Itra ActivePanel Autopilot

By Andrew Herd (27 June 2002)

am a big fan of ITRA products and have been ever since I started using their ActivePanel radio back in November last year. This is a seriously good piece of kit which has survived the transition from FS2000 to FS2002 with few problems. Admittedly, I had to do without it for a while after I first installed FS2002, but given the fact that the gauge SDKs weren't available for many months after the launch of the new version of Flight Simulator, ITRA did extremely well getting the interface updated and released as soon as they did. It isn't quite true to say that I pined in the weeks before the FS2002 drivers became available, but I definitely did miss being able to use what has become a highly necessary piece of my flight sim enjoyment.

So when the mailman delivered a second large box from Berlin, I had good reason to be interested in the contents. As is usual with ITRA, the packaging was top notch, which it needs to be to withstand European parcel delivery services, many of whose employees seem to be more interested in demonstrating soccer moves with parcels than actually delivering them. After burrowing through several layers of packing, I opened the last box to see a polished steel plate and I knew that I was looking at the long awaited ActivePanel Autopilot.

In a way, the illustrations say it all, but take it from me that ITRA products have a build quality that is second to none. The autopilot is no exception, being made from steel throughout, with reinforced corners and an attractive blue/gray fascia. Both the boxes are in "landscape" format and when I first saw the ActivePanel radio, my instinct was that ITRA had built it the wrong way up, because radio stacks in most planes are vertical, rather than horizontal - but sitting on the desk, one unit on top of the other, the horizontal layout makes a good deal of sense. I have stacked the two devices on the right of my monitor, within easy reach. They look good.

The ActivePanel Autopilot offers hardware control for all the functions in the standard FS autopilot, in a presentation that closely resembles the Mode Control Panel (MCP) fitted to most current passenger jets, at a cost of $529.95 (699 Euros). This doesn't mean that it is only of interest to big iron flyers (although I am sure that anyone whose interest is in the big jets will be salivating at the sight of this unit), because it works perfectly well with any autopilot equipped FS aircraft, right down to the default Cessnas. Apart from bringing an extra edge of realism to using Flight Simulator, it really does make it easier to control the aircraft and I found flying instrument approaches much easier using the ActivePanel than it was under mouse control.

Installatation is undemanding and anyone with even slight familiarity with Flight Simulator and USB devices should be able to set the unit up in about five minutes. ITRA provide a manual in German and English that clearly sets out what needs to be done. The first step is to load the drivers, gauges and aircraft configuration tool from the supplied diskette. The installation program automatically searches for your Flight Simulator installation, but there is a manual option as well. Once the directory has been located and the gauge has been loaded, all you need to do is to select which aircraft panels you want to use the ActivePanel; a simple matter of browsing the folders ITRA's setup presents to you - there is an option to install the gauge to every aircraft panel if you want. What this does is to add an entry in each aircraft's panel configuration file which activates the connection between Flight Simulator and the hardware - once an aircraft whose panel is fitted with the gauge is loaded, the ActivePanel controls can be used to activate and control the functions of the software autopilot. The program even backs up the original panel.cfg, should you wish to restore it. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

The ActivePanel is a complete no-brainer to use, once you have mastered a few basics. There are pushbuttons to engage the autopilot and the flight director, and also for all the usual autopilot modes - Autothrottle, APR, BC, LVL, Y/D, NAV, HDG, SPEED, ALT and VSPEED. The buttons are plastic and although they rock slightly in the fascia, they are plenty tough enough to go the distance. When a button is pushed, an LED inside the face illuminates so that its state is obvious (see the screenshot below). The rotary controls are a little bit more sophisticated in that they can be pushed as well as turned - for example, pushing either the HDG or ALT rotary control for one second loads the current heading or altitude from Flight Simulator into the appropriate window on the ActivePanel. Of all the rotary controls, the most useful is the one for vertical speed - almost by definition, this is the one value in FS you always need to adjust in a hurry and there is a world of a difference between trying to mouse a tiny click spot and grabbing a control and winding the value to what you want.

The one gotcha with the ActivePanel hits if you change the view to a different panel, going from the 2D cockpit to the VC, for example. Switching panels inactivates the ActivePanel gauge and decouples the hardware from the software. The solution is easy enough - all you have to do is to go to the \view\instrument panel menu and click the entry for the ActivePanel Autopilot, which recouples it. This isn't a problem unless you switch repeatedly between 2D and 3D mode - but the miraculous thing is that with the panel activated in VC mode, it is possible to fly the plane on the AP without even touching the keyboard. In the case of the default 737, where the virtual cockpit MCP doesn't actually work in FS, using the ActivePanel offers virtually the only way of using the autopilot with the 3D cockpit selected. The MCP on the 737's VC is an inactive bitmap, which means that there is no way of telling what altitude or VSPEED you have set, for example. The ActivePanel Autopilot should work with almost every other plane with a VC, except for panels which have functions which require controls to be pulled as well as pushed - but I wouldn't put it past the software guys at ITRA to think of a way around this one, given time.

I tried the ActivePanel autopilot with the FlightOne/DreamFleet 737, just to see if it would work with a complex panel and the answer is that it does, but only so far. I found I couldn't engage ALT mode or VSPEED, which is most probably due to the developers having chosen not to use FS variables for the autopilot. I suspect that the same is quite likely to be true of other high end panels, like the PIC 767, or the PSS Airbus, although I haven't tested these. ITRA have said that if they can find fixes for problems like this, they will post them.

Verdict? Potential problems with complex panels aside, the ActivePanel Autopilot is very, very difficult to fault. For the money, you get a rock-solid, quality product. Personally, I love it to death.