Thought I would share a recent experience with the G3X in the interest of safety. Last Saturday, I got distracted during the preflight and forgot to remove the pitot cover. Realized my error on the takeoff roll but decided to continue the takeoff and return to the airport. I know the sound and feel of the plane well enough that flying without airspeed is not a big deal.
At 500 feet the ESP system kicked in. It seems like it saw the zero airspeed, and aggressively started to push the nose down. It automatically turns on the autopilot to do this. Best I can tell it then started to trim nose down as well when I started fighting the autopilot. Fortunately it appears you can override the G3X trimming with the trim button on the stick, so I trimmed nose up, and then pulled the trim circuit breaker.
At this point, I was on downwind and still fighting the autopilot. My first thought was to turn off the master and kill all the electronics, but then I remembered the ESP turn off switch wired on the panel. Flipped the switch and all was well from there.
So my lessons learned:
- Make sure you understand the ESP system and how it works
- Know how to turn off the system, especially if you don?t have the cockpit switch
- Know how to quickly turn off the trim motor. I have a yellow cap on my circuit breaker that allowed me to quickly pull the correct breaker
- Make sure the autopilot torque is set so you can override in flight
- Fly the plane
I consider myself lucky that I have significant hours in the RV?s and had the bandwidth to fly while dealing with the issue. It all happened very quickly and near the ground. For this to happen on a first flight that near the ground, it could have quickly become dangerous.
Aaron
At 500 feet the ESP system kicked in. It seems like it saw the zero airspeed, and aggressively started to push the nose down. It automatically turns on the autopilot to do this. Best I can tell it then started to trim nose down as well when I started fighting the autopilot. Fortunately it appears you can override the G3X trimming with the trim button on the stick, so I trimmed nose up, and then pulled the trim circuit breaker.
At this point, I was on downwind and still fighting the autopilot. My first thought was to turn off the master and kill all the electronics, but then I remembered the ESP turn off switch wired on the panel. Flipped the switch and all was well from there.
So my lessons learned:
- Make sure you understand the ESP system and how it works
- Know how to turn off the system, especially if you don?t have the cockpit switch
- Know how to quickly turn off the trim motor. I have a yellow cap on my circuit breaker that allowed me to quickly pull the correct breaker
- Make sure the autopilot torque is set so you can override in flight
- Fly the plane
I consider myself lucky that I have significant hours in the RV?s and had the bandwidth to fly while dealing with the issue. It all happened very quickly and near the ground. For this to happen on a first flight that near the ground, it could have quickly become dangerous.
Aaron