The Trutrak in my 360 had an un-commanded up episode on a trip just a few weeks
ago.  I was in level cruise about 10,500 over New Mexico west of Portales.  I
scanned the Trutrak window which is at the top of my radio stack and noticed
the small horizontal bars rolling down indicating I needed to trim the nose
down.  I clicked the coolie hat a couple of times to trim down and the nose
suddenly started coming up rapidly.  I immediately disconnected the AP with the
button on the stick and brought the airplane back to level flight.  I then hit
the button to turn off the Trutrak.  After a minute or so I turned the Trutrak
back on and it worked normally for the next 1.5 hours into Sedona.  I used the
Trutrak flying back to Dallas a week later with no problems.

The Trutrak has turned itself off once or twice over the last year (maybe 80
hours flying), but other than that it has been great.  I attribute the on/off
episodes to some electrical spikes or something.  The un-commanded up might be
the AP however.  I never plan for heavy IFR and I was CAVU when that happened.

Anyway, you asked about Trutraks so I thought I mention my episode.
Matt McManus
LNC2 360

Quoting colyncase on earthlink <colyncase@earthlink.net>:

> my stec55x did this once to me in my c172rg
> even in that plane it gets your attention.
> came down to connector problems at the back of the tray.
>
> I'm hoping tru-trak doesn't have that failure mode.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <dskeele@bellsouth.net>
> To: "Lancair Mailing List" <lml@lancaironline.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 4:28 PM
> Subject: [LML] Re: Down anywhere !!
>
>
> Jeff,     An S Tec 50,  installed in about 1993, Azmuth control has always
> been great, altitude control , I could write a small book......If you want
> more, it will take a large nickel....850-626-4946
>   Don Skeele
>
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