MD11 Autoland Question

[maple-syrup 40]

As far as I'm concerned flaps/gear are deployed by speed. And runway length and Wind... Not by altitude?

[flyingnoob 25]

Paul,

 

extending the gear at 1800ft RH is fine if you fly in CATI or better with a manual landing to follow the ILS. Just be careful to be at Vapp, gear down and landing flaps when reaching 1000ft RH.

But if you're doing a low visibility approach CAT II or III then you should slow down earlier, not just because of the AFS and its 1500ft limit for an autoland. This will also help to have more time for the important monitoring required for such an approach.

 

Cheers,

Markus

Hi markus, thanks

 

All my speeds are controlled by my fmc anyway - i notice that the fmc slows me down way too early, so i have to manually raise my speeds by raising it and right clicking the knob.

 

I normally am at full flaps(35) well by 1000ft, as i say - about 1800 its gear down then once thats done i hit full flaps (fs2crews order).

 

Could this also be why when i hit the ils, i do not go down the glideslope? i do turn and get the callouts that its alive, but wont start to descent - even though im at the 3000ft(or whatever height required).

 

Sorry to be such a noob.

 

Regards

 

Paul

[mburkhard 23]

Paul,

 

no, gear and flaps have no influence on whether the AP captures the G/S or not. Unless of course you'd try to do that at 340kts

What does the FMA say once you're on the glide but the AP does not descend? Maybe post a screenshot of exactly that moment?

 

Markus

[flyingnoob 25]

I haven't noticed anything different about any displays to what's "normal for me" Markus.

 

Next time I will take a screenie.

 

what's/where's FMA? :rolleyes:

[Bread Hammer 1]

Don't enter the ILS manually into the FMC; it will do it automatically.

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi,

flyingnoob, on 21 Jul 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:

what's/where's FMA? :rolleyes:

Right in front of you, above the attitude indicator. The gray box which is seperated into 3 parts. It shows you very important information about what your autoflight system is doing.

From left to right the boxes show the following:

1. Box: Shows you information how the autoflight system (or the FD when handflying) is maintaining the speed. This can be:

- "PITCH" - pitch for speed

- "THRUST" - throttle for speed

- "IDLETHRUST" - idle descent mode, also pitch for speed

To name the most important ones.

 

2. Box: Shows you information how the autoflight system (or the FD when handflying) is controlling at the latteral axis. This can be:

- "HEADING XXX" - flying a heading

- "NAV1"/"NAV2" - following the FMS commands

- "VOR1"/"VOR2" - following the VOR indicator

- "LOC ONLY" - following the localizer

- "LAND ARMED" - autoflight system is armed to land the plane

To name the most common ones.

 

3. Box: Shows you information how the autoflight system (or the FD when handflying) is maintaining altitude constraints. This can be:

- "CLB THRUST" - Climb thrust is set

- "HOLD" - Altitude hold

- "APPR ONLY" - No land mode. AP will disconnect at 100ft AGL.

- "GS" - Maintaining the glideslope

- "DUAL LAND" - Doing a full automatic landing. That's what you'r looking for.

To name just a few.

 

For further information refere to page AUTO.30.26 in the Systems manual (page 160 in the PDF).

 

Best regards,

 

Jonathan

 

EDIT: You might also want to have a look at page PT.30.4 i nthe Flight Crew Operating Manual (page 367 in the PDF). It explains what you should do when and what the aircraft does while you perform an automatic landing.

[flyingnoob 25]

Thanks guys,

 

@bread - ok I didn't know that, I always put ils freq in manually, the panics I've got into while trying to search for charts online looking for it.

 

 

@Jonathon,

I hit APR to arm landing (land armed highlights) then when I am going down the loc I get my dual land, (from memory) it, then would change itself to loc only, appr only.

 

The "appr only" as you describe is what has been happenening where A/P disengages and leaves me to fend for myself - (anything above having to hit F2 on landing leaves me in a panic  :unsure:  ).

 

Thanks for the in-depth description - I tried looking at the manual once before and thought "oh dear" and it's not been out since!!

I'm not good at reading stuff I don't understand, - I can read, but when there are so many abbreviations for stuff, it goes right over ones head!

 

Thanks again guys

[SierraHotel 985]

Paul,

 

extending the gear at 1800ft RH is fine if you fly in CATI or better with a manual landing to follow the ILS. Just be careful to be at Vapp, gear down and landing flaps when reaching 1000ft RH.

But if you're doing a low visibility approach CAT II or III then you should slow down earlier, not just because of the AFS and its 1500ft limit for an autoland. This will also help to have more time for the important monitoring required for such an approach.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

Hi Markus, could you tell me? What would be normal company policy regarding "autoland", I mean is it mandatory or can you choose to land manually?

[xxJohnxx 21]

No, an autloand is normaly not mandatory. Autolands are normaly performed for two reasons:

 

a ) The weather at an airport requires an autoland. If there is little forward visibility and/or a very low ceeiling it may be neccessary to fly an CAT II or CAT III ILS approach. If not equipped with a HUD (like the NGX) those approaches must be flown by the autopilot.

 

b ) As everything in aviation an automatic landing should be trained, so that it works out when needed. So many airlines say that a pilot has to do one automatic landing a month. So if you don't encounter bad weather for a longer time, it can happen that you will have to perform an automatic landing in weather which wouldn't require one, because one of the crew members hits that limit.

 

Please note: In FSX you can do a CAT IIIC landing at every airport equipped with an ILS. This is not the case in the real world. Many smaller airports only have an ILS which is capable of ILS CAT I appraoches.

The number of airports which allow CAT IIIA or even CAT IIIB (automatic landing including rollout) landings isn't very big.

As far as I know the only airport in the world, which ILS is capable of providing CAT IIIC (automatic landing including rollout in 0 visibility (which means in theory the crew doesn't have to see the runway, even when the aircraft is on the ground)) is London Heathrow. Again, as far as I know, it is still not possible to do such a landing, because Heathrow doesn't (or didn't) have some neccessary detector loops on taxiways and roads arround the runway and ILS installations, which are neccessary to monitor if the runway is clear and the ILS signal isn't disturbed by the catering truck, who's driver got lost in the thick fog.

 

As said, that is only as far as I know and that information might has changed by now.

[SierraHotel 985]

Thanks John.

[flyingnoob 25]

quick md11 question here - I am stuck at FL247 with my EGT stuck @ 638, how do I fix tis to climb higher? I have no warnings, or lights lit up on the overhead.

 

Paul

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi Paul,

 

What weatherengine do you use? This seems like your TAT is to high, which means the air the engines breath is to hot for that altitude and it reaches it's EGT limit.

 

Quick guess: You use FSInn?

FSInn is a known source for that problem.

[flyingnoob 25]

 

 

Yes I use fsinn, but fsinn's weather is disabled, - my tat is showing +55, and I use active sky 2012.

 

It did this once before I started flying online.

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi,

 

I still think it is FSinn what messes up your systems. I don't have it so, I can't help you. Maybe some FSinn user will chime in and help you.

 

PS: Interesting colors you use there.

[flyingnoob 25]

It done it once before fsinn was anywhere near my system. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/407753-egt-too-high/

 

I appreciate your input though.

 

the colours have been pointed out to me before as being interesting, thanks.

 

After just reading that post I linked to you - its strange that again I was going egph-leal.

Edited July 22, 2013 by flyingnoob