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Just wondering when you guys usually give it to George. I know it depends on the situation, so I'd appreciate some scenarios (VMC/IMC/tricky SID, etc.). I recently got to jump seat on a pt.135 727 - the guys clicked it on and off at 10,000'.
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No real rules for me. Like today I flew ATL-GSP and GSP-ATL. ATL had good weather, but GSP was down to 2000 RVR for takeoff. In both cases I hand flew up to 18,000 feet. The only time I really consider the weather "bad" is if there is moderate icing or thunderstorms to circumnavigate and I'll turn it on a lot earlier to ease the load on my non-flying pilot and start working on weather avoidance solutions.
On arrival, I'll leave it on the autopilot until I break out of the clouds. Executing a go-around with the autopilot on is a piece of cake, but if you've got the autopilot off and the non-flying pilot is setting up your flight director, working the radios and working through the procedure, you might overload the poor guy. I should say that when the autopilot is on, the flying pilot sets headings, altitudes, navigation modes, etc. When it's off, the non-flying pilot sets all of the stuff.
Into GSP this evening, We landed on RWY 4 and granted I was coming in pretty 'hot' (fast). I couldn't get the autopilot to match the performance that I wanted out of the aircraft so even though we were IMC, I switched it off, leveled off, threw out the gear and flaps and then rejoined the glideslope.
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In addition, how often do you do autolands?
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As few as I can possibly get away with. I've done two in the past two months which is extraordinarily high for me. I think I got away with two in all of 2003. Autolands suck because the computer flies the aircraft differently than a human does and it's a little unnerving sometimes.
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Are there still a lot of limitations to them?
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In the -88 we have a max 25 kt headwind limit, 15 kt crosswind limit, and a 10 kt tailwind limit.
It's a lot more than pushing the "autoland" button and watching it do an approach. And it's
heavily weighted on FO duties and things happen very quickly. For example, the last 150 feet, I'm probably monitoring six different things, and all have to happen in a certain sequences absolutely perfectly, and if one is out of sequence or one doesn't annunciate correctly, we have to execute a missed approach.
And this all happens within a span of about 4 or 5 seconds. Perhaps MQAAord's husband can elaborate a little about the -88.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I can't imagine any pilot saying "Oh yay, autoland!"