Given that this bird appears to have some of the better flight dynamics in FS2004, do you manually land this aircraft or let the autopilot do the landing? I must admit that I let my NG auto-pilot do more landings than I figure would be normal in real flying. I wonder just what the ratio of auto-landings to manual landings is in real life NG ops, does anyone know? I think that there is a currency required for the crew in auto-landings, so some must be done that way at least. Thanks,Bruce.

Bruce,I typically handfly the approach from 2500 AGL to touchdown. However, if the weather is bad, I let the AP do the dirty work.

I've been a very happy user of the NG since very shortly after its initial release. In all the flights I have made since then I have only flown one full autoland, and that was just to confirm it worked as advertised! I find the aircraft is just so nice to hand fly that it seems a pity not to do so. On a couple of occasions I have set the aircraft up for an autoland, only to find myself disarming the AP at around 1000AGL because I don't want to miss a landing!Chris Kirk

>Given that this bird appears to have some of the better>flight dynamics in FS2004, do you manually land this aircraft>or let the autopilot do the landing? I must admit that I let>my NG auto-pilot do more landings than I figure would be>normal in real flying. I wonder just what the ratio of>auto-landings to manual landings is in real life NG ops, does>anyone know? I think that there is a currency required for>the crew in auto-landings, so some must be done that way at>least. Aside from the required autolands, the decision to land or hand-fly varies widely with the philosophy of the operator (airlines) and the pilots.I'm aware of some pilots who prefer to fly every approach and landing by hand, and others who let "george" fly the approach and do the landing themselves. Some operators require coupled approaches when the weather is marginal (less than 1000 feet and three miles).The autoland results in a very good (from a safety standpoint) landing, but is usually firm, so most pilots take over at the last 50-100 feet in order to make a gentler touchdown.I've been training as an SIC lately with a 135 operator on KingAirs and a HawkerJet, and our operations manual requires us to handfly 50% of our approaches/landings when the weather is better than 2000 and five miles. It also requires us to fly fully coupled approaches when the weather is less than 1000 and three, and the times in between is left to the captain's judgement.

Thanks Chris, Fred and Timothy,Some great answers.Although not an NG (far from it :) ), I was a pax in a UA B744 late last year, YSSY to KLAX. Listening to ATC on Ch 8, I heard us being cleared for a visual to 25L by SoCal, and the pilot requesting an auto-land (so the wx was visual from base-to-final, must have been at least 10 miles). Next we were re-cleared for the 25L ILS approach (the reason no doubt for the need for the request to do an auto-land). Having "flown" PS1 before, I was pleasantly surprised to see the auto-throttles attempt to maintain IAS on the initial flare until we were level pitch (something that some of us thought was a bug in PS1 until Mel Ott- I think it was- told us that this was normal in the auto-land). A very firm landing, maybe your comments (Tim) on the firmness of auto-lands apply to all a/c.Thanks again,Bruce.

I thought the autoland setup was a little flaky, until I learned it only works with a Cat-II or Cat-III runway. It of course, allways works now. I landed at KLAX using autoland ( forget the runway) I had to leave shortly so I did not have time for go-arrounds etc. I landed and could barly make out the runway centerline, just about a 0-0 deal. I was amazed. I could see no buildings, grass, nothing, in a few minutes the smog or whatever lifted a bit and I make out a taxiway. Ground was saying exit runway etc.regards

I've yet to auto-land with the NG. I know, I know, the NG autolands perfectly, but it just takes all the fun and work out of flying. The landing is the best part, simply because of the challenge. I'm not perfect at landing the NG, however, my only real problem, as with a lot of birds is landing centerline. I always seem to drift off center, but touchdown is smooth. I disengage AP above 5000 AGL or higher most often.Chris

What exactly do folks mean by "hand flying" the approach? Not using the VOR/LOC and APP functions at all? I would have to agree that the full autoland takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. I had previously been flying the ProjectERJ ERJ-145 and never used it's autopilot functions at all (and no A/T to boot). Frankly, I have been missing that lately.I've been working through Tim's excellent tutorial, but I'm still not quite clear on whether one leaves the MCP speed set at Vref+5 all the way through touch down, or if it should be reduced to Vref at the threshold. I gather that A/T continues to function whether the autopilot is engaged or not. I haven't really paid attention to what the A/T is doing during the flare, but it seems to me that if it is going to try to maintain the set speed, then as you started to flare and your speed started bleeding off (which is what you want), A/T would start increasing power to keep the speed up. I think this is why I have tended to balloon or float on my other than full autolandings.Mark Kuebeler

>I've been working through Tim's excellent tutorial, but I'm>still not quite clear on whether one leaves the MCP speed set>at Vref+5 all the way through touch down, or if it should be>reduced to Vref at the threshold. I gather that A/T continues>to function whether the autopilot is engaged or not. I>haven't really paid attention to what the A/T is doing during>the flare, but it seems to me that if it is going to try to>maintain the set speed, then as you started to flare and your>speed started bleeding off (which is what you want), A/T would>start increasing power to keep the speed up. I think this is>why I have tended to balloon or float on my other than full>autolandings.Normally the speed is bled off as you pass through 50 feet. Unless doing an autoland, you can either reduce the MCP speed, or kick off the autopilot and reduce the power yourself.Important note - if you've got a gust correction, you maintain that through touchdown. You may bleed off the steady headwind correction though.Smartcockpit (www.smartcockpit.com) has a good briefing on landings.

By handfly, at least to me, I mean I am controlling the aircraft, less the throttle which I let the A/T take care of. However, I tune the ILS into the reciever so I can always see how badly I am doing ;)

I always disconnect the autopilot as soon as I complete the landing checklist and of course i've seen the runway.... I never use auto landing..... prefer manual landing... :)Dany Setyadihttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Thanks, interesting web site! Based on that briefing I identified at least one problem with my landings: pitching up too much in the flare. Correcting that helped me enough to pull off a fairly good manual landing, if a bit long. Something else to work at. :)Mark Kuebeler

i allways manually land the plane, ive been doing manual landings ever since i have started flying in real life and sim, ive never done an autoland but i did do a landing with the help of ils but i still hand flew it in(767-400 sim at delta world headquarters in atlanta) i guess because of all those landings, thousands of them, i never really have a problem. it seems easy to me.ofcourse i guess that goes with me not knowing how to use autoland, lol, i just learned how to use the fmc

Hi Guys,1. Using autothrottle during a manual landing is prohibited. The autothrottle will try to maintain airspeed when not used during autoland and will therefore cause a longer, perhaps too long, landing distance.2. FAS (Final Approach Speed) = VREF + wind correction, at least VREF + 5, at most VREF + 20. During autoland, FAS is ALWAYS VREF+5. No additional wind correction may be used.3. FAS is maintained until you're over the threshold, which should be exactly when the GPWS announces "fifty" feet. From there, you're allowed to bleed off you're airspeed, including the wind correction.In fact, officially VREF is your threshold speed, so it is allowed to arrive at the threshold at 50', having reduced to VREF.Trying to land with the gust correction may be impossible if it's very high (or result in an excessive touchdown rate or use of runway). In fact, a normal touchdown should generally occur at VREF to VREF - 5 (yes, that's MINUS).Iz

Thanks Iz, for your great explanation.Miquel Egea.