King Air C90 GTx autopilot tutorial

  • I decided to give another small plane a try and liked the looks of the King Air. However, apart from HDG mode I can't seem to get the AP to work. Sometimes the AP switches to FD by itself too. So I looked at the wiki but there is nothing helpful over there. Is it correct there is no tutorial yet for this plane? If not, did anyone figure how to use the AP? Can you actually use ALT somehow? Or VNAV? Can this plane follow the GPS (flightplan) in any way? Most of the buttons in the cockpit seem to do nothing also.

    In short: how do you fly this plane?

    EDIT

    See the two posts below for the quick tutorial! ;)

    Edited once, last by J van E (September 1, 2018 at 5:10 PM).

  • We don't have a good documentation of the real world C90GTx to work from yet but I've found some videos of other aircraft with the same instrumentation I plan to overhaul the entire PFD and MFD eventually.

    The real world aircraft has little sub menus that can be opened, then you need to use the knobs to advance the cursor and then use other knobs to select a different menu item or increase or decrease values. Its very complex and once we are at that stage I'll write the full flight tutorial for this aircraft. Right now it is not worth it, as I would need to write the tutorial twice, the first version would be unrealistic or inaccurate.

    Here is the quick version of how to use the King Air autopilot

    Press the FD button to show the flight director(s)

    Press the button for the heading, it should activate the HDG mode, push it a second time and it goes back to ROLL. Push the heading knob in to set the heading to the heading of the aircraft (SYNC)

    Push the altitude button and it should select altitude hold, push it again to go back to pitch hold.

    Push the vertical speed button, it goes to VS, push again goes back to pitch...

    FLC for a speed hold (ias climb or descent), use speed knob to select the speed you want... push FLC again, goes back to pitch hold

    When in VS or PITCH you can use the vertical wheel to pitch the nose up/down...

    To change the navigation source to follow the FMS flight plan you currently have to press the NAV/BRG button

    After selecting the right source on your side make sure the white arrow is pointing to your side (can be changed with the CPL button).

    Then push NAV to arm the capture. When you are close to the route it will engage FMS lateral steering and follow the route.

    There is no VNAV climb installed in our King air, so climb with PITCH, VS or FLC.

    Descent with VS, FLC or VNAV...

    Then change source to NAV1 or 2 (depending on where you entered the ILS frequency) and then push APPR to fly the approach.

    You can also leave it in FMS source and push approach but that will give you an non precision approach.

    Little bug I just found: VNAV should arm when you press it... Currently it only seems to allow that once you are behind the top of descent, which is still not indicated on the map... but if you keep pushing VNAV it eventually does it, LOL...

  • Spend some time figuring out how to get VNAV working with certainty instead of just pressing some buttons hoping it will work. ;) Problem here there is no indication of the TOD (so you don't really know where the vertical navigation path is) and also no indication of VNAV being armed. Since VNAV only works if you intercept the invisible vertical navigation path from below you have to make sure not to fly too high before enabling VNAV (because then it simply won't intercept it and work!).

    Here's how I do it (for flying the entire vertical navigation path on AP down to the runway, so without ILS):

    1. Fly with the AP in FMS mode and using NAV.

    2. During cruise set the altitude to something like 1000 ft above the landing altitude: the PFD will show FMS AP ALTS in green at the top.

    3. Press VNAV once: the PFD will still show FMS AP ALTS in green at the top: there is no indication of VNAV being armed. Do not press any of the other alt related buttons!

    4. Whenever the plane 'hits' the invisible vertical navigation path it will switch to VNAV: the PFD will now show FMS AP VNAV in green at the top and ALTS in white below VNAV. Take care of your speed!

    5. Just before the FAF press APPR: this will remove the white ALTS below the green VNAV: if you don't do this the plane will level off at the set altitude.

    That's it! Now you will fly all the way down to the runway on (L)NAV and VNAV (without the need for an ILS).

    Take note that the AP will automatically turn off at around 300 ft AGL.

    Since there is no visible TOD you have to make sure to do step 2 and 3 in time, so before you hit the invisible vertical navigation path! As I said, you can only intercept the vertical path from below (just like with an ILS) so if you forget these steps and are flying at 5000 ft AGL while being at the FAF already, you will never get VNAV working. ;) Tip: do step 2 and 3 as soon as you are at cruising altitude.

    EDIT
    I heavily and totally edited the post to make things more clear and simple. ;)

    Edited 7 times, last by J van E (September 1, 2018 at 5:05 PM).

  • J van E September 1, 2018 at 5:09 PM

    Changed the title of the thread from “No King Air wiki tutorial?” to “King Air C90 GTx autopilot tutorial”.
  • Just had a look at a real world picture of the C90 GTx cockpit and wow, the cockpit in AFS2 is spot on! Up to every detail! Nice!

  • +1

    Yes the cockpits in Aerofly are amazing, Real Payware look! Hopefully we can soon start up/shut down the Learjet-45 from cold and dark, I really miss "that" part..

    Will there be a basic Universal-UNS-1 fmc avaliable in the near future ?

    Jet-Pack did you make these cockpits or systems? IF so? they look freakin AMAZING! ^^

    CPU: Intel i7-975 Extreme Edition @3.33Ghz (unclocked) | RAM: 14GB DDR3 | MAINBOARD: Ausus P6T Deluxe V2 | GRAPHICS CARD: Nvida Titan GTX 6GB

    OS: Windows 7 Pro 64 bit OEM, Servicepack-1 |  STORAGE: WD Black 750 GB 7200rpm HDD, V-Raptor 300 GB 10.000rpm HDD

    USB HID-DEVICES: CH Yoke, CH pedals, Saitek radio-panel, Saitek Switch panel | MONITOR LCD: 32" inch Philips 2560x1440p

    SOFTWARE: Aerofly FS2: Florida DLC, New York DLC, ORBX DLC | FSX-Accecelration | LM Prepar3D V2 & V3

  • Could really do with an idiot guide on Video for all these aircraft. I'm sure it would be well appreciated.

    Have a look in our official WIKI under 'Aircraft basic Information' you will find a lot of easy to follow tutorials and instructions for many of the aircraft, with more to come.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Yes the cockpits in Aerofly are amazing, Real Payware look! Hopefully we can soon start up/shut down the Learjet-45 from cold and dark, I really miss "that" part..

    ...

    Jet-Pack did you make these cockpits or systems? IF so? they look freakin AMAZING! ^^

    The cockpit was designed from photos and measurements of the real world cockpit by Joachim Schweigler (Specific 3D Design), one of our talented artists. He also created the 747 and Q400 among many other aircraft in the Aerofly FS 2, FS1 and Aerofly RC series. My job is to make each switch usable, add systems like the electrics or the crew alerting system or the autopilot. But I don't make the cockpits look awesome, for that you need to thank our modelers and of course the programmers for creating a realistic looking graphics engine to show it.

    Will there be a basic Universal-UNS-1 fmc avaliable in the near future ?

    When we decide it is time to add fully functioning CDUs to interact with the flight management system with the capability to edit the flight plan or even create new flight plans then it will probably be added for all aircraft, that includes the Learjet, too, yes.