Autoland vs. Manual Landing
There has been much discussion in the Tech Log forum regarding automation and use there of. I am curious as to how often revenue service commercial transport operations utilize the following for final approach and landing:
1. Auto land
2. Manual landing following the flight director
3. Manual landing without flight director guidance
I suspect that the usage of automation during landings may be related to the range of the aircraft with pilots on longer haul models performing a higher percentage of manual landings in order to keep current vs. short haul operations with many segments per shift and thus lots of opportunity to get enough manual landings to stay current.
I am also interested in what suggestions or hard/fast rules operators may impose with regard to use of automation during final approach and landing.