For all u ppl in the big leagues question?

[comander]

For airline,regional and others pilots>
Concerning the autopilot
I always have ask myself how much is the autopilot used , at what time do u guys engaged it, how much actual flying do u guys do and when do u usaly turn it on and off.
I imagine that I would take off and probably after 2000'agl turn it on and maybe just turn it off on aproach and land the plane myself.
Is this the way its done? can airplanes now days land and take off thereselves?
Do pilots do almost all the flying or does the autopilot do most of it?

 

[DrewBlows]

Don't know if I qualify as a big leager (maybe AA), but I'll give it a shot anyway. At my airline there are many different styles. Some people will turn the AP on at 1,000' to 2,000' on climbout and some will take it all the way to cruise. Most will turn it on lower if the weather is poor. It then typically stays on until approach. A visual approach usually means the AP will be off sooner. If the weather is poor it will stay on until minimums; it won't land itself and doesn't have autothrottles.

Personally I tend to turn the AP on more sooner than later on departure and turn it off more sooner than later on visual approaches (if that makes sense). I reason that I am more likely to blow an altitude hand flying than the AP is. I used to hand fly to altitude because I could make it smoother than the AP, but with more experience in the airplane (328JET) I have become comfortable managing the automation and find that I can be just as smooth pusing buttons. Also with experience I have become more comfortable hand flying visual approaches and just assume turn the AP off sooner so that I actually get a little "stick time."

Incidentally, I found that flying a visual approach was one of the hardest things to learn and become comfortable with. I rarely shot a visual approach during my flight instructing days, and the sim was nearly useless in this regard. So I guess my advice to CFII's and intrument students is to use automation at least enough to be comfortable with it (the new PTS requires you to use it) and to practice visual approaches.

Hope this helps.

 

[Big Duke Six]

Your guesses are fairly accurate. It's usually smoother to let the autopilot do most of the departure, enroute and initial arrival phases. Some guys will hand-fly up through FL180 or even up to level-off at cruise, but in the Airbus this means that the pilot not-flying has more work thrown on him then. So, although we sometimes do it for proficiency, most of us are courteous about it. As for the descent and approach in the Airbus, there are usually two ways to do it. One is to let the autopilot do it all - i.e. let it figure your descent rates, intermediate level-off points and speeds. The other way, which most of us like to do, is to let the autopilot fly but WE control the descent rates, speeds, power settings etc. Really, we are flying the airplane at this point, but we're doing it via the knobs on the panel. The autopilot and autothrust are working, but we're making the commands. The 'Bus is rarely completely hand-flown in this phase, i.e. hands on the stick and thrust levers.


Once we're actually on the approach, i.e. within 1000' feet of the ground, we usually hand-fly it from there (with the exception of the thrust, although we can do it for profiency), but we don't have to. It will land itself if we want it to, and we do do that if the vis is less than 2400 RVR. We can land in visibility down to 300 RVR. In vis this low, all we would expect to see at touchdown is one centerline light on the runway, but may not see anything due to the body angle of the airplane when the main gear first touches down. If there is a crosswind, the airplane will decrab itself before the wheels touch. All we have to do then is pop the reversers, but even that is not required as the airplane will stop itself using autobrakes. It will maintain the centerline by itself throughout the rollout using the localizer, and we need to turn off the autopilot in order to taxi off the runway.
That's the Readers Digest version of Airbus autopilot use!

 

[mar]

KISS. Keeping it simple

Nothing fancy here. I hand fly until she's cleaned up and then engage the A/P.

On approach, it depends. Basically, configured and stabilized and then it comes off.

 

[comander]

Exelent thanks for your answers, just as I thought, and how I do it in msfl2002, hehheeh, I had a teacher at ground school that flies a A319 and said that the aircraft lands it self, I thought to myself wow ,but also how confident must you guys be to let this happened with almost cero visibility ha. I did not know that if you turned the ap on at higher altitudes this would be more work for the copilot, or the pilot not flying ,now I know this.

quote!
all we would expect to see at touchdown is one centerline light on the runway, but may not see anything due to the body angle of the airplane when the main gear first touches down. If there is a crosswind, the airplane will decrab itself before the wheels touch.

thanks for the explanation on how it looks and how it acts, wonderfull technology.