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Old March 31st 07, 07:58 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Bertie the Bunyip[_2_]
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Posts: 896
Default Old, but interesting topic

Flydive wrote in :

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Why not?

It autotunes the frequency and selects the inbound course of the
approach you have selected, it does about 20 miles out.

You can override it anytime, you check it during your approach

briefing.
It does not follow it unless you arm the approach on the panel.



I don't see any problem with it, as with anything on the aircraft

you
have the ultimate control, I let the autopilot fly the aircraft most

of
the time, but I always monitor what it does.


Well, you have to.. obviously. They do strange things from time to
time..

Didn't mean to suggest you didn't. But the way you said it sounded

like
you would let it nav onto the ils and fly it off it's own bat not

using
the ILS at all, just it's own input like an LNAV non precision.
We don't even allow LNAV intercepts of ILS's. We always intercept

from
heading select, though we do allow a glidepath intercept from vnav

from
below. I wouldn't trust the fjukkwit to do that, though. I wouldn't

let
him use a toaster, in fact.



Bertie


Well I agree not to trust it blindly, computers are computers.

True that most of the time you intercept using heading mode, most of

the
time you are on radar vectors.

But when you are not on vectors and you are using the nav fuction to
follow the STAR, you can leave the panel on NAV, the FMS will autotune
the ILS frequency, set the imbound track, as the LOC comes alive the
flght director will switch to "green data" intercept the LOC and the
Glide path using the navaid. All that can be done on autopilot.
As I said, all the time the pilot will monitor it, and of course

manual
intervention is still needed to configure the aircraft and ultimately

to
land it.


No, I can't do that. For one thig, it's company policy we don't do it in
any of our airplanes, and for another, the possibility of a parralell
intercept due to even a minute amount of map shift is too great, so I
just wouldn't..

Bertie