James the 4th,
How did you determine that the spoilers went up anyway. I DID do an autoland in MEL last night (Runway 16, but that is another story)- unless you were in a safety vehicle at the runway intersections how could you have known? As for the merits of an autloand, the ATIS last night was 3000m in RA and Mist, BKN 250 ft and OVC at 300ft- despite my ego, the AUoland does a far, far more SAFER job than us. Af for a long landing- autoland usually touchdown approx 600-700m into the runway, factor 1.15 for a wet runway mmm.. The headline is "Shock Horror, Qantas Captain does what he is paid for...."