How much is autopilot on commercial flights today?

How much of an average commercial flight on a large airline and
aircraft today is done automatically, via autopilot, autoland, and so
on? Including takeoff and landing. I know that the bulk of a flight
is on autopilot, which makes sense since autopilots are good at flying
planes and that's lots of hours to sit holding a yoke, but what about
the fun parts, such as takeoff and landing? Systems exist to fully
automate both, but are such systems routinely installed and used
today? Do airlines have policies that require or prohibit the use of
such systems under normal conditions? I've heard that in cruise
flight, at least, airlines want their pilots to stay on autopilot as
much as possible, to save fuel.

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Mxsmanic wrote:
I've heard that in cruise
flight, at least, airlines want their pilots to stay on autopilot as
much as possible, to save fuel.

To stay awake.

My friend that flys 737's for Alaska Airlines says that he hits that
autopilot button 50 feet off of the ground on Take off and takes the
controls back 50 feet over the ground on landing.

I can't vouch for how accurate it is, but it would surprise me to be
fairly accurate.

Brian

Brian wrote:
My friend that flys 737's for Alaska Airlines says that he hits that
autopilot button 50 feet off of the ground on Take off and takes the
controls back 50 feet over the ground on landing.

If he's maintaining CAT III currency he's getting at least some auto
lands as well.

-Robert

Brian wrote:
My friend that flys 737's for Alaska Airlines says that he hits that
autopilot button 50 feet off of the ground on Take off and takes the
controls back 50 feet over the ground on landing.

I can't vouch for how accurate it is, but it would surprise me to be
fairly accurate.


I've heard the same from my local bus drivers.

depends, weather, complexity of departure and arrival route, and my
attitude. sometimes I turn it on at 500 ft and off at 100 ft. sometimes I
hand fly the whole trip.
the only requirement that we have is that above 290 it must be on for RVSM
rules.

R. Burns

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...
Brian wrote:
My friend that flys 737's for Alaska Airlines says that he hits that
autopilot button 50 feet off of the ground on Take off and takes the
controls back 50 feet over the ground on landing.

I can't vouch for how accurate it is, but it would surprise me to be
fairly accurate.


I've heard the same from my local bus drivers.

Robert M. Gary writes:

If he's maintaining CAT III currency he's getting at least some auto
lands as well.

How widespread is Cat III equipment, on the ground and in the air?

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Mxsmanic wrote:
Robert M. Gary writes:

If he's maintaining CAT III currency he's getting at least some auto
lands as well.

How widespread is Cat III equipment, on the ground and in the air?

Most of the major carriers have CAT III equipment and most major
airports have at least one ILS with CAT III. You wouldn't get much AM
flying done near places like Sacramento and Seattle in the winter
without CAT III since the fog often reduces visibility well below
standard ILS mins.

-Robert

Hi mxs,

the topic question being rather general, the general answer would be: most
of it. However, I suspect you were looking for a more detailed answer so I
hope you don't mind if I give you my 2 cts on that.

My background: I'm an FO on FK70/FK100.
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1096746/L/

First of all, and I know this is prolly gonna cause a ruckus, but flying an
airliner for a living is not:

the fun

it's work. It's fun work (I wouldn't wanna have any other job) but it's work
nonetheless. If I wanna fly for fun, I'll go to the US and buy a 50-hr block
on a C172. Having established that airlining is work, I obviously wanna make
as much money as possible while working as little as possible, which is one
of many reasons to use the A/P as much as possible.

Let's start with the take-off:

Minimum A/P engagement altitude on the Fokkers is 35 ft AGL. The lowest I've
ever engaged it was prolly just above 1500' AGL, but I usually don't engage
it until about 4-5000'. I don't think I've ever waited as far as 10k'. Most
pilots in my company do it that way, but there are a few who will engage the
A/P ASAP.

There are several reasons for dong that way, some of which a using A/P
frees the PFs eyes for system monitoring during one of the most critical
phases of flight; if one engine decides to fly somewhere other than the
intended destination the A/P will absolutely make sure the rest of the a/c
flies where it's supposed to; the A/P does a much better job of flying the
required track and profile than a human.

This last reason is actually the reason why I like to do things the way I do
them: While passing Thrust Reduction and Acceleration Altitudes, the A/P
will follow the Flight Director (F/D) religiously, which, under some
conditions, may mean a fairly aggresive lowering of the nose. With some of
the Self-Loading Freight being rather sensitive with regards to having their
stomachs in their chest cavity I like to smoothen that part out a bit. With
the engines on Fokkers being so close together the resulting yaw in an E/O
case is small enough that it doesn't become a handful to fly, so that
shouldn't be a problem anyway.

There are some pilots who like to hand-fly the departure through 10k' or
more. Usually those will be fairly new ones, who will argue that they need
to practice hand-flying. However, the flying experience gained from staring
at a screen and moving a yoke around such that the F/D bars stay centered is
about the same as that gained while staring at a screen and moving the mouse
around such that the crosshairs is over the opponent in an ego shooter game.
No really, hand-climbing to the top of climb doesn't sharpen flying skills
one bit and compared to the A/P is inaccurate too. Better to use the A/P and
do some sight-seeing or read the paper. Or monitor the system.

Cruise:

Having the A/P off in the cruise, whether by choice or by malfunction, keeps
you out of RVSM airspace (starts at FL290), which of course means increased
fuel consumption, which of course means less money made on the flight.
Obviously, this is a major reason for having the A/P on during cruise
flight, since losing as little money as possible is the main goal of any
airline. Though I think the goal used to be to actually make money? Fancy
that!

Seriously, though: I had the A/P fail on me a couple of months ago with me
as PF during climb-out from Stockholm Arlanda (ESSA). We were limited to
FL270 where the planned alt had been FL350. Fortunately we had 30 mins extra
fuel on board, which saved us from having to divert. Also, after about 2
hours or so of staring at the PFD, I noticed myself getting a tad fatigued.
Plus of course I had less mental capacity available for system monitoring
than I would have had had the A/P been available. So there are valid reasons
other than purely commercial ones for having the A/P on during cruise.
Imagine having it fail half-way during a trans-atlantic flight!

Oh yeah: I didn't gain any flying experience either from keeping the needles
centered. And I didn't get to read my newspaper.

Approach and Landing:

If you guessed that the A/P is much better at keeping the needles centered
while riding down an ILS beam you guessed right. Which is the reason why a
few pilots leave it on until 80' AGL which is the minimum use height during
normal precision approaches (Auto-Lands (A/L) are a special case). However,
most people, including myself, normally switch it off somewhere between
2000' and 1000'. There's no good reasons for that really; I guess this is
where the fun flyer breaks out in us!

Visual approaches offer a bit more opportunity for hand-flying but are
unfortunately very rarely granted here in Europe. Even so, most of the
approach is flown on A/P, which is then normally disconnected somewhere on
downwind or base. Why? Because the A/P is much better at holding ALT and HDG
than a human. With HDG 360 selected the A/P doesn't slowly drift to 002,
then realize it's off a bit, correct to 358, then to 360 again, then drift
away again to 357 and so forth. It holds HDG 360. The same goes for
altitude, although holding altitude manually is very easy in the Fokkers.
Much easier than in C172s anyway.

A/Ls: at least 3 A/Ls have to be performed in a six-month period to stay
current. Of course there may be more if the weather so demands. On the
Fokkers an A/L ends latest during Roll-Out when the A/P is disconnected
while breaking to below 60 knots. BTW, breaking out at 50' and seeing a
runway in front of you looks pretty cool.

No newspaper reading during the landing. Honest.

Let me try to answer a couple more questions:

parts, such as takeoff and landing? Systems exist to fully
automate both, but are such systems routinely installed and used

Yes and Yes.

today? Do airlines have policies that require or prohibit the use of
such systems under normal conditions?

Here, it is recommended to make the most use of all available equipment, and
I believe that's the same for most large airlines.

Sorry for being long-winded. I hope it's what you were looking for


--
Michael Nouak
remove "nospamfor" to reply:

Michael Nouak writes:

Oh yeah: I didn't gain any flying experience either from keeping the needles
centered. And I didn't get to read my newspaper.

So you're saying that even flying the aircraft yourself is essentially
just a matter of watching the needles? Is this because you must stay
exactly right on the flight path? I take it there is very little
margin for pilot discretion on commercial flights.

BTW, breaking out at 50' and seeing a runway in front of you looks
pretty cool.

I agree. It validates one's confidence in technology.

Yes and Yes.

Long years ago I came into CDG on a flight from LAX and noticed that
the landing was glassy smooth despite essentially zero visibility (in
fact, I didn't know we were on the ground until I saw buildings in the
distance rushing by outside the window). At the time I thought it was
just a very good pilot. Now I suppose that it was actually an
autolanding--the best pilot of all.

Here, it is recommended to make the most use of all available equipment, and
I believe that's the same for most large airlines.

Sorry for being long-winded. I hope it's what you were looking for

I don't mind long-winded. Thank you for the very detailed reply,
that's exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for.

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