To Autoland or not to Autoland

[UA7472IAD]

@Launcbury, Jetblueinflight:

Indeed that Airbus autoland is rough.

As for the "realism" in autoland. It's actually used a lot more often then you think. My employer, sent out a NOTAM not to long ago to the
Airbus pilots (it also applied to our Boeing pilots) requesting that pilots use autoland. The reason? The FAA certified the Company to
perform autolands on CAT I runways.

Since airplanes must have a satisfactory autoland or maintenence ground check of the autoland systems every 30 days to maintain
CATIII satus (50 days for Cat II), pilots are encouraged to accomplish an autoland within 5 days of currency expiration. This avoids the
expensive maintenence ground checks. The notice goes on to say: "With fewer maintenance stations and personnel, it iseven more
important for us to keep our airplanes autoland current by performing actual autolands when able."

Just throwing a fun fact out there!

[DSW334]

As long as you put the correct elevation level of the airport into your system (for pmdg 737NG on the overhead panel) and follow the
correct procedures it should work out ok. I also experienced some rough autolands untill I found out I was forgetting the elevation level.
After that my autolands on the 737 were ok. (around -/-200ft)

Nowadays I don't use autolands anymore as I can do better then some dirty old computer

[gazpode_l]

I find that when I disable/enable the autopilot (esp the altitute control) my plane violently vears up/downwards! is this because the trim
control in the airfram configuration is set too high? It's also lead to me loosing many points by way of penalties for over g forces.

[Launchbury]

I did my first autoland the other day (I never trust that "dirty old computer") with the Wilco 737. It was more nerve-wracking than landing
myself! in the last few seconds I was thinking "flare...flare!...FLARE! FLARE YOU STUPID COMPUTER!" Which I was right about. -400fpm
landing. Attrocious.

[bta031]

how do u wse ils?

[Tracker801]

bta031 wrote:
how do u wse ils?

Here you are, flying the MSFS ILS.... now go study

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/ils.htm

Edit: some editwork on the link



Post Edited ( 08-29-08 17:23 )

[DVA3952]

I use autoland if the weather conditions call for it, like intense fog, rain and such where a manual landing would be considered too
dangerous.

First Officer MD-88
http://www.deltava.org



Post Edited ( 08-29-08 19:53 )

[gronji2004]

Does anyone know of an autoland gauge for FS2004? I've searched AVSIM for one but only comes with 2002. I'm interested to see how it handles the A/C
Etc . . .

[ronny king]

I use auto-approach on runways with ILS, on short final I shut down the autopilot and land manually.

[rekarts]

I usually land manually but thought that I would try the autoland feature in the pmdg 744 and it worked perfectly, gave me a - 45ft/min, my
2nd best yet... if I can call it mine...

[relichd]

I was using autoland with my A318 as this one works well. Of course, having an airport with either no ILS or a very bad scenery (elevations do not
match, etc.) I prefered to land manually/visually. Once I used autoland to land on rwy 6 at LKPR. I'm using excellent scenery package (very detailed
with working gate approach system) but at that time I spent nearly one million dollars for the landing gear repairs. Flight's status was 'perfect' but
my co-pilot just said something like 'that was scary, captain' - talking about a landing at - 750ft/m. Since them I disengage the A/P when reasonable


See the log here: http://www.i-dave.com/fspstats/FsPlistfl...tflight=16

[chris6273]

lol "I got docked 400 points for damage sustained to the tyres" you make it sound funny hehe.

[jaskanFactor]

If you want ATC that still acts in normal time when using Time acceleration, Get Radar Contact 4

Even at 16x ATC acts normal, its like you only increased your speed as far as Radar contact is concerned

[relichd]

jaskanFactor wrote:
If you want ATC that still acts in normal time when using Time acceleration, Get Radar Contact 4

Even at 16x ATC acts normal, its like you only increased your speed as far as Radar contact is concerned

How's that related to "To Autoland or not to Autoland" topic?

[ozgurtetik]

kjevans wrote:
Hi,
searching around the other day for bits and pieces and I came across an autoland gauge and decided to put it in my 737-400 for a little
play.

Made things a little bit stale but it did seem to work, so for a laugh I thought I would do a flight with FSP and use the autoland feature to,
well,
autoland.
Great, all seemed to be going as normal, got the ILS signal, hit the autoland button and the plane took over.

However, when the plane touched down the co-pilot said it was a rough landing, I had nearly 50% scared passengers.

The end report stated the passengers were irritated by excess G-Force of +2.83.

Touchdown rate was -680.77 ft/min

and I got docked 400 points for damage sustained to the tyres.


Now seen as I was only messing around with this gauge as a bit of fun, I was wondering if anyone else had had similar problems with
either the gauge
or using one in FSP?

I suppose in theory even though this time was classed by FSP as an exceptional flight, I should have got full marks if you like.

Is this maybe a fault of fs9 and the terrain data or something being slightly off?

I don't know, I'll stick to the hands on approach I think.

Kirk

kjevans,

I will tell you what I do. I use APPR button (as you called autoland button) to approach runway (if airport has ILS) here my to do list for
landing


first thing decent till groundlevel + 4000ft

(i am assuming you are at least 15nm far from runway + on A/P + NAV1 and COURSE is set + flying on NAV1 not GPS or HEADING + ALT is set to auto + F/D is on)

1- reduce speed little bit less than first flap level and set flaps and

2- set radio for runway and watch Localizer and wait untill glideslope comes right at middle (if glideslope above the middle just wait. if
glideslope below the middle then decent untill glideslope comes to the middle.)

3- hit APPR button when you see glideslope right at middle on Localizer. Make sure NAV and ALT lights turned off automaticaly. if one of
them still on it means you pressed APPR button when glideslope wasn't right at the middle.

4- keep your eye on glideslope. Try to keep glideslope at middle. (you need to play with speed. if glideslope goes down reduce
speed, if it goes up increase speed)

5- around 1000 ft left if you need extend flaps
6- keep your eye on glideslope. Keep glideslope at middle.
7- turn off autopilot at 100ft and set thrust to 0.
8- pitch up 3-5 degrees at 20ft
9- wait for tuchdown.
10- fallow landing procedure.


Look. I am not a pilot. May be my procedure is technically wrong but fallowing this list %90 of the times gives me less than -100 ft/min
touchdown rate which is KISS in FsP

I hope it helps.



Post Edited ( 01-09-09 04:49 )