FS2002 Autopilot

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Mastering the Flight Simulator 2002 Autopilot

The Localizer-Glideslope
Localizer/Glideslope are really two separate functions. The two terms are often used interchangeably but in fact, they are two separate radio signals that are received by your aircraft and then displayed on the same instrument. The fact that they are often called by one term or the other alone can sometimes be confusing because they are not identical functions at all.

The Localizer is the horizontal element that represents movement left and right of center. The Glideslope on the other hand is the vertical element and represents movement above and below center. Even though the two work in close harmony and are represented graphically as a single element, always keep in mind that they are separate technologies and are handled separately both at the transmitting and receiving ends. Also be aware that, although the graphic depicts the Localizer/Glideslope as ending at the OM, the reality is that the radio beam can and usually does extend MUCH further out depending of course upon transmitter strength, atmospheric conditions, and other local conditions such as mountains. These conditions are actually remarkably well represented in FS2K2. You will often find that only one beam or the other—usually the Localizer—will be acquired first and independently of the other.

Enter the Pattern
One thing that we have found makes a huge difference in FS2K2 is getting the aircraft set up for landing much further out! Well before you actually enter the pattern you should have already descended to the general approach altitude. For most airports that would be between 2000’ and 3000’ AGL (Above Ground Level). But remember that AGL is above the AIRPORT’S published altitude which is not usually what is showing on your Altimeter. Your Altimeter registers your altitude above sea level. For example, if you are landing at “Mile High” Denver, the airport may be at around 5000’. If you set your Autopilot altitude at 2000 you will hit terra firma before you ever see the threshold!

You should also have reduced your airspeed to closer to the approach speed. For the “Heavies” that would probably be in the 150-180 KIAS (Knots Indicated Airspeed) range—certainly less than 200 KIAS. For smaller aircraft it would be substantially less. Avoid at all costs making substantial changes in airspeed once on the Glideslope. You should already be at the proper landing speed before then. Changes in Airspeed substantially effect Lift. The Autopilot does not react to you adding or reducing throttle nor does it react even to the resulting changes in airspeed—it reacts instead to the increase or decrease in altitude that is the result. But it can’t always react fast enough so you get some porpoising—moving alternately above and below the Glideslope as it is adjusting and attempting to center on the Glideslope.

Also be sure you have already lowered your flaps well before reaching the Glideslope—at least 10-15% by Position 1 and full flaps by Position 2. Adding flaps during the final descent on the Glideslope gives the Autopilot even more problems to deal with. Flaps add substantially to both lift and drag. Drag is what we need to help get down to touchdown speed. But the added lift plays havoc with the standard rate of descent. The Autopilot does not react to you adding flaps. It instead reacts to the sudden increase in altitude that puts you above the Glideslope so it tries to compensate, but it often cannot react fast enough and thus you again get some porpoising!

If you do these things, then the autopilot can take over very well from almost any approach angle or altitude that is anywhere near reasonable—and sometimes even at some that are relatively unreasonable. But you need to be well outside the outer marker and that usually requires a great deal of patience to follow the full pattern—especially on the downwind leg so you get well beyond the OM. We try to be about 150% to 200% of the Glideslope length beyond the runway before we turn to the base leg, then we turn upwind at an angle toward the OM and that is usually when we hit the APR switch to engage the autopilot in approach mode. More on that in a moment.

ATC nearly always vectors you to the outer marker. That is their aim point. That nearly always makes it very difficult if not downright impossible for the autopilot to take over smoothly. We almost always have to override the vectoring by steering so as to hit the Localizer well outside the outer marker. ATC won't usually bug you about being off course at that point so you should do what you need to do.

And generally, we hit the APR button almost as soon as the Localizer/Glideslope becomes active—even if we are at a fairly steep angle, normally 30-40 degrees but often as much as 70 degrees off the runway heading—and well below the Glideslope. We just make sure we've already got the plane flying pretty much straight and level and my speed is down close to landing speed and we are still well outside of the outer marker.

Don't turn off the ALT hold and HDG hold. Just hit the APR button and wait patiently. As soon as we reach the approach heading, the HDG hold goes off by it self. And as soon as we reach the Glideslope, the ALT hold goes off automatically as well.

The Autopilot NEVER handles flaring correctly either. Whereas the FS2K version nearly always handled the flare pretty well (One of the best examples is the system on a 767 PIC aircraft), FS2K2 makes no attempt whatsoever to flare. we've found that when it is time to flare, we must click the Speed Hold button off and then cut throttle to zero and flare out manually. If we do that, then auto throttle and Autobrakes usually (but not always) take over correctly as well.

Settings for Any Flight
Once in the cockpit, change to Spot Plane view with the “S” key and set up that view at an appropriate angle. We like to have it set above and behind and zoomed out a bit (minus key on keyboard) so that we can switch to it quickly while we are on the taxiway and having trouble with taxi speed or following the little blue lights or even the pink Progressive Taxi lines to the runway:

Then switch back to the interior cockpit view (Shift+S). From the Views menu, open a New View—a Top Down view. Resize it so that it is way off to the right side—out of the way but easily visible when needed such as when trying to find the exit taxiway just after touchdown. But then click anywhere on the main view to make it the active view—even which view is active is also part of a Saved Flight.

Now find the little buttons for the supplemental instrument panels—the buttons are at bottom just left of center in the 777.

Click on the little jet to open up the Throttle Quadrant. This will be the first of 3 primary supplemental instrument panels.

Move and resize it to the bottom right of the screen so that it covers the standby instruments, trim dials, and landing gear lever. While it is open, set Flaps to 5% (hit F5 to be sure flaps are raised and then F7 a couple of times) so that they will be ready for takeoff—yes, even that is saved! Also, set the Fuel Control switches to CUTOFF so the engines won't be running—for a more realistic simulation. When done, click that little jet icon again to close the Throttle Quadrant. Even though it is closed, it's position will be saved and will always be ready to open in the same position with a quick click on the little Jet Plane icon.

Now click the tiny Satellite Receiver button just to the left of the little jet plane. That will open up the second supplemental instrument panel, the GPS window.

Again, move and resize as needed to cover the same area which was used by your Throttle Quadrant. While that is open, click on the little up arrow between MENU and ENTER a couple of times until you are viewing at least a 30 nm range. Then close the GPS—click the little Satellite thingamabob.

Now click the Radio Tower button to open the Radio Stack, the third supplemental instrument panel.

One more time, resize to cover the same area of the panel. As you can see by the one little green light at the bottom of the stack above, we set the Com 1 active but we turn every thing else off. That means we don't have MKR set either but we are going to change that because hearing the little beeps as you pass over the Outer, Middle, and Inner Markers can be helpful—particularly in low visibility situations.

Don’t close the Radio Stack yet. You will be using it some more in a few moments.

Now click on the little button that vaguely looks like a globe with axis pole and equator lines. That will open the Map View.

Unlike other windows, you can't move or resize it. You will also note that if FS2K2 was not in pause mode, it is now. And you may also note that it takes MUCH longer to open. Both of these conditions can be rather distracting during flight. That is something we will deal with below.

Now find your airport. If you have followed my procedures and started at your favorite airport, it should be right in the center of the map. Notice that the map is moveable. You can zoom in and out, move it up/down/left/right, or even at a diagonal. Just place your mouse near and edge or way up in one of the corners (sometimes it is a bit difficult to get far enough into the corner so be precise). When an arrow appears, click and the map will move in that direction.

Reverse any moves you made above by clicking in the opposite directions until you have moved your airport back to the middle of the map.

Now click somewhere near the middle of the runways (you may have to zoom in some to be precise). That will open up the Facility Information screen with info on your airport. If you get a choice of more than one item, such as a VOR (Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range) or NDB (Non-Directional Beacon), then choose the airport. This is where you can get some of the radio frequencies we mentioned above:

If you scroll down further on the Facility Info, you will see the runway information:

Find the longest runway in the list—preferably with an ILS (Instrument Landing System—usually includes Localizer and Glideslope and often more) if there is one. That is most likely the runway that is considered Active by the FS2K2 ATC.

We also generally find that these Map View windows are very slow loading and they pause the simulator while they are open. That is objectionable enough to me such that we take the time to highlight all of this Facility Info and press CTRL+C to copy it. Then we open up Notepad and press CTRL+V to paste it into a temporary document that we keep available for reference during the flight.

We had previously set up FS2K2 so that it does not “Pause on Task Switch” (Options/Settings/General) so we can switch to Notepad much quicker and view the info without pausing my flight. But that is a personal choice that we feel many would prefer otherwise. It would depend on how often you have to switch to other Windows tasks while FS2K2 is running. A little later when we get to the section of setting up a normal pre-flight, then we will look up the info on the destination airport as well and copy that into another Notepad document. But we will get to some more specifics on that later so don’t do it now.

Entering Home Airport Frequencies into the Radio StackNow you can close the Map View and enter the frequencies into the Radios. You can use the ALT+Tab key combination to switch back and forth between the Notepad document and the FS2K2 screen.

You will be entering the frequencies you found into the STBY (Standby) dials. The reason for using STBY is simple. FS2K2 won’t let you enter it into the Active dial.

Depending on the size of your airport, you will probably want to set COM1 (Communications Radio #1) to the Clearance, Ground, or Tower frequencies in that priority order—the first one of those that is available in your area. Also set COM2 to the ATIS (Automated Terminal Information System) frequency. If you don't have ATIS, then choose AWOS (Automated Weather Observation System—see below) if you have it—something to get the local current weather information before you depart. Now for each frequency you have entered, click the little horizontal double arrow below the dial. That will move your entries into the Active Frequency. Later, when we enter the frequencies for the destination, we will enter them into the STBY dials so that they will be ready to move to Active when we near the destination.

Now that you have entered the frequencies, be aware that all of this might not have been necessary for some flights. Particularly if you file a Flight Plan, or even if you just use ATC for Flight Following, then you will get a lot of your frequencies automatically tuned for you. But just the same, whether you do or not, it is good practice to enter them anyway so that they are available for any opening flight just in case you decide not to use ATC help.

Now you can close the Radio Stack—click the little radio tower button.

Working with the Supplementary Instrument Screens
Before we go further, be aware that those first 3 buttons mentioned above, right to left, you will use often during flight—particularly at times when you are close to final approach when you will need to find them fast. Try clicking them several times to open and close each of the first three windows—Throttle Quadrant, GPS, and Radio Stack. Try doing each of them quickly. In general, you will want to think of them as mutually exclusive—don’t generally open one until you have closed the other. On the other hand, there may be times when you will want to have 2 open. For example, if the GPS is open, you might want to quickly check a Radio Frequency and the switch back to the GPS. That particular combination works just fine.

But the 3 windows have a priority display order. When 2 are opened simultaneously, one is always in front of the other. And the one in front is always in front regardless of the order opened. In the above case, the Radio Stack appeared in front of the GPS. The GPS was still open but hidden behind the Radios. The reverse will not work because the Radio has priority. If you have the Radios open and then try to open the GPS, the GPS will open but it will still be hidden behind the Radios—and that could be a problem when you are in a hurry. Thus, the best habit to build is to always close one before opening the other so that when you are in a hurry it will work as expected.

Other Main Panel Settings
Now lets do some other settings on the Main Panel. Close all 3 of those supplemental instrument panels. Right under where those first 3 windows were placed, just to the left of the Gear lever, is the Autobrake.

Set the Autobrake to RTO—Rejected Take Off in case the takeoff has to be aborted.

At the bottom middle is the EICAS (Engine Instrument and Crew Alert System) display mode switch.

Set it to ND to show the primary navigation display—the HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator—more on what this is to come!). Later, during Engine Startup you may want to briefly display the other two modes to be sure engines have started up and engine oil temperature has risen to a reasonable range. To the left of that button, set the NAV/GPS switch to NAV. That sets up the EICAS to display info from the regular navigation radios (NAV1 and NAV2) rather than from the GPS receiver. If you have filed a Flight Plan, then once you are in the air you will switch the NAV/GPS switch to GPS so the EICAS display will follow the GPS path and the Autopilot will then follow that path (more on this later too).

Over on the far left, set the lights to an appropriate setting—at a minimum, STRB, BCN, and NAV lights should be on:

Unless you do an awful lot of night flights, you should probably have the LAND and TAXI lights off.

Now let's get to the most important Pre-Flight settings—the Autopilot.

We know it may seem awkward to set the Autopilot while still on the ground. You can’t use it until you are airborne. But that's when you won’t have as much time to set it right, get it set now so it will be ready! Unlike in FS2K, we can't set most of the buttons to On yet but we can go ahead and dial in some of the settings we will most likely need.

Turn on the FD (Flight Director) switch which adds some additional graphics to the middle of the HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator) to give you an idea as to which way you need to be going to get back on course—up, down, left, or right. It does that by depicting on the PSD (Primary Flight Display) dial sort of a mini-runway sitting below your mini-plane.

Turn on the A/T ARM (Auto Throttle Arm). Once you have the SPD (Speed) button and IAS (Indicated Air Speed) dial set up, then the Auto Throttle will control your speed as needed including, most importantly, during approach and landing (when it works correctly!).

Set the CRS (Course) dial to the exact heading of the runway you would usually be taking off from at this airport (you may have already done that above during discussing the Map View—if not then the course for the Active Runway you selected should be in that Notepad document). For example a Runway 36 might have an actual heading of 003.

Then set the HDG (Heading) dial to the same heading as CRS. That way as you take off, no matter whether you have the NAV or the HDG button lighted, when the Autopilot takes over you will remain on the runway heading until you are ready to change course.

Set the IAS/MACH (Indicate Airspeed/MACH speed) dial to 250. That is the standard universal "speed limit" under 10,000'. When the Autopilot kicks in right after takeoff, you will have one less thing to worry about.

You will want to set the ALT (Altimeter Hold) dial to 5,000’. For most airports that aren't way up in the mountains, that is a good altitude to level off at just after departure. But adjust as your situation warrants. Maybe add 5,000 to your airport's elevation. You don't need to set the VS (Vertical Speed) dial. Although it can be adjusted manually if needed, normally it will be automatically calculated and displayed by the Autopilot.

You don't want to do ANYTHING with the LVL (Wing Leveler) and Y/D (Yaw Damper) switches. Those functions are handled automatically by the Autopilot. A side note is in order here. If at anytime you find the LVL button lit and can't turn it off, that is a bug you can fix. It will cause you MAJOR handicaps when using the Autopilot.

The Overhead Panel
In the middle are the START/IGN (Start/Ignition) buttons. Later, when you are ready to start the engines, you will click the AUTO button to automatically do all that is needed to start up both engines.

On the right are the FUEL X-FEED (Fuel Crossfeed) buttons. Leave that in the middle setting to automatically manage fuel usage from all tanks equally. In real life, fuel management can be a real problem but it really does nothing that we know of with the FS2K2 777.

The remaining dials and buttons on the Main Panel are really of no concern in the sim world. You don't need to use the Trim knobs. The Autopilot will manage them as needed. And the backup gauges to their left are really unneeded in FS2K2. In real life, the larger main displays in the center of the panel are actually computer screens on which are artificially projected a graphical version of digitized gauges. The backup gauges are the "old fashioned" type that use analog displays. They are there just in case the computer goes haywire.

Saving Your Work
The steps above can save a LOT of Pre-Flight time in future flights because you are going to save these to be automatically loaded the next time you run FS2K2. On the menu at the top of the screen, click on Flights/Save Flight. Give it a name that makes sense to you. But you might want to begin the name with your own initials so that any of your Saved Flights will appear together in lists. You might also want to include the word "Default" in the name so that you'll know this is a/the standard flight you use just to set up specific initial situations—as opposed to another type of flight where you have a specific destination or flight situation in mind. Then you might want to include something more that briefly identifies the plane and/or location airport, etc. If you wish, type something meaningful into the Description field as well. But before you click OK—AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART!!!—put on X by "

Now that you have saved this one, be aware that you can also save several such flights with different setups such as different starting locations and/or different aircraft. That is what some of those additional flights listed above are. But you probably would NOT want to check the "Make this the default flight" button for them as they are Alternate versions for less likely situations. The "Make this the default flight" button makes that flight the one that is started each time you start FS2K2 and you can only have one Default Flight. When you make a new Default Flight, that replaces the previous Default Flight.

Change Key Assignments for Panning
Finally, we would suggest that you make some changes in key assignments. If you used FS2K a lot, you may have noticed that the views—particularly in Spot Plane view—just do not behave like they used to. Instead of smooth pans, you are getting near instantaneous switches in the direction of the view. It is just a matter that the MS programmers changed the default assignments for some keys. Begin by choosing from the top of screen menu, Options/Controls/Assignments.

Click the "Event Category" drop down and choose "View commands". Then scroll down the "Assignment list" to find the beginning of the "Pan...." section of assignments. Change them to something appropriate. We found that using the SHIFT+???? key combination easy to remember and we used the layout of the Numpad to decide which ones to use for which direction. Some of them are showing above such as using SHIFT+NUM4 for the Pan View Left assignment. Go through each of these Pan  assignments and change them appropriately. While there, we also changed all the "Look..." group to use CTRL+???? combinations for them. And we even used the CTRL+SHIFT+??? for all the "Move Eyepoint...." group.