Tom Martin
Well Known Member
Yesterday I got both new servos mounted and went through the ground tests.
Christer, at Stein air, tried to talk me through the trim set up but as usual I got lost at step two! Anyways.. A Cirrus owner friend of mine went for a ride with me this morning. The autopilot interface is identical to the Cirrus and he was able to run through the various scenarios. First off I had the automatic trim disabled. Everything worked well except the manual pitch trim action of the 14 is very sensitive above 150 knots and this was causing some issues in climbs and descents with the autopilot. I enabled the auto trim feature and it solved the pitch issues beautifully but in turns things when bad pretty quickly. One thing I retained from my discussion with Christer yesterday was that sometime the auto trim might be backwards even though the manual trim worked correctly. Another adjustment to reverse the auto trim setting and voila! everything works perfectly.
The HDG and NAV features work independently or together if required. The VNAV also works if you set it up a ways out from your destination. For example, if you want to descend to circuit height 3nm out of your destination you simple set your rate of descent, circuit height, rate of descent and away and at a computer derived distance from the airport a descent will automatically start and place you where you want to be. Awesome. Forgive me if I have used some incorrect terms.
Tomorrow my wife and I are heading out on a cross country flight into the US south west and I am very much looking forward to exploring the country in this awesome new aircraft.
I took the following picture this morning over my local airport, CYQS. You can see the reflection of the garmin screen in the windscreen.
Christer, at Stein air, tried to talk me through the trim set up but as usual I got lost at step two! Anyways.. A Cirrus owner friend of mine went for a ride with me this morning. The autopilot interface is identical to the Cirrus and he was able to run through the various scenarios. First off I had the automatic trim disabled. Everything worked well except the manual pitch trim action of the 14 is very sensitive above 150 knots and this was causing some issues in climbs and descents with the autopilot. I enabled the auto trim feature and it solved the pitch issues beautifully but in turns things when bad pretty quickly. One thing I retained from my discussion with Christer yesterday was that sometime the auto trim might be backwards even though the manual trim worked correctly. Another adjustment to reverse the auto trim setting and voila! everything works perfectly.
The HDG and NAV features work independently or together if required. The VNAV also works if you set it up a ways out from your destination. For example, if you want to descend to circuit height 3nm out of your destination you simple set your rate of descent, circuit height, rate of descent and away and at a computer derived distance from the airport a descent will automatically start and place you where you want to be. Awesome. Forgive me if I have used some incorrect terms.
Tomorrow my wife and I are heading out on a cross country flight into the US south west and I am very much looking forward to exploring the country in this awesome new aircraft.
I took the following picture this morning over my local airport, CYQS. You can see the reflection of the garmin screen in the windscreen.