Auto landing

[Rower]

As regular SLF I often wonder if a modern aircraft can completely land itself ( having been programmed to do so ) or, if not, what i/ps the captain has to make.

I can see most captains throwing their eyes at such a question but have patience with me

[JimmyTAP]

Many modern airliners can indeed carry out automatic landings. Once set up for the approach the autopilot/autothrottle can fly the approach and landing, in some cases down to 60kts on the landing roll.

[YoDawg]

The technology exists to have a purely automated airliner but as you could guess, no one would want to fly on it.

For now, pilot actions are still required for an autoland.

The pilots will make the decision to conduct an autoland (not a computer). Then they will manually:

Navigate the aircraft to the field,
Program the navigation equipment,
Engage the appropriate modes,
Adjust speeds,
Configure the flaps and landing gear,
And watch it land.

After landing the tricky part is sometimes taxiing the aircraft off the runway and to the parking bay in very low visibility conditions. This is also a manual action.

[Rower]

Thanks for the replies. I know I would not want to fly without 2 well trained pilots up front. To clarify: even in auto land the pilot continually adjusts throttles, flap settings etc

[FLCH]

Sometime autolands aren't all they are cracked up to be, you set them up everything looks fine then in the flare it'll start to twitch or go wayward (due to a last second minor wind change or the runways are built like a roller coaster such as Bristol or Manchester) of course everyone wants to know who made the botched landing.

You try to explain it was the plane doing an autoland, you are met by rolling eyes, or by some flight attendant that claims she's left her uterus on the runway somewhere.

BTW Autothrottles take care of the power, final flaps were selected sometime over the outer marker.

[sunnybunny]

Many years ago I was on a B757 charter going in to Manchester at night.

After a particularly hard landing the co-pilot announced

'Sorry for the hard landing. This aircraft is fitted with autoland and occasionaly we have to test it. Tonight was just that, a test.'

Normal service will be resumed from now on.

[Rower]

FLCH

BTW Autothrottles take care of the power, final flaps were selected sometime over the outer marker.

Again eccuse my ignorance but what controls the autothrottles, I assume the airspeed and altimeter are 2 inputs but are there more ?

I assume the pilots also selects reverse thrust and braking

Thanks

[Hartington]

Autobraking exists. It can be set to various levels od what I can only call severity. Once the weight is on the main gear it kicks in, as I undewrstand it.

[Wizzaird]

In our company, each Captain must do at least 2 autolands per month in as part of the airlines mantatory requirement to maintain statitics on successful autolands or not! The whole process still impresses me and I have been in this game quite a long time. The aircraft will use a combination of ground based navigaion aids (ILS) and its own sensors (Radio Altimeter height, Inertial reference information plus many others) to perform all the required actions for landing except, lowering gear and flaps which are done manually. On my aircraft type (A320) we usually let the flight management system take care of the speed and it will maintain the correct thrust all the way to touchdown, including pulling off the power during the flare. The pilot manually selects reverse thrust but spoilers and autobrake will be automatic after touchdown. When doing it for real in pea soup conditions it is quite surreal as we dont have to have any visual references prior to touchdown for a Cat 3b approach. The hardest bit is finding the exit off the runway and then getting to the gate!

[Lightning Mate]

Again eccuse my ignorance but what controls the autothrottles, I assume the airspeed and altimeter are 2 inputs but are there more ?

Yes. AoA and ILS/MLS glidepath inputs.