Autopilot Landings and T/O

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Personally I like the way a human flys as oppose to the auto pilot. I just think a human is smoother. I've heard other pilots say the same thing about this as well.



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Nah, not in my experience anyways. There are some mickey mouse autopilots thatll wander around in certain modes, like NAVtrack, but most a/p can fly the airplane better than any human.
500'....Autopilot: ON
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Ive heard some guys say they dont turn it on till they are past 18000'. A CRJ captain I talk to from NW Airlink sometimes doesnt turn it on until he reaches cruisin alt.

If I wasnt to busy I would probly want to hand fly it as long as I could until cruise, because thats just less efficiant to hand fly a jet at cruise. (I think)

Tom
 
Ive heard some guys say they dont turn it on till they are past 18000'. A CRJ captain I talk to from NW Airlink sometimes doesnt turn it on until he reaches cruisin alt.

If I wasnt to busy I would probly want to hand fly it as long as I could until cruise, because thats just less efficiant to hand fly a jet at cruise. (I think)

Tom
 
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like NAVtrack, but most a/p can fly the airplane better than any

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I wish!
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At least the McDonnell-Douglas autopilot in the MD-88 and MD-90 has a mind of it's own. Say, for example, you're descending, the autothrottle system will have a tendency to go to full idle, and then to full maximum continuous power, back to idle and then it "seeks and finds" the proper power setting.

Or during autoland procedures, it tends to 'overflare' and land the aircraft the way a student pilot would land a Cessna.

or even worse, during the initial approach phase, it'll zig and zag tracking a localizer to the point where the aircraft starts to dutch roll and become unstabilized.

Some autopilots may fly the aircraft better than a human does, but in my experience, it surely isn't on an MD-88/90, 737-200 (advanced), or the 727!
 
Autothrottle? Whats that?
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Autoland? Whats that?
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I was speaking mainly of altitude hold, heading hold, ILS tracking. And as far as those go, maybe im lazy, but ill use the autopilot as much as i can (except maybe an approach).
 
The B75/76 have a very smooth autopilot and most of the autolands can be a down right ego busting experience for the pilots. It'll lock on to the ILS like a pitbull and you'd swear the needles were broke since they don't seem to move even in the worst of weather. Auto GA's are a thing of beauty!

The A300, on the other hand, is not as smooth in any mode. It wanders trying to hold altitude in cruise (mainly due to the autotransfer of fuel to the tail making it more unstable). If your a 1/3 dot off on the ILS it's happy. Autolands can be an adrenaline rush.
 
You oughta watch an MD-88/90 track a localizer course more than 5 miles out, the thing rocks back and forth enough to steer you to hit the NAV (L-NAV for Boeing-types) until a few miles out on the approach.

Even flying the MD-88/90 with the autopilot and the autothrottles on, it's still a "two handed operation" -- the only aircraft that I know of that can have the autothrottle on, but you still have to manually adjust it in many different phases of flight.
 
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