Originally Posted by
ELMS77W
Non-autoland option? I would struggle but if you find yourself in a position where every pilot in the airplane died and there are absolutely no airports accomodating cat3 in the current range of the aircraft (hoping the airplane is able for cat3), you are very unlucky then.
Just for completeness/being picky/pointing out a little knowledge might be a dangerous thing - in the context of that comment do you really mean a runway “accommodating cat 3” or do you actually mean a runway, which regardless of category, can accommodate an autoland?
If you mean the former then if you are unlucky enough to have your chicken eating crew fall ill in the final stages of a long sector then you may very easily find there is no airport “accommodating cat3” with the current range of the aircraft. A request for such would result in blank looks from ATC over large swaths of the world, including parts the States…
OTOH telling ATC you need a runway that will accommodate an autoland might be the better bet.
FWIW a lot of T7 flying at the airline where I worked was in the Caribbean, a lot of it on short shuttle sectors … where you were often not exactly overburdened with fuel and ILSs were relatively thin on the ground. That’s possibly one situation where your high hours PPL might well win out over your sim hero.
The above is all why I put an “it depends” in my first response to the posed “ but what if”…
Your zero real flight time sim hero might be the better bet if they are presented with the aircraft mid Atlantic, heading for London/Europe (and probably with plenty advice available on the R/T)as long as he/she didn’t accidentally disconnect the A/P in the excitement.…OTOH I can certainly imagine circumstances where somebody with a bit of real aircraft time might be the better option…..ultimately of course your best bet is neither of those, there really is a reason why real world qualifications which involve training on a real aircraft and/or a full motion flight sim exist.