autopilot, that’s nice, too.

So what they are set to is obvious: when VFR, the altitude I will climb to initially. And IFR, whatever initial altitude I am cleared to as part of the clearance.

That only leaves when. IFR – that’s easy, when you do the departure briefing and nav setting. Hard to miss.

VFR – a simple departure briefing is a good habit (left turn after the second village, then heading 090 on track to mast-on-the-hill, climbing to altitude 2,200ft)…

Biggin Hill

VFR – a simple departure briefing is a good habit (left turn after the second village, then heading 090 on track to mast-on-the-hill, climbing to altitude 2,200ft)…

You’ve forgotten the initial turn onto 220°.

EGKB Biggin Hill

I wasn’t talking about Biggin, but now that you write it – that looks like a departure from 21 towards the Wroughton Mast, except it’s only one village, I believe…. intetesting to see a brain on autopilot…

Biggin Hill

Cobalt wrote:

Am I the only one to think this is a non-issue, at least on an EFIS that shows a bug on the altitude tape?

Especially there (in my view)! If you take off with the speed bugs still set for the landing (and altitude) and forget to re-set them you might be in for a nasty surprise. So personally I much prefer if they don’t default to the last values. As they do on my plane at work, but this is certified according part 25 which may explain the difference.

When instructing this afternoon I checked with the Garmin 500 on our Seminole and this one will show the last settings before shutdown. Which for our flight today was a potentially expensive setting: The altitude was preset to 5000ft, the go-around altitude for an instrument approach. But we departed VFR where the maximum altitude is 3500ft. Fail to adjust that ant it’s going to be very expensive… I am really considering to write to Garmin about this issue.

Last Edited by what_next at 04 Oct 17:41
EDDS - Stuttgart

Cobalt wrote:

it’s only one village, I believe

  1. Biggin Hill
  2. Tatsfield

EGKB Biggin Hill

Is there another departure so uncannily similar?

EGKB Biggin Hill

Fail to adjust that ant it’s going to be very expensive… I am really considering to write to Garmin about this issue.

Are you serious? How about checking your autopilot settings before takeoff? Am I telling this a professional?

Alexis wrote:

Are you serious?

Yes, I am.

Alexis wrote:

How about checking your autopilot settings before takeoff?

The problem in a multicrew environment is that sometimes the other crewmember (or oneself) responds to a checklist item with the expected answer and not with what they really did: “Navaids – Set and Cheked” Haha. Neither set nor checked at least once per day on a busy day with not much rest.

Alexis wrote:

Am I telling this a professional?

Yes. Professional pilot now, professional engineer/engineering software developer in a previous life. Defaulting vital values to some previous setting ist dangerously wrong. Leave it blank and it will catch attention. Put in a value and that value will be taken for granted.

EDDS - Stuttgart

When I, a couple of months ago, described (in another forum, i think) how I forgot to check the NAV Source (it was on VLOC and not on GPS1), and how the airplane surprised me by starting to make a turn in IMC after t.o.n all hell broke loose and I was accused of beeing a slob ….

I think that the autopilot altitude settings, in a professional environment anyway, are among the TOP items before you depart. The first altitude is an item of the departure briefing.

Alexis wrote:

The first altitude is an item of the departure briefing.

It certainly should be. However if things get rushed, it is very tempting to read that altitude from the screen, assuming that your colleague who copied the clearance (while you were distracted by the passengers or whatever else) entered the correct value into the system. And I repeat myself for the third time (from experience): An empty field where one expects a value gets your attention – a (wrong) value in a field where one expects a value will easily be accepted.

EDDS - Stuttgart
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