Press button to fly!
Funky Tree could beat the built-in autopilot several times, and this fly-by-button system enables fully automated flight from take-off to landing. I backported and adapted the code written by ENG1Fail to my previous concept of ILS, and they work amazingly well. As always, the HUD is great for incorporating different information into one display, so I'm using it before I have an alternative.
Here is a more complete narrative of the system:
- Based on PD (no I) controller that aligns the plane to a target vertically and laterally.
- Controls ailerons, elevators, rudder (only on ground), flaps, throttle (stepped), landing gear.
- take-off, it flies toward the Final Approach Fix of Yeager Runway 01L, at 3000 ft and 3 deg glide path to the runway.
- It will try to climb to FL100 but will then descend when getting closer to the fix.
- Within 1 nm from FAF, it switches to approach mode and aligns with the localizer and glideslope, which are also shown in the HUD as diamonds.
- Currently, vertical control is not very good (partly because I cannot find a good integral constant), and it only does open climb/descend.
- No working autothrottle, so it's not able to hold speed.
- Only one runway for landing as of now, but I'm planning to program the MCDU so it'll be to choose from all 8 runways.
- Variables list is messy and needs cleaning 😂