F-15 Autopilot

OK, thanks to you requiring a track file, after some time fiddling, I saw the switch move and it held altitude perfectly. I hadn't realized how narrow the operating envelope was. So in conclusion, fly straight and level first, turn on attitude, turn on Altitude and it will hold. Your autopilot works as intended. Just put it down to operator error. :thumbup:

Correction: yes the ALT switch does indeed move.

You can roll and pitch to turn on ATT but look for 3 degrees +or- level flight with or without pitch before turning on ALT.

Correction: yes the ALT switch does indeed move.

You can roll and pitch to turn on ATT but look for 3 degrees +or- level flight with or without pitch before turning on ALT.

 

OK, I get that, but one more thing I need to know so that I can sleep tonight.

When you are outside the altitude keeping envelope I would have thought the switch should still be able to be moved by the pilot even though it doesn't activate the altitude hold, but it doesn't move.

You can move it to ON, but it then turns OFF, by Autopilot itself, if conditions are not met

 

 

May I assume then that the described switch action is not modeled in game, as my switch doesn't do that.

The AP works well, I have no problems with it.

The only part that doesn't work is the alt. switch, which should flick off when used outside the envelope, although it did work once during this track. :joystick:

Well, I watched Holbeach's track just a minute ago, along with playing last night talking on ts someone mentioned lights on the warning panel.. At any rate I watched Holbeach's track and saw those lights. So I took control and imediatly the lights went out.. I was like WTF. At any rate, The plane started to nose up and instincivly I countered the pitch and for a fraction of a second I saw the lights turn on.. an AHHH Ha moment.. So brought the plane and trimmed it out for as straight and level as I could get it with trim and let go of stick still no lights.. Pushed stick slightly forward bam lights came on.. Let stick center off again.. Went in and added 5points of deadzone and the sucker works now... What irritates me is when this thread first was posted I had experimented beforehand with deadzones and had upwards of 16points and the AP did not work along with trim being way to choppy I needed to constantly apply corrections so back to 0 deadzone so I could make finite changes with out needing to move the stick absurdly.

 

 

So, now that AP works for me, I still have the issue of trim being stupid but I guess that is another story..

I have never used the trim function, in fact I don't even have it mapped as the F-15 has an automatic trim system. Maybe you could try it without.

well im the same cant get the auto pilot to follow way points.

just gave up on it .the same with ils lines in the hud cant get them.

when do you think the f15 will be out of beta

well im the same cant get the auto pilot to follow way points.

just gave up on it .the same with ils lines in the hud cant get them.

when do you think the f15 will be out of beta

The AP doesn't have a WP follow function like in FC2, but the course line is in the HUD and the ILS will show on the final leg to the chosen Airfield.

Thanks for the hints, helped me a bit (didn't know that alt hold needs att hold for instance and it's limited to 2000fpm) - but this still does not work in my case.

 

See my attachment - both AP channels and all 3 CAS channels on, bank maybe 10-15° left, pitch not even 5° up, climbing like 1600fpm. No stick force applied at all. Neither does this make my F-15C hold it's altitude nor does this change anything in my FFB to make it hold the altitude while I'm holding the stick loose without applying pressure in any direction. I don't even notice any kind of difference activating the AP channels without looking down to see the only difference it makes: Switches flip forward.

 

But after trying around a bit, surprise, as soon as I deactivate FFB in the options completely, it works... bug found, I'd say.

 

My FFB device is a FFB2 counted as device #1 (second in list).

 

Edit: Forgot to mention that FFB works fine apart from that. But I didn't take a ride in the real DCS modules except P-51D yet where some problems have been reported for 1.2.8.

 

Regardless - the F-15 keeps its attitude so well with almost zero trim, it's not really essential to have the APs working.

I have the same problem, well, the same feature.

Also I have a FFB2, and I think that the "problem" is that the autopilot and trim are "linked" to the FFB, so instead of move the control surfaces, DCS moves the FFB's neutral position. In my opinion, the final result isn't good. I would like disable the FFB for the autopilots and trims, but I don't know how. :(:(

PS: Same to the other airplanes, Su-27, Su-25T, etc.

PS2: Sorry for my bad english.

I have tried repeatedly to engage "H" with the F15...which is clearly labeled in the commands list (like other aircraft) to HOLD Altitude... I have engaged this many times even let the aircraft fly for several minutes until it crashed into the sea ... what is happening ?

Attitude hold must be engaged in order to engage altitude hold.

Attitude hold must be engaged in order to engage altitude hold.

I don't think the altitude hold is reliable as it sometimes lets the plane slowly lose altitude while supposed to be flying straight and level.

I agree.

Any having issues were the autopilot is constantly climbing slightly?

Autopilot in Su27 is way more user friendly than the one in F15. In Su27 you just engage it and it will do what you want. Not so in F15. Autopilot has very low authority over controls. You need first trim the airplane to be +/- as intended and then engage autopilot. That beeing said, autopilot can deviate from intentioned position as your flight characteristics change (altitude and mainly speed) so you need to keep autopilot in touch by small trim corrections all the time. When you get it in your hands you can easily circle around AO for ages and watch movie on second monitor meanwhile. Still, I personaly like Su27s autopilot way more. In fact, I like almost everything on Su27 more (low speed behaviour, undercariage, instruments, helment mounted targeting, you name it). Except... radar and armament. Sadly those are quite important things for air-to-air combat. When R27s pisses me off, then I go fly F15 for a while to curse about something else. Like that stupid autopilot incompetence.

Has the Alt Hold while banking been fixed yet? It was broken since basically 1.5 came out...

Worked for me yesterday.

...with a symmectric loadout.

I need to trim at 30k feet where I usually patrol with some bank angle. Otherwise aircraft is not capable to keep leveled flight and nose is constantly droping until altitude hold autopilot turn itself off and aicraft start fall like rock when no input from controls.

Depends on the bank angle. Alt hold works only if the bank angle is very shallow. e.g. around 10-15deg.

 

@SeaFox Alt hold works perfectly on my install. Definitely no trimming required. Btw, due to the F-15 flight control system you normally don't need to trim at all when flying manually either.

ALT Hold still wasn’t working correctly for me above 30kft supersonic as of two weeks ago. Wind seems to make it worse.

Talking only about pitch trim (alt hold)

Gotcha

I had some minor issues with autopilot as well but I think it was due to my joystick being too sensitive. Having no deadzone at all and overall being too sensitive in the middle position. Once I created a very slight deadzone and adjusted my curve a little autopilot would not drop out nearly as much and I can rely on it a lot more. Not to mention flying in general is a lot better.