Machinbird
Understood. It did occur to me that the generic term autoland might have been the reason for our confusion.
Incidentally the UK back in 16 May 2005 did its first full auto recovery to a ship from a long way away. But that was cheating 'cos it was a Harrier and did a VL (In my book a VL is the only way to go - especially at night or with huge amounts on ship motion)
JF