Changes to the autopilot in Flight Simulator 2002 and Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight (893685)

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The autopilot in Flight Simulator 2002 and Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight functions differently from the autopilot in earlier versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The autopilot has been modeled to function more realistically as a dual-axis autopilot. The following are some things to consider regarding the way that the new autopilot in Flight Simulator works.

The master switch

Turning on the autopilot will now hold the current pitch altitude of the aircraft and the wing level. You can turn on the autopilot by using the following controls:

• The AP button
• The AP annunciator
• The Z key on the keyboard

While the autopilot is turned on, you cannot manually control the aircraft by using the joystick or the keyboard. This behavior is consistent with the functionality of many real-world autopilots that are designed in this manner for safety.

For example, if a pilot makes control inputs while the autopilot is turned on, the autopilot may run the trim toward nose-down or nose-up, leading to a potentially dangerous out-of-trim condition if the autopilot disengages or is turned off.

If any one of the autopilot mode buttons is in the "on" position when the autopilot master switch is turned on, the autopilot immediately maneuvers the aircraft to turn to preset heading, climb or descend to preset altitude, or intercept the preset course. The following are the master switches:

• Heading mode
• Altitude mode
• Navigation mode

New rules to remember

The following are the two most important rules to remember when you use a two-axis autopilot or a three-axis autopilot like the ones that are modeled in Flight Simulator 2002 and in Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight aircraft models:

• When the autopilot is turned off, you control the airplane.
• When the autopilot is turned on, the autopilot controls the airplane and you monitor and control the autopilot.

When the autopilot is engaged, the autopilot controls both pitch and roll, and an associated flight director displays both pitch and roll commands. The flight director is not available on all airplanes. The autopilot cannot control only pitch or roll, nor can the flight director display only pitch or roll commands.
For additional information about how change the functionality of the autopilot feature in Flight Simulator 2002 and in Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight to emulate the autopilot feature in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Intercepting a glide slope

Although some real-world autopilots can capture a glide slope from above, for safety reasons standard operating procedure is to intercept and to capture a glide slope from underneath. Therefore, many real-world autopilots can only capture a glide slope from underneath. Because of this, the autopilot system that is modeled in Flight Simulator 2002 can only capture a glide slope from underneath.

If you want to intercept a glide slope from above, descend through the glide slope, level off, and then push the APR button two times to disengage and reset approach mode. Then, intercept and capture the glide slope from underneath. You may also want to make sure that the GPS/NAV switch is set to the NAV position.