[Veetail88]

I only have a GPS puck wired into my EFIS. The same GPS source is wired into my Tru Track autopilot as well.

If I understand the manual correctly, I can run the EFIS in flight director mode and configure it to provide vertical guidance with the altitude bug and horizontal guidance from the GPS source. The simple GPS puck doesn't give any direction commands to the autopilot.

I've been using the EFIS in flight plan mode but would like to be able to drive the vertical with the altitude bug.

Any way to do this? I've been looking over the manual and it doesn't seem so, unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

It's nice to be able to call up a waypoint and hit the direct to button and have it follow the line, but changing altitude while in that mode doesn't seem easy.

 

[rleffler]

I only have a GPS puck wired into my EFIS. The same GPS source is wired into my Tru Track autopilot as well.

If I understand the manual correctly, I can run the EFIS in flight director mode and configure it to provide vertical guidance with the altitude bug and horizontal guidance from the GPS source. The simple GPS puck doesn't give any direction commands to the autopilot.

I've been using the EFIS in flight plan mode but would like to be able to drive the vertical with the altitude bug.

Any way to do this? I've been looking over the manual and it doesn't seem so, unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible.

It's nice to be able to call up a waypoint and hit the direct to button and have it follow the line, but changing altitude while in that mode doesn't seem easy.

I do it all the time.

Do you have a Garmin 18 or the original AFS GPS? I'm assuming it's wired to a serial port on the 4500. You didn't mention if you had ARINC installed.

Do you have VER ALT or VER ARM mode set on the EFIS? These enable vertical bug tracking.

 

[Veetail88]

I have the Garmin 18. Same thing though, and it only provides position data to the AP. I'm assuming that when the EFIS is set to flight director mode with vertical on the bug, the AP will fly a heading based on GPS info, and not track to a point as when the EFIS is directing horizontal on a flight plan (or just using the direct to button from the map page.

Maybe I've got it wrong though.

 

[penguin]

You will have to provide the autopilot with 'GPS' data coming out of the EFIS. The EFIS will include the waypoint data in the GPS datastream - the autopilot can then track that data.

Instead of feeding the GPS direct to the AP from the Garmin 18 take it from any one of the AF4500 serial ports. Configure the port to provide NMEA or AVTN out at the baud rate the AP is expecting. Otherwise the AP won't know what the EFIS is thinking.

Pete

 

[Veetail88]

I "think" I've found my answer.

So, if I understand correctly, if I've selected a "direct to" destination from the map page on the EFIS, and I set the flight director to "Lat Nav" and "Vert Alt" then the EFIS will fly to the selected destination and altitude will be controlled by the bug, yes?

 

[Jesse]

The ARINC module is the key, and what model of auto pilot you have. If you have the AFS ARINC module, then the AFS will output lateral and vertical GPS Steering commands to the auto pilot. The Auto Pilot would have to be the Digiflight II VSGV, the Vizion, the RV-10 AP or the Sorcerer to handle the ARINC. If yours has the capability of Bertical GPSS, then it will follow vertical commands from the AFS with the ARINC module.

If you dot have ARINC, then you are just outputting NMEA data via RS232, which just gives GPS Nav (not steering), and no vertical commands.

If your auto pilot can handle ARINC and you don't have the module, it would be well worth the $ to add the module. Also, if you have a NAV radio with serial output to the AFS, then your AP will be able to couple the glideslope.

 

[N402RH]

If you put the EFIS AP modes in LAT:HDG VER:ALT it should follow both the heading bug and altitude bug. If you put it in LAT:NAV VER:ALT it will follow the current EFIS CDI Nav Source and the Altitude bug.

Rob Hickman
Advanced Flight Systems Inc.

 

[Veetail88]

Thanks folks. That's what I thought. Couldn't figure it out while I was in the air yesterday, too much else to pay attention to. Now I "have" to go fly tomorrow to try it out.