XR Flight Operations Manual Version 3.0
Copyright 2006-2018 Douglas Beachy. All Rights Reserved.
45
addition, some pilots like to use ATTITUDE HOLD during SCRAM ascent to hold a
given pitch and bank.
The autopilot constantly neutralizes yaw while it is engaged; however, you may
“nudge” the ship’s yaw using
the joystick rudder or the
NUMPAD1
/
NUMPAD3
keys;
the yaw dampener will momentarily disengage whenever the pilot manually induces
yaw and automatically reengage when the pilot stops inducing yaw.
There are two different modes to hold the ship along the Y axis:
Pitch Hold
and
AOA
Hold
. In
Pitch
mode the autopilot will hold a set pitch. Conversely, in
AOA
mode the
autopilot will hold a given
Angle of Attack
. Typically you will only use
AOA
mode
when reentering in an atmosphere and use
Pitch
mode the rest of the time. You
may toggle between modes by clicking the blue block in the top-right corner of the
screen, or you may use
NUMPAD9
when the autopilot is engaged.
ATTITUDE HOLD Autopilot Engaged in Pitch Mode
NOTE: except during reentry, if you engage ATTITUDE HOLD during atmospheric
flight be sure to engage Pitch mode to hold a given pitch rather than AOA mode to
hold a given angle of attack: in atmospheric flight the ship’s angle of attack will
constantly decrease with the autopilot engaged (this is normal!), and so AOA mode
will cause the ship to constantly increase pitch trying to maintain the set angle of
attack. You should only engage AOA mode for reentry!
For ship stability reasons maximum bank and pitch are normally limited by
ATTITUDE HOLD to +/- 60 degrees or b120 and (crossing the 180-degree
boundary) -120 degrees. However, with zero bank you can hold a pitch up to +/-
87.5 degrees, and with zero pitch you can hold a bank up to +/-75 degrees or
between +105 and (crossing the 180-degree boundary) -105 degrees.
Note: to
prevent the pilot from accidentally flipping the ship over during reentry you must
temporarily disengage A
ttitude Hold before you can jump the bank setting from +/-
60 to +/-120 degrees and vice-versa.
The
Zero Pitch, Zero Bank,
and
Zero Both
buttons will reset pitch, bank, and
both
axes
to zero, respectively. [Note that if the ship is currently banked at more than +/-
90 degrees
Zero Bank
will level the ship at 180 degrees (“upside down”)
.] In
addition,
Zero Pitch
will read
Zero AOA
if AOA mode is engaged.
The
Sync
button will automatically update the bank and pitch/AOA target values to
the ship's current values; i.e., it will “sync” the autopilot settings to the ship’
s
