Got Autopilot?

The morning flight there was uneventful. Not so for the return that afternoon.

Frank Bowlin

Friday, October 04, 2024 at 05:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

After months of engine overhauls, the author's airplane was back in the air, but without a functional autopilot due to a recent repair that still needed configuration.
During a return flight from Denver, the pilot encountered severe afternoon thunderstorms, high turbulence, and significant reroutes, creating an extremely demanding flight environment.
Without the aid of a working autopilot, the pilot experienced an "exhausting" workload, hand-flying through adverse weather while simultaneously managing communications, navigation, weather tools, and passenger briefings.
The experience profoundly underscored the critical importance of a reliable autopilot, leading the author to deem it "required equipment" for flying in serious instrument meteorological conditions and challenging weather.

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For those of you who might be following my tribulations with my airplane, I have an update. The quick backstory is that I needed overhauled engines and it took about six months to get the engines, then another couple months to install them. That’s all done now and I’m again flying the airplane, hoping to quickly rack up enough hours to complete the break in and return to my normal operations.

Meanwhile, I’d had a minor problem with my GFC 600 autopilot controller and it had to be sent back to Garmin for repair. That was completed, but on return the controller needed to be again configured for this installation. That had to wait until I could fly to the shop, and that had to wait for an opening in the shop’s schedule. So, for the moment, I have no working autopilot.