Fearless Tower
Touchdown! Greaser!
On the last few flights I have experienced an odd problem when first powering on the autopilot after startup. I have power switches for electric trim and a power switch for the autopilot. After startup, I will turn on the electric trim and then the autopilot master. What is strange is that when I turn on the A/P power switch, the A/P automatically engages (HDG and ATT modes). The on/off push button on the autopilot control panel does not disengage it and the yoke disconnect button does not turn it off either. The only way to disconnect it is to turn off the Autopilot power switch. Funny thing is that once you have done that once, you can turn the autopilot power back on and everything works just fine (on/off panel and yoke disconnect). And the A/P works just fine in the air.
But the next flight, I have to go through the above process all over again.
Has anyone else experienced this issue? Any idea why it is doing that? The only thing we have done before this appeared is to upgrade the Garmin 430 to WAAS, but I am not sure how that would affect the A/P.
But the next flight, I have to go through the above process all over again.
Has anyone else experienced this issue? Any idea why it is doing that? The only thing we have done before this appeared is to upgrade the Garmin 430 to WAAS, but I am not sure how that would affect the A/P.