UH-60 Black Hawk Autopilot

  • Hello there,

    currently I'm studying the AP in the UH-60. Most things I could understand

    but some questions remain and I wanted to ask for your help:

    1. What exactly is the CPLD button used for?

    2. Where in the cockpit is the button, which corresponds with the shortcut to toggle the AP on or off?

    3. How (or under which conditions) can I engage the DECL mode?

    4. Does the AP feature the pitch-mode "HVR D" and if so, how could this be engaged at the end of an ILS APP?

    Greetings!

    Edited 3 times, last by Mr_Smith (January 13, 2023 at 9:02 PM).

  • The couple button is basically the autopilot master. It couples the flight director to the flight controls.

    If you assign the autopilot master then it will work similar to the master in airplanes. It activates heading hold and altitude hold or vs hold and for deactivation it reverts to attitude hold.

    DECL mode requires IAS mode engaged and LOC and GS either armed or engaged. It activates at some altitude to decelerate to 70kt before reaching 300ft above the ground.

    Hover deceleration mode engages when you are in HVR POS mode and you accelerate to above 2 kt, e.g. by deflecting the cyclic. Then HVR DCL mode reduces speed to near zero followed by HVR POS engagement when velocity is below 2kt again at the new position. You can also engage hover in HVR VEL mode and then use pitch and roll trim inputs to decrease the reference speeds to zero.

    In the real helicopter you can also push in the pitch and roll trim hat switch to engage HVR DCL mode but that is not yet implemented.

  • Hi Jan,

    thank you for your precise answers, which have clarified all my questions and even more:

    Now I also seem to understand, how to decelerate during active pitch-mode HVR VEL...

    I'm impressed and I feel like IPACS has done a very solid and detailed implementation of the UH's AP.

  • Hi Jan,

    thank you for your precise answers, which have clarified all my questions and even more:

    Now I also seem to understand, how to decelerate during active pitch-mode HVR VEL...

    I'm impressed and I feel like IPACS has done a very solid and detailed implementation of the UH's AP.

    To decelerate you can either overpower the autopilot with manual inputs or you can use elevator and aileron trim commands as described above.

    If you haven't seen the UH-60 tutorial on our webpage, here is the link: https://www.aerofly.com/tutorials/uh-6…-cold-and-dark/

  • Dear Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    I'm playing around with the AP of the UH-60 again and ask myself two things:

    1. If you capture a selected altitude using ALTP, should not the ALT button illuminate?


    2. The PFD always shows both FD bars
    even when the AP is neither controlling pitch nor roll axis. Is this correct?
    If it was for logic alone, it would make sense to me that the pitch FD bar only appears,
    if the AP controls pitch - for example when IAS is engaged - and the roll FD only when
    the AP controls the roll axis - for example when HDG is engaged.
    In the following pic the AP controls the altitude only via collective,
    yet both FD bars are shown.

    Maybe you could give me another good advise ;)

    • Official Post

    Thanks. At the moment the ALT button should illuminate after the altitude is captured (deviation less than 50ft). It should probably be changed to illuminate as soon as it changes from the previous mode to ALT in the mode annunciator.

    The autopilot is controlling pitch and roll if there is no mode selected, that's why the FD bars are still visible even if the active mode is not visible. If you have any real world photos or videos where we can see that the FD bars disappear when no mode is selected then I can easily change this behavior.