Citation 560 / Excel / XLS - Flight Director and Autopilot

The Citation Ultra, Encore, Excel, and XLS all use the same flight director and autopilot as part of the Honeywelll Primus 1000 avionics package. This video goes into a detailed description of how the flight director and autopilot are used in normal operation. In-flight clips show how various modes are used during climbs and descents.

[@Bruukzerah]

Thanks for this type of video. I’m excel pilot since 2021 in Brazil and your video is a amazing source of knowledge. I know that a lot of pilots like me is using your video to review during the recurrent or inicial training. God bless you!

[@citationpro]

@@Bruukzerah I love to hear these things. Thanks for watching!

[@Jay-gj1rl]

Can't thank you enough for these videos. Extremely helpful.

[@citationpro]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad you like them!

[@MilazzoTony]

Fantastic tutorial

[@citationpro]

Thanks for watching!

[@brianr1840]

Great video nice explanation. You did far better than what CAE did during my training.

[@citationpro]

Thanks, I'm glad you found it helpful! One of the weak points I've seen from every sim center is a lack of detailed avionics training. Unfortunately there is so much other mandatory training that needs to happen in such a short time, avionics training often goes by the wayside.

[@LanceBrewer-r5f]

Love love love these videos. Thank you. One small correction: during the discussion about VNAV, you say “… we will come down at 1200 FPM…” I believe the display is indicating “2200” FPM. Am I mistaken? Appreciate your work. Keep the videos coming.

[@citationpro]

I see how that's confusing. I was referring to the small numbers right above the 3100 feet I had just input. They said about 1270 fpm and I rounded it off in my mind to 1200 fpm. That's the descent rate needed to go from our current altitude to the target altitude if we had begun descending at that moment.

[@MilazzoTony]

Question about the toga button. When you hit toga does this put the system into a pure wings level mode or does it hold heading like the other roll mode does. If it holds heading when does it lock onto the heading. Obviously this is often used pre take off on the ground and may be pressed facing another heading…so I assume it is a pure wings level or locks the heading at some later point. Many other systems roll is just wings level or holding bank when pressed and some advocate using heading mode and runway heading on take off to keep from drifting in the case of an engine failure. Would be great to have the detail how this system is designed. Thanks for the awesome videos.

[@citationpro]

@@MilazzoTony Great questions! The Go Around mode, annunciated as "GA" on the top of the PFD, is a true wings leveler. It does not hold any heading the way ROL mode holds a heading. For this reason, the pilot must select a lateral mode appropriate for their intended flight after pressing the TOGA button.
In my operation, preparing for takeoff, we press TOGA on the ground followed by HDG or NAV, as appropriate, depending on if we expect a heading assignment or SID. So the flight director commonly shows "HDG - GA" for lateral and vertical guidance on most takeoffs.
In flight, in the event of a go around, usually after calling for Gear Up, the pilot flying would either select or call for the pilot monitoring to select HDG or NAV as appropriate, depending on if they intend to stay in a visual traffic pattern or follow an instrument approach missed approach procedure.

[@MilazzoTony]

Another question. In my ultra after take off climbing with FD but AP not engaged…when I set FLC and a speed the FD will give guidance to that speed. If I set something like 250 for example and then engage the AP before we have accelerated to 250 the FLC will change to what speed we are at when I push the AP button. I assume this is the normal functioning, but it’s different than other systems Im used to. Whats the logic behind the AP changing the speed to match current vs continuing to get to the speed selected with the FD only setup.

[@citationpro]

@@MilazzoTony , great question. This is a normal function. When engaging the autopilot, it will always sync to the current condition. So if vertical speed is selected on the flight director, it will maintain the current vertical speed, if pitch is selected it will hold current pitch, etc. I don't know exactly why the designers built it this way, but I suspect it might be to minimize abrupt commands at the moment of engagement. If you select a 6000 foot per minute climb then engage autopilot, you don't want it aggressively pitching up. Likewise, if you select FLC 250 KIAS and engage it in a 190 knot climb, you don't want it to pitch down and briefly begin descending to try to attain 250 knots.

[@Jun31719]

Is there any dial knob for FLC mode? Like you want to change your climb speed to 200 -> 250. Or i have to kick off and retrim/ set 250 first manually then reengage.

[@citationpro]

@@Jun31719 The wheel on the center pedestal, next to the autopilot engage/disengage button, is used to select a target airspeed for FLC mode to follow. This same wheel is used to select pitch in PIT mode or a vertical speed in VS mode.
When FLC mode is first selected it will target whatever airspeed the aircraft had at the moment FLC was selected. The wheel can then be rolled to target a different speed if desired.