Boeing AP/ATHR
I'm always fascinated why some airlines prefer to have its pilots fly manually in extremely marginal weather conditions with HUD rather than use autoland, where available.
It is always interesting to watch the landing tehnique of various pilots. It is common in the simulator to observe those pilots who are addicted to AP and FD use in CAVOK conditions for an ILS. The autopilot generally does a beautiful job of flying the ILS smoothly and accurately and the controls hardly move throughout. Perfect for passenger comfort too.
But when the pilot disengages the automatics at (say) 500 feet AFE we often see wild overcontrolling and invariably contradictory movements of ailerons (and thus flight spoilers) and even rudder pedals as if the pilot is fighting the Devil himself all the way to the flare where he then does a see-sawing flare and the PM has to be careful to make sure his balls are out of the way lest they be squashed between control column and seat. That's the beauty of the Airbus. There's no danger of the family jewels being squashed.
I'm not a huge fan of hand flown CAT IIIA, for the reason that the captain is now not only a captain but an autopilot too and the F/O is out of the loop somewhat (no HUD on the right). If I'm sure I'll get in on CAT II minima, I'll auto land. If it's marginal I'll use the HUD in AIII to get the lower minima. Having said that, they're easy to fly, AIII mode is very capable, hyper accurate and you could teach your 10 year old to fly it well. Somewhere on this thread someone said their company uses the autothrottle, we don't in this case.
Gin, why shouldn't the AP be certificated to Cat 3 limits if the HUD already has that capability. The sensors and engineering should be approved, similarly proof of guidance if other operators have the AP capability.
Is the HUD dual; was it an add on, or built in as standard ?
Don't assume that AP approval will be expensive vs add-on HUD. AP hardware can allocated a failure probability, not so the human. Thus the human certification could require more evaluation.
Who / what monitors the human, how; 'HUD … very capable, hyper accurate', but only if you follow the commands accurately, and who can tell inside the deviation alerts.
There are some very 'interesting' HUD approvals around the world; EASA disliked HUD for operations in extreme conditions (Cat 3); is that still the situation, or do the latest Airbus have dual / dual installations.
Is the HUD dual; was it an add on, or built in as standard ?
Don't assume that AP approval will be expensive vs add-on HUD. AP hardware can allocated a failure probability, not so the human. Thus the human certification could require more evaluation.
Who / what monitors the human, how; 'HUD … very capable, hyper accurate', but only if you follow the commands accurately, and who can tell inside the deviation alerts.
There are some very 'interesting' HUD approvals around the world; EASA disliked HUD for operations in extreme conditions (Cat 3); is that still the situation, or do the latest Airbus have dual / dual installations.
Gin, why shouldn't the AP be certificated to Cat 3 limits if the HUD already has that capability. The sensors and engineering should be approved, similarly proof of guidance if other operators have the AP capability.
Is the HUD dual; was it an add on, or built in as standard ?
Don't assume that AP approval will be expensive vs add-on HUD. AP hardware can allocated a failure probability, not so the human. Thus the human certification could require more evaluation.
Who / what monitors the human, how; 'HUD … very capable, hyper accurate', but only if you follow the commands accurately, and who can tell inside the deviation alerts.
There are some very 'interesting' HUD approvals around the world; EASA disliked HUD for operations in extreme conditions (Cat 3); is that still the situation, or do the latest Airbus have dual / dual installations.
Is the HUD dual; was it an add on, or built in as standard ?
Don't assume that AP approval will be expensive vs add-on HUD. AP hardware can allocated a failure probability, not so the human. Thus the human certification could require more evaluation.
Who / what monitors the human, how; 'HUD … very capable, hyper accurate', but only if you follow the commands accurately, and who can tell inside the deviation alerts.
There are some very 'interesting' HUD approvals around the world; EASA disliked HUD for operations in extreme conditions (Cat 3); is that still the situation, or do the latest Airbus have dual / dual installations.
Our aircraft were delivered with the HUD (only on the left as I previously mentioned), obviously it’s optional as there are many operators out there without them. You mention the monitoring. You’ve obviously got the FO Monitoring plus AIII mode has a pretty sophisticated Inbuilt monitoring capability e.g. if you get too far off localiser or GS or even put too much bank on down low you will get what’s called an “approach warning” (FO sees this as well on the HUD monitoring panel on their side), which is an immediate go around.
