Markoz posted in the C-130 forum a "cheat" for Alt Hold, since the C-130 has a dinosaur AP with no number punch-in for altitude set like in a newer cockpit, and I was wondering if the trick would work in the 727?

He said that you could press 'ctrl + shift + z' for the alt bug and then use the '+ and -' keys to set the altitude you want, while at the same time hovering your pointer over the altitude hold button with tool tips on to see the actual number readout of your altitude. So in essance it would be like a digital AP cheat for a dinosaur AP...lol!  ;D

Love the 727 to death, but the AP it so hard to use on decent and approach for altitude hold when ATC is constantly giving you corrections for different altitudes, I just dont have time to carefully level off every minute there is an altitude change on decent and approach, so if this fix works for the 727 that would rock!

So I hope you see this post Markoz and thanks!  ;)

Saddly, Alt+Ctrl+Z doesn't work on the 727.

I experimented with the default Bendix-King Radio AP in the Cs727-100. You must use the controls on the CS727 autopilot. Using the Bendix-King Radio AP, you can only increase the altitude but a thousand feet with each click, so you need to activate the Alt Hold at an one thousand foot mark, like 4000, then increase it to your flight level, say 30000. You then make adjustments to the climb rate as normal to maintain the airspeed for the climb.

Summary.

Add the Bendix-King Radio AP to the 727 AP ([Window03] in the panel.cfg).
Use the controls ON THE CS727 AP!
Make altitude and VS changes on the Bendix-King Radio AP. It only does increments of 1000 feet for the altitude and the default VS is 1800, but is changeable.

Here is how I added it, in case you want to try it yourself:

[Window03]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=447,233
position=2
visible=0
ident=10005
gauge00=Captain_Sim.p721.P12!P12_001_ap, 20,0, 427,106
gauge01=Cessna!Nav_GPS_Annunciator, 0,0,20,20
gauge02=Cessna!Nav GPS Switch, 0,20,20,20
gauge03=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio AP, 20,106,427,127

Backup the panel.cfg first!

Mark

Hi Markoz! Thank you very much for your reply and sorry for putting your name on the forum subject  :P

Ya when I read your post on the C-130 I immediately thought it could be a remedy for me on the 727  :D

I will definitely try that out with adding the bendix-king, is it an actual seperate AP and would I have to have both that one out along with the 2D AP for the 727?  As long as I can punch in the Alt in 000's on decent that would be exactly what I am looking for.  I don't mind doing it the "real" way with leveling off, but for me its more fun with decent and approach when I can just set the Alt  :)

Thanks again for your help Markoz!

WARNING!

I left FSX sitting there with the CS 727 and the modified panel.cfg. I had a fatal error/CTD. I don't know if it was because of a conflict between the CS727 Autopilot and the default Bendix-King Radio AP. My 727 was back at the gate and shut down with no avionics in use, so it may have been caused by something else. It the first fatal error/CTD that I have had in quite a while.

Mark