Just wanted to know under what conditions and at what point in the approach that u real world airline pilots will hand-fly the aircraft in for the landing?

Whenever you want :-)Nice day, wide awake, visual approach-5000ft.Crap weather, tired, non-precision approach-as late as possible!2000ft is a good figure to work with though.

Thanks for the information HPSOV.Best wishes,Randy Smith

Flew jumpseat yesterday with a training captain. Normal SOP in our outfit is to go on autopilot at around FL100 during climb, but have seen it engaged as low as 3000 FT, and go back to manual flight at around 3000 FT on the approach. Anyway, on the flight yesterday the skipper flew manually, but with autoflight guidance, up to FL220. On the descent at around 8000 ft he called out "Autopilot disengage" quickly followed by "Autothrottle disengage" and then with a dodgy smile "Flight Director disengage" .... it was a nice clear evening and he felt like flying on raw data to keep in practice.The point here, as mentioned previously, is that many airlines leaves this decision in the hands of the pilots. However, other airlines have different ideas. Have heard that SOP in Singapore is to engage A/P as low as 100ft during take-off, and leave it on for an autoland.

"Have heard that SOP in Singapore is to engage A/P as low as 100ft during take-off, and leave it on for an autoland. "Do you mean 1000', Top Heavy? Engaging at 100' sounds quite risky (if not impossible on some aircraft types) :-eekCheers.Ian.