To Autoland or not to Autoland

[RonMac]

I thought autoland was how it was done in real life! I understood that real world pilots have to manually land one in 6 to keep tehir
license, but autoland is th preferred option.

I use autoloand until just before touchdown where I manually take over. To me its the safest way of keeping my FSP investment in time,
money, and happy passenegrs not to bounce all over the runway!

Ronmac

[KenG]

IIRC to autoland you need an approach and airplane certified for CAT III. So no not every realworld landing is an autoland, if fact most
landings are manual. Only some airplanes are even certified for CAT III.

To keep crews and equipment CAT III certified crews must fly a CAT III approach every so many days. I am only CAT II certified and I must
demonstrate a CAT II approach every year. However, before flying a CAT II approach I must go through an airport certification program for
that airport.

There are lots of techniques but one technique is that instrumented rated aircrews flying multiengine turbine powered aircraft will
generally use or backup a visual approach with an instrument approach if avilable at an airport. This is done to improve Situtational
Awareness (SA).

The use of autopilot is 100% up to the pilot flying. (Unless an Instructor has taken that option away during a checkride.) George, the
autopilot, is very capable of reducing workload in a cockpit (or flightdeck) and can greatly improve SA. This is even more true considering
that often in MSFS you are trying to simulate a crewed aircraft single pilot with a hand on the controls, a hand on the mouse, and a hand
on the keyboard. You just start to run out of hands, not to mention picking up and flipping through plates and conducting an approach
briiefing. Thus I see no foul play in using George as an extra set of hands.

Autolands, are often a firm landing as opposed to what a human can do. The computer is trying its best but often cannot make the
thousands of tiny adjustments that a pilot can. Thus autolands are programed to set her down nice and firm on the runway. MSFS
autoland seems tro be the AI landing. I have seen some bone jarring AI aircraft landing that have made me look away from the screen as
I truly expected to see a fireball and not a landing. For that reason the use of autoland may not be advisable or you will want to disable the
tire blowing / hard landing penalties.

I would also remark to do what you enjoy. I will often grab that Maul or Goose just to do some stick and rudder bush flying, not something
I get to do in the real world. (The King Air is not a bush plane.)

[Joeflyer]

Yep, the only add-on aircraft I have been able to successfully make a kiss autoland is the PMDG 747...-40 ft/min autoland

[relichd]

Aaaaaah... And I was wandering how to call my invisible co-/auto- pilot... Now I know! Thanks KenG!

[b1ackcr0w]

The PMDG 737 800-900 had a pretty good autoland on as well. Shame they're not redeveloping it for FSX, that was the best add-on
aircraft I ever bought.

[relichd]

b1ackcr0w wrote:
The PMDG 737 800-900 had a pretty good autoland on as well. Shame they're not redeveloping it for FSX, that was the best add-on
aircraft I ever bought.

Agreed - it takes too much time and the only thing you can find on their website is "screenshots coming soon". If "soon" is in a year or two, then I
guess somebody re-define the time definitions Anyway, moved to FSX + FsPX + Wilco's Airbus Series until that time...

[baoding]

in real world you are only supposed to auto land when you have a CATIII ILS system on the runway, you don't auto land no matter what in real world or
fsx. CATII ILS however can lower the approach minimum to around 70ft( and its used a lot in major airports), but u must disengage AP by that time.
Since ILS don't actually give you a good descent rate toward the runway for touch down.

I don't think fsx ever build the CAT III ILS system in to begin with, so unless its the addon aircraft as mentioned, you shouldn't do it. If you do
it, well then you suffer the high descent rate and damage you landing gear.

[SkyAirWorld]

I think this thread has passed its use-by date...