Bob Denny Posted May 30, 2017 Report Posted May 30, 2017 As I understand it, the compass selector on the autopilot is supposed to provide a heading hold function. In other words, it is supposed to function like the heading bug on a modern autopilot, with heading hold being the only function the old autopilot provides. On my DC-3 v1.4 the compass selector turns the card but it seems to do nothing as far as holding the selected heading. Also, the artificial horizon on the autopilot doesn't follow the other ones.
Bob Denny Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 Of course. The pitch, roll, and even yaw are working
Goran_M Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 I'll take a look at it and get back to you. It should be working, though. But I'll double check.
Bob Denny Posted June 2, 2017 Author Report Posted June 2, 2017 The "some issues" thread reports this as well. I hope for the autopilot heading hold to be implemented. The AP's artificial horizon isn't so important at least to me.
Bob Denny Posted June 10, 2017 Author Report Posted June 10, 2017 Playing with design tools (I am a newcomer to this), I can see that the autopilot's heading selector is already hooked up to the relevant /autopilot/... DataRefs. So it is already capable of telling the AP the desired heading. I played with DataRef Editor to try to force the autopilot into heading hold mode, but some DataRefs that have attractive names for this seem to be read-only. I'd be pleased to find DataRefs that will turn on heading hold... I would hook it up via LUA and FlyWithLUA.
Bob Denny Posted June 14, 2017 Author Report Posted June 14, 2017 Learning more... enabling heading hold is a command not a dataref. Since you already have the heading wheel in the Sperry wired to the autopilot heading selector (nice work!) all I had to do is hook up a joystick button (or a key in the Keys tab!!) like this, and now the DC-3 has heading selector that works as the real Sperry did. If you wire another key or button to sim/autopilot/heading_hold (Autopilot altitude select or hold) it will toggle altitude hold (current altitude) on the Sperry (but that's definitely not realistic :-)). Since this is not a mod using Plane-Maker, but just a button or key assignment, I hope this is OK to post. Note that if you have turbulence, this autopilot hunts like the real one. When the turbulence got moderate in the DC-3, the real guys shut off the autopilot and flew by hand, including using their feet to keep people in the back from getting sick. I was beaten as a child for not using my feet :-) :-)
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