And that's where my questions come from, as I only flew one jet with an Otto-coupled ILS mode and we had to use the throttle manually. And you better have had the sucker trimmed for best approach speed/AoA before "coupling". Figure 180 knots IAS basic, then more for gas/loadout.
Gums,
You must be referring to the Mighty Voodoo, which I had the great pleasure of flying for 12 years/2,000+ hrs.
As a bit of a sidebar, I have considerable difficulty with the current culture/attitude regarding automation in general and auto-throttle use in particular. Acknowledging that I have never flown with an A/T, I find it very scary how it would appear that some folks on the flight deck these days seem to have an overwhelming reliance on this piece of automation.
For example, it would appear to me that in both this Asiana accident and the Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 in Amsterdam, the flight deck crew (three pilots in both cases) were under the impression that the A/T was handling the throttles, when in fact it was not, for different reasons. Regardless, in both cases, these six pilots did not recognize that the IAS dropped
40 KIAS below Vref, resulting in … guess what … a stall !
The problem that I have with the culture/attitude I referred to above is because, in my opinion at least, many pilots in this culture will say: “well, the faulty RADALT disconnected the A/T … or whatever … so it was not my fault”.
Wrong !
It is, it has been, and it always will be the pilots responsibility to ensure that the aircraft flies within its aerodynamic parameters. If the automatics aren’t doing the job, then the guy who signed for the aircraft has to take over. It's his responsibility, his job; it's why he is the aircraft captain !
I acknowledge that I am clearly a dinosaur as far as today’s automatics are concerned. But I am a pilot and I firmly believe that all pilots must be capable of keeping their aircraft flying.