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Landing can be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand,
by ckastner 1y ago
Landing can be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands.
I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so.
You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
- amelius 1y agoI'm curious, what is harder to implement: autoland for airplanes, or autoland for rockets (spaceX)?
- ckastner 1y agoI don't know if these are comparable. But two interesting data points from the Wikipedia article I linked are that the first aircraft certification for ILS Cat III was in 1968, and Cat IIIB in 1975. And IIRC by the 1980s, autoland was already a pretty common feature.
- themafia 1y agoMost carriers have a rule that on clear days you always hand fly the landing. This is a competence you do not want to lose. It's also the case that you can have a whole approach setup in your flight computer and at the last minute the controller gives you a runway change. You could drop your head down and start typing a bunch info the FMC but you're generally better off just disabling auto pilot and manually making the adjustment.