If the plane has autopilot, it is fair game.
The plane I trained on for IR did not have an auto pilot. I didn't find my training too difficult without autopilot but it would be nice to turn it on while I brief an approach or get an amended clearance. The simpler the better for IR training. It's one less thing you need to worry about.
Not only fair game, but required by the PTS if it has an approach-capable autopilot (as quoted above by R&W).
Hmm... my DPE didn't think so. I specifically asked whether we would be doing a coupled approach on my ride, and he said he was more interested in testing my hand-flying skills.
This is exactly why I finished my instrument training in the plane I bought - I figured that if I finished my training in a plane with a more conventional panel, I wouldn't be competent to fly my own plane in actual without the same amount of extra training anyway.
Then your DPE should be glad the FAA wasn't riding along, as he would have had at least a debrief item with the Inspector, and you would have had to repeat that Area using the autopilot on at least one approach. As the PTS section R&W quoted above clearly says ("The applicant will be required to demonstrate the use of the autopilot and/or FMS during one of the nonprecision approaches."), this isn't a DPE-option issue -- it's mandatory.
You seem to be assuming that if there's an autopilot in the plane, your instructor will never teach you how to fly without it, and that's an inaccurate assumption. If there's an autopilot in the plane, you learn to do it all both with and without the autopilot or your instructor isn't doing his/her job properly. But either way, the airplane you intend to fly after the rating is still the airplane in which you should do the training.
Yes Ron, I read it. My question was more along the lines of whether this (making a coupled approach mandatory) was a recent change in the PTS. I don't have a copy of the PTS that was in effect at the time I did my ride (January 2013), and the Examiner's Practical Test Checklist in the ASA Oral Exam Guide that was current at the time does not mention it. All of the CFIIs I flew with, in particular the one who finished me up, said that it was a "fair game" item and to ask the DPE whether he would have me do it.
Negative, it's an STEC-30, cross-graded to a 20 plus PSS. It was designed to be a complete A/P, GPSS, with high and low sensitivity nav modes, glideslope capture, everything but auto trim and altitude preselect. For some reason that's never been explained to my satisfaction, it just doesn't do standard rate turns, more like half standard rate. Much better than the nav-O-matic which is, I agree, useful as a wing leveler and little more. Once established on final I would even trust it to fly a rock solid approach down to minimums if needed. But on a T-type RNAV approach, I never let it fly the turns to base and final, it's asking for a PD it's so slow. Last summer I tried to get it to intercept a localizer on an ILS approach from about a 30 degree angle. It overshot and didn't correct within my ability to tolerate, but the next time from 5 degrees away it did intercept and flew the rest of the approach beautifully, including capturing and tracking the G/S down to minimums.
If it's not capable of a coupled approach, I would just tell the DPE that. You shouldn't be expected to demonstrate something that is beyond the capability of your installed equipment. Just make sure that you are right beforehand.
Negative, it's an STEC-30, cross-graded to a 20 plus PSS. It was designed to be a complete A/P, GPSS, with high and low sensitivity nav modes, glideslope capture, everything but auto trim and altitude preselect. For some reason that's never been explained to my satisfaction, it just doesn't do standard rate turns, more like half standard rate. Much better than the nav-O-matic which is, I agree, useful as a wing leveler and little more. Once established on final I would even trust it to fly a rock solid approach down to minimums if needed. But on a T-type RNAV approach, I never let it fly the turns to base and final, it's asking for a PD it's so slow. Last summer I tried to get it to intercept a localizer on an ILS approach from about a 30 degree angle. It overshot and didn't correct within my ability to tolerate, but the next time from 5 degrees away it did intercept and flew the rest of the approach beautifully, including capturing and tracking the G/S down to minimums.
So it's a decent A/P, but it has some limitations.
Yes, I think that's correct. However, the CFII I was flying with thought it should be capable of more, so we tried it. 10 degrees sounds like about the limit of its ability to capture.
Yes, and that is how my system is installed. The problem is that it can't do anything over about half standard rate even in heading mode.
I'm not sure, probably so, but mine isn't an STEC-30 any more. The vertical part of the 30 was removed and replaced with the System 60 PSS, which was designed to allow GS capture and tracking. So it's more like an STEC-20 plus PSS (in fact, I believe that's exactly what it is).
Yes, that is what the manual says (90% for piston aircraft, 75% for turbo-prop). And I did ask my avionics guy about that before I moved out of MI. He said that he has been through this several times with STEC and that the maximum turn rate for each make and model is determined by factory settings that can't be adjusted, or something along those lines. Basically he said it would be a waste of his time and my money to try to get more performance out of it.
No, it is not recent. It's been that way for all the decades I've had a CFI-IA rating.
That's correct, and it would be considered such. But even if it won't do the whole approach hands-off, you can still use it to control the plane during the approach.
You are not wrong. You'd have to use the autopilot to control roll why hand-controlling pitch.
