XR Flight Operations Manual Version 3.0
Copyright 2006-2018 Douglas Beachy. All Rights Reserved.
51
AIRSPEED HOLD Autopilot Engaged
You will notice there are four sets of
SET AIRSPEED
arrows labeled 25, 5, 1, and 0.1.
Clicking these will adjust your set airspeed by 25, 5, 1, and 0.1 meter(s)-per-second,
respectively. You can set any positive target velocity; however, depending on
atmospheric drag and/or gravity the engines will not necessarily be able to reach the
target airspeed. If the engines are unable to accelerate the ship any further a
warning callout will sound.
Also notice the
HOLD CURRENT
and
RESET
buttons:
HOLD CURRENT
will set the
target airspeed to your current airspeed, and RESET will reset the target airspeed to
zero (i.e., the ship will "coast"). You can also use
NUMPAD_ENTER
to automatically
engage
HOLD CURRENT
,
and NUMPAD*
to reset the target airspeed to zero.
If the target airspeed is zero and you engage the
Airspeed Hold
autopilot, the system
will automatically engage and hold your current airspeed.
Note that the autopilot will never apply RETRO thrust: this is a design decision in the
interests of efficiency;
Airspeed Hold
is designed to be used in an atmosphere or
while taxiing. However, you may engage it in a vacuum if you want to accelerate
smoothly and precisely to the indicated speed -- provided that you are facing in the
direction of the ship's velocity vector (i.e.,
prograde
).
The shortcut keys to set the target airspeed are detailed in the
Custom Shortcut
Keys
section earlier in this document; for example
CTRL-
will increase the
target airspeed by 25 m/s,
by itself will increase it by 5 m/s,
SHIFT-
will increase it by 1 m/s, and
ALT-
will increase it by 0.1 m/s
(useful while taxiing).
NUMPAD-
performs the inverse of
. Refer to the
Custom Shortcut Keys
section earlier in this document for a detailed list of autopilot
mode keys.
There are four values of interest displayed on the
Airspeed Hold
MDA screen:
AIRSPEED
Shows current airspeed in meters-per-second.
IMP
Shows current airspeed in Imperial miles-per-hour.
MAIN THRUST
Shows the current main engine thrust level from 0% to 100%.
MAIN MAXACC
Shows the maximum acceleration that the main engines can
provide to the ship; if atmospheric drag and/or gravity drag is too
high the engines will not be able to accelerate the ship any further
and a warning callout will sound.
