What does the autopilot system of an airplane control?

elevation and directionWhat does the autopilot system of an airplane control?
Depending on the model of auto pilot, but the more advanced ones can control basically everything, speed, direction, navigation, approaches, vertical speed, pitch, etc.





How this is achieved depends on make of aircraft. Most use a servo connected to the controls which moves the controls in the direction needed and also use the pitch trim to remove large control forces.What does the autopilot system of an airplane control?
Level flight clime and descent according to the settings that have been chosen.
A full autopilot system can control all three axis of control, pitch, roll and yaw, as well as the engine power. But some light aircraft only have roll, or roll and pitch. They're not all necessary to ease pilot effort.
depending on the system,everything but Taxiing.
Autopilots can be as simple as roll (ailerons) only, say in a light Cessna, up to roll-pitch-yaw, throttle, and navigation, in a large airplane.
Nearly everything. VNAV (vertical navigation, automatic height adjustment, but you need the pilot to change the altitude on this one on the console in front of him ), LNAV (Lateral navigation, this is automatic after the pilots input data to the FMC before the flight begins) and the speed (which is connected to the VNAV system of the FMC)





FMC/FMS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Management_System
direction, speed, altitude,