Saying that Autolands will cure the problem is wrong for many reasons.
Of course if the winds exceed autoland limits, what do you do, or what if your Autoland is not working that day / night /
It also assumes that Autoland is infallible. It was not with me one day.
Approaching our destination we discovered the Airport weather required us to
perform a monitored approach with Autoland. Although the visibility was good enough for us to be able to see the runway at Alert height.
This runway does have a downslope when arriving from the direction we were but is approved for CAT111B.
The Approach was flown well, on Autopilot, after becoming visual we could see the runway clearly. The flare was initiated and the power went to idle.
The aircraft then continued to float at, I estimate 1-2 feet above the runway as the runway 'fell away' with the downslope for much longer than I was comfortable with and did not appear it was going to touch down within the landing zone.
I disconnected the Autopilot and gently pushed over placing the mains firmly on the runway, with max reverse and medium braking stopping was not a problem.
My point is, but for human intervention the Aircraft would have happily held that 1-2 feet above the runway until there was none left.
I suggest, that while for the most part Autoland is very useful it is not perfect and I am sure many other Pilots have had to 'intervene' with it over the years when things don't go as planned.
You don't hear about those interventions though.
Last edited by stilton; 25th August 2010 at 03:54.