> Sounds more like very simple cruise control, at least for the main leg of the flight. The cruise control (keeping the speed) is the autothrottle. > Does an

> Sounds more like very simple cruise control, at least for the main leg of the flight. The cruise control (keeping the speed) is the autothrottle. > Does an autopilot "lane keep", in the sense of issuing corrections after hitting a turbulence "pothole", to return it to the flight path? AFAIK, it depends on the intensity of the turbulence. If it's not too strong, it will maintain the set heading (not flight path) and altitude, issuing corrections as necessary. If the turbulence is too strong for it to correct, it'll disengage (with a beep and blinking lights) and let the pilot deal with it. > One thing I would expect "sufficiently-advanced autopilot" to do, would be to fly under/over/around large regions of turbulence on its own, and to then return to the original heading. That's the pilot's role, the pilot has to give the autopilot instructions on where to go to avoid the turbulence (and the pilot is the one who has to find the turbulence in the first place, by using the weather radar and reports through the radio from the ground or from other airplanes, and even then there are kinds of turbulence that are basically invisible). > Also, is there any actual logic for obstacle avoidance? If you steer two autopiloted planes toward each-other, do they "take evasive maneuvers", or do they just beep very loudly to get the pilots to do that? That's called TCAS, both airplanes talk to each other and decide on a course of action (which one should climb and which one should descend), and they tell the pilots (through a pre-recorded voice) what they should do. The pilots should immediately override the autopilot (there's a conveniently-placed button to do that) and fly manually. AFAIK, no autopilot does that automatically for now. There's also terrain warnings (either through a downward-facing radar or through a database of terrain heights), I don't know whether there are autopilots which automatically ascend when a collision with terrain is imminent and the pilot doesn't react to the aural warnings in time. > ...also, is the on-the-ground taxi-ing process automated? As far as I know, it isn't.