Radar-altimeter-terrain-following-autopilot

[britgliderpilot]

. . . . . Is quite possibly the coolest invention in the world ;)

 

 

Long NOE flights, no stress. Love it to bits :)

 

 

That's all, nothing more to see, move along :p

[Ironhand]

OK :)

 

Rich

[berkoutskaia]

Well, actually this is no Terrain-following, just a ground-altitude autopilot. It is rather dangerous to use it when flying low over an uneven ground :p

[Prophet_169th]

ground altitude......... terrain.............

 

Not the same thing?

 

And I thought its purpose was to provide safer flight closer to the ground?

[ALDEGA]

An interesting detail that I just found out about (!?) is that you can change the barometer pressure (?) setting, which affects the altitude displayed on the barometric altitude guage. Reminds me of good ol' MSFS ;)

 

Was this added in 1.1?

[berkoutskaia]

This "ground altitude" autopilot mode just compensate your altitude so that the elevation above ground mesured by the radar altimeter stays as constant as possible. But this radar altimeter can not foresee the ground in front of the aircraft, thus reacting a bit late in case a sudden hill appears in front of you. Furthermore, if your bank angle or your pitch is far from zero, the ground altitude given by the radar altimeter is higher than your real altitude above ground.

 

A real terrain following radar looks in front of the aircraft (and not under it) to anticipate ground elevation and depression, thus permitting the aircraft to "hug" the ground ;)

[Ironhand]

An interesting detail that I just found out about (!?) is that you can change the barometer pressure (?) setting, which affects the altitude displayed on the barometric altitude guage. Reminds me of good ol' MSFS ;)

 

Was this added in 1.1?

 

Yes, it was. Also, if you pay attention, you'll notice an error. If you start your mission on the ramp, the barometric altitude is correct for the runway. If, OTOH, you start on the runway, it's set to sea level and you ought to reset it for the runway altitude. Usually it's not too significant a problem, I know. But taking off from Maykop, for instance, your baro altimeter will be the equivalent of 150m in error, from Kerch-Bagerovo it'll be 110. Could be important if you're flying in the clouds and there are mountains laying around. :)

 

Rich

[Guest IguanaKing]

The baro correction IRL changes by the minute for any airfield, although ATIS is usually only updated on 15 minute intervals. At 12,000' and above, the baro is usually set back to standard, or 29.92 inHg. :D

[cirebackwards]

Will the tower actually give you the proper altimeter setting?

Also, I think you use flight levels above 18,000 not 12,000

[Guest IguanaKing]

No, the tower in LOMAC doesn't give current baro, so I'm not sure why they even have an adjustable baro on the altimeters in the game. Just another thing to twiddle I guess. ;)

 

Every time I go on certification flights, we go to standard at 12,000'. Although 18,000' would make more sense in this area, since some of our mountain peaks are 14,000'+. Most of the time I'm collecting data from newly-installed RVSM-compliant systems and EGPWS, so, I guess its a good test of the accuracy of that equipment. So far, it all has worked really well...knock on wood. :D

[KILSEK]

Hi all.

 

Do you know what would be great? To set-up the A.I. to have the ability to follow the terrain and do NOE flights. I can see it now, grab a Tornado and the set it to fly at 100' off the ground through the valleys at high speed. Better yet, set up a group of A.I. fighters to come at you at NOE.

 

Moving along, -KILSEK