Hey...I don't know. Personally, I think most or all of these problems will dissapear when you get your new Saitek controllers. I know of a lot of guys here who use the same rig and I never hear of any of these anomolies with it.

As far as what you are encountering now, there are a few things you can check. First, make sure that you have Realistic Autopilot enabled in the game options. You also should make sure that you are not exceeding the flight envelope characteristics which automatically disengage the Autopilot...namely bank angle of over 70 degrees, or pitch angle over 45 degrees.

You can also check to make sure that you have selected Autopilot options for axes control. These are selected normall via the UFC/Autopilot page. Pitch axis options include FPAH or Flight Patch Angle Hold, BALT or Barametric Altitude Hold and RALT which is Radar Altimiter Hold. Roll axis options include HDG or Heading, Roll or Roll attitude hold and CPL which is couple.

Couple is really useful as you can use this to fly to a WPT or Waypoint, TCN or Tacan emitter, TGT which is your current Launch and Steering target and finally ACL which automates carrier landings.

Hope this helps...and don't give up. I run on XP Pro and once I got my Cougar, all of these little problems went away. My only problem now is finding enough time to fly.

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Prophet