One of the many avionics advances in recent years is the autopilot. Not that long ago, the typical personal airplane didn’t have a working autopilot—it might have been in the panel, but it was rare for it to work, much less as well as a modern one does. For one thing, altitude hold or preselect was an unavailable feature. For another, even when it worked, you probably were resigned to heading mode, if for no other reason than there was no long-range navaid available, and they certainly didn’t fly the procedure turn for you. So we hand-flew everywhere, and we got pretty good at it.
The good news is that digital technology has replaced the analog workings. The better news is the new ones are much more reliable. They’re also much more capable, seamlessly tracking a GPS navigator through procedure turns and flying flawless glide paths to the runway. Devices like the Garmin GFC 600, pictured below, also offer “big airplane” features like a flight director, vertical navigation, airspeed hold and more. Also, modern autopilots many offer a “get out of jail free” button to automagically level the airplane if you can’t. The bad news, of course, is we’re now dependent on them, especially for IFR.
