The AP Will Kill You if You Don't Watch Out

(3)

As the airplane gained altitude I did my usual thing: I paused the game, selected 'auto-throttle' and 'auto-pilot,' followed by the un-pause key, then hit the 'gear-up' key. About then everything began to go haywire. The gear came up as expected, but the airplane began to assume an unusually nose-high attitude. This is a bad idea close to the ground on takeoff.

I was 'watching' the airplane from a 'virtual chase plane' at the time, and quickly hit the 'cockpit view' key and confirmed my worst fear: the airplane was about to stall, close to the ground, full of fuel. I immediately turned off the autopilot and pushed the joystick full forward, regaining precious speed, then began to fly the airplane manually while I (just began the second movement of BS#6) searched for the problem, which turned out to be a speed problem: I had programmed the autopilot for a speed of 120 kts instead of 220 kts. The auto-pilot was attempting the impossible: climb the airplane at 1800 feet per minute at a speed of 120 kts.

I then programmed the correct speed into the AP, got the flaps up, and directed the stewardesses to hand out complementary double shots of booze to all passengers who might have realized what was going on. Then I cautiously turned the airplane over to the AP again. It worked as advertised, and we proceeded to climb to ten thousand feet at 250kts. At our cruising altitude of FL250 the contrails were fun to watch, as I viewed the 737 from a very agile VCP.

The remainder of the flight went well up the the point of approaching Dubai.