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Lessons Learned / IFR X-C RV-9A

Ed_Wischmeyer

Well Known Member
Learned a few things on a very recent trip from Savannah, GA to SE Michigan and back.

When I flew with my friend in Michigan yesterday, I became aware of how sloppy my flying has become. Several reasons: one is that I used to be really, really good hand flying under the hood, and my recollections far surpass present reality. Second, the planes I've flown, RV and others, have had good handling characteristics, lots of power, and most of them have had high drag when you wanted it. I've gotten out of the habit of flying nice traffic patterns because I've had airplanes that didn't require it. Bad form.

I've also been working on a procedure for engaging the autopilot right after takeoff and integrating it into everything else that needs to be done. So the procedure is: set everything up on the flight director, take off, retract flaps at 80 knots, pitch to 7 degrees, autopilot on, and then fuel pump off. Don't engage airspeed hold right over the runway because the autopilot may dive to get speed.

This procedure worked great twice yesterday, but didn't work on the third takeoff -- the autopilot wouldn't engage! Fortunately, fiddling with the autopilot disconnect button and the TOGA button got the autopilot happy again. I wonder how well I would have handled things on the first takeoff, racing to get out ahead of the thunderstorms (ten minutes after I took off, it poured), if the autopilot had decided not to cooperate...

So what are my new year's (it's gotta be new year's somewhere) resolutions?
* Fly precise traffic patterns and get really good at them again. No more screwing around with the pattern just because I can get away with it;
* Do an autopilot takeoff (almost) every time for practice and so that it becomes routine;
* Hand fly the -9A a lot more. Get really good and really precise at it;
* Always put the checklist down in the same place in the cockpit. Twice on this trip I hid it from myself;
* I know all the frequencies at my home airport so I never write them down. Not writing them down is a bad habit for when I go to an unfamiliar airport, like this afternoon, so start writing down frequencies and such.
* Develop and maintain really good habit patterns. When I was a newbie, good habits made flying easier. Now that aging is a fact of life, good habit patterns will help reduce mistakes and blunders;

I?m aware of the maxim that there?s always something more to learn, but sometimes I?m displeased with how much is left, or how much needs to be refreshed.
 
Got to ask, why work on doing an autopilot take off? Feels like so much can go wrong as opposed to hand flying to say 2,000' AGL or more when using a non-redundant AP. I get the program the heck out of it, just in case.

Not judging, just curious. Most of my 25 years of flying has been in non A/P aircraft so a bit of a noob here.
 
Although I'd occasionally flown planes with autopilots before, the RV-9A is the first plane I've flown that has an all singing, all dancing fly the flight plan, altitude preselect autopilot. Takeoff and initial climb being high workload, why not use all the tools at hand? That's my "thinking." But, of course, the pilot needs to be able to step in at any time to handle any failure -- like the autopilot -- and that's the challenging part.

Not a definitive answer, but the best I've got.
 
My rule is not to engage the autopilot until I'm at least 400 AGL above the departure end of the runway which is the minimum altitude before you should make any turns while maintaining a minimum climb gradient of 200ft/NM until the minimum IFR altitude is reached.
 
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Autopilot use

To add: Practice and more practice is the only way to get or stay sharp. Any time you turn a autopilot on or off it may do something you don’t expect so be prepared and a little altitude might be a good thing. 1 example- on a night IFR departure at 1000’ I had a trim runaway triggered by autopilot engagement. For a reason manufacturers sometimes specify minimum altitudes for autopilot use. Be careful out there.

Don Broussard
RV9 Rebuild in Progress
57 Pacer
 
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I'm a firm believer in the autopilot myself and use it A LOT - but never below 1000 AGL. There is just too much going on to trust the autopilot to do its thing without error. I'll take off, turn out of the pattern while climbing through 500, establish on course and then wake up "George".
 
Thanks for sharing these pearls of wisdom, Ed. It does us good to go into the confessional once in awhile. Now you've given me something to think about re my own precision in flying...
 
A friend who flies Gulfstreams says that their book specifies turning on the autopilot no lower than 200 feet on takeoff. And of course, you don't just turn on the autopilot, hope for the best and ignore the flight instruments. I always look to make sure that it's doing what I think I told it to. Caught a lot of errors that way...

Great comments from lotsa folks here, thanks!
 
I don't have autopilot on my -9A and it was great on my trip from California to Osh last year. Once it's trimmed out, it takes minimal corrections to maintain altitude, or at least +/- 50 ft of where you want to be. It keeps me engaged in flying the plane, and encourages scanning the instruments.
 
I'm a big fan of using VS on initial autopilot engagement. It is easy to roll it down as your approaching your first assigned altitude, or you can just roll in a value that will give you your desired deck angle after ATC gives you your first climb and you have your engine power set for climb.


Great advice on checking everything before and during engagement. We all know that altitude and Nav deviation errors are the FAA's 2 biggest corrections.
 
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I'm a big fan of using VS on initial autopilot engagement. It is easy to roll it down as your approaching your first assigned altitude, or you can just roll in a value that will give you your desired deck angle after ATC gives you your first climb and you have your engine power set for climb.


Great advice on checking everything before and during engagement. We all know that altitude and Nav deviation errors are the FAA's 2 biggest corrections.

I would prefer to use IAS for climbs and VS for descents, unfortunately my autopilot only does VS. The reason is for safety -- by using IAS I lesson the chance of the autopilot flying me into a stall trying to maintain a high VS.
 
I would prefer to use IAS for climbs and VS for descents, unfortunately my autopilot only does VS. The reason is for safety -- by using IAS I lesson the chance of the autopilot flying me into a stall trying to maintain a high VS.

Very interesting idea! My Trutrak VGSV AP has a user programmable minimum speed (Don't most?) Maybe I should bump it up from 90 to 120 so that cooling in the climb is not compromised and I can set climb rate at something high like 1000 fpm - it will reach that down low and then transition from climb rate to being IAS limited at a few thousand feet altitude - I like this idea!
 
Very interesting idea! My Trutrak VGSV AP has a user programmable minimum speed (Don't most?) Maybe I should bump it up from 90 to 120 so that cooling in the climb is not compromised and I can set climb rate at something high like 1000 fpm - it will reach that down low and then transition from climb rate to being IAS limited at a few thousand feet altitude - I like this idea!

Actually mine does too -- I forgot all about that feature. Thanks for reminding me! I'd still like to be able to climb by setting an IAS, but it's at least not a safety issue I was thinking it was. The autopilot I got my IR on didn't have that safety feature so I defaulted to my learning primacy forgetting a fundamental feature of my system.
 
Very interesting idea! My Trutrak VGSV AP has a user programmable minimum speed (Don't most?) Maybe I should bump it up from 90 to 120 so that cooling in the climb is not compromised and I can set climb rate at something high like 1000 fpm - it will reach that down low and then transition from climb rate to being IAS limited at a few thousand feet altitude - I like this idea!

If you set the minimum speed at 120 I think that will apply to descents, too. You?ll be unable to shoot an approach below 120 knots.
 
I'm a big fan of using VS on initial autopilot engagement.

Same here. Default AP engagement is VS at 500fpm. But, I transition (one simple button push on Dynon AP panel) to IAS for the climb to altitude. Aircraft is accelerating at a 500fpm climb (aren't RVs great) and I usually select IAS when at 120kts for the climb which works out perfectly when climbing to around 12K. I get to 120kts quickly but always above 1000 AGL.
 
Same here. Default AP engagement is VS at 500fpm. But, I transition (one simple button push on Dynon AP panel) to IAS for the climb to altitude. Aircraft is accelerating at a 500fpm climb (aren't RVs great) and I usually select IAS when at 120kts for the climb which works out perfectly when climbing to around 12K. I get to 120kts quickly but always above 1000 AGL.

Must be nice living in the flatlands. Here at LVK 500 ft/min and 120 knots will put you into the side of a hill on the standard IDP.
 
IFR in my RV-9A

I have developed a habit of turning the autopilot on after takeoff using the CWS button, after pitching over to a more visibility- and cooling-friendly speed than Vy. The Garmin then turns on and starts off by matching the current roll and pitch of the aircraft. That has turned out to be a surprisingly handy way to do things. It minimizes the chance for surprises from having dialed in the wrong heading, not set up the correct nav source, etc.

I otherwise use VS to govern climbs and descents.

I'm a big fan of using VS on initial autopilot engagement. It is easy to roll it down as your approaching your first assigned altitude, or you can just roll in a value that will give you your desired deck angle after ATC gives you your first climb and you have your engine power set for climb.


Great advice on checking everything before and during engagement. We all know that altitude and Nav deviation errors are the FAA's 2 biggest corrections.
 
All good stuff. Mission and equipment dependent especially.

Min airspeed is a great saftey feature, but may lead to excessive deck angle and (for me) could be disorienting as you penitrate the first cloud layer right about the time your handed off to departure.

Pitch is nice for pax comfort.

VS is nice for controllability and rolling down a nice climb / cylinder temp management especially with in 1,000 feet of your assigned altitude.

My answer for how I fly is to use ALL of them depending on the circumstance (ie departure climb, pax comfort, cylinder temp, initail altitude assignment etc)
 
To add: Practice and more practice is the only way to get or stay sharp. Any time you turn a autopilot on or off it may do something you don?t expect so be prepared and a little altitude might be a good thing. 1 example- on a night IFR departure at 1000? I had a trim runaway triggered by autopilot engagement. For a reason manufacturers sometimes specify minimum altitudes for autopilot use. Be careful out there.

Don Broussard
RV9 Rebuild in Progress
57 Pacer

+1

I have had a few unexpected things happen when turning on the autopilot. I could not imagine turning it on at 50' AGL. The risk reward equation seems negative to me. What happens if you accidentally set the altitude bug to a lower altitude?

Larry
 
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