SR22 pilot experiences severe turbulence at 8;000 ft; resulting in autopilot disengagement and loss ...

Attributes
ACN	1173272
Time
Date	201405
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	CLT.TRACON
State Reference	NC
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	SR22
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	AHRS/ND
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Private Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 35 Flight Crew Total 1200 Flight Crew Type 1200
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

Narrative:

While flying on a direct flight to fft I encountered severe turbulence; unexpected and un-forecast. The severity of the turbulence kicked off the autopilot and disrupted my mfd page alignment; thus rendering heading bug useless. When I regrouped I felt like I was in a steep climb; but was actually descending at 1;500 feet/min. Then hit heading bug/heading and altitude hold instinctively as a matter of regrouping. With the heading bug not working was forced to recover by hand and was also picking up rime ice. Shortly after recovering and flying requested course and getting back to requested altitude I was cleared back to destination. The GPS/autopilot and altitude capture worked as it should and continued without incident the rest of the way to fft. Have never had autopilot kick off or lost mfd alignment.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SR22 pilot experiences severe turbulence at 8;000 FT; resulting in autopilot disengagement and loss of heading reference for the MFD. The autopilot would not engage and recovery from a descending turn is initiated by hand.

Narrative: While flying on a direct flight to FFT I encountered severe turbulence; unexpected and un-forecast. The severity of the turbulence kicked off the autopilot and disrupted my MFD page alignment; thus rendering heading bug useless. When I regrouped I felt like I was in a steep climb; but was actually descending at 1;500 feet/min. Then hit heading bug/heading and altitude hold instinctively as a matter of regrouping. With the heading bug not working was forced to recover by hand and was also picking up rime ice. Shortly after recovering and flying requested course and getting back to requested altitude I was cleared back to destination. The GPS/autopilot and altitude capture worked as it should and continued without incident the rest of the way to FFT. Have never had autopilot kick off or lost MFD alignment.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

SR22 pilot experiences severe turbulence at 8;000 ft; resulting in autopilot disengagement and loss of heading reference for the mfd. The autopilot would not engage and recovery from a descending turn is initiated by hand.