Is it plausable ??????

Is it possible for the auto pilot to land a plane??
or does it only keep it on the straight and narrow.

Is it possible for the auto pilot to land a plane??
or does it only keep it on the straight and narrow.

Depends on the auto-pilot!

Generally they just do simple stuff like keep it on a set course, climb and descend at a set rate and so forth. Generally, if ATC ask you to asscend to a certain height you just turn the knob on the auto-pilot and "dial in" the altitude and the plane automatically climbs smoothly.

Yes, I have spent FAR too much of my life on flightsims!

Bart.

Dave,

As you can imagine, the local media (TV and newspapers) have dedicated their complete 60-minute broadcasts almost exclusively to this accident for the past week (and, yes, I have been glued to the tube).

Your question has come up and I have seen/heard conflicting reports. On one occasion it was stated that the pilot is required for take-off and landing whereas the autopilot can look after everything else in between. On a second occasion I heard that the auto-pilot can also assist with the landing.

Perhaps someone else here with personal experience can help with this conflicting information.

Anthony.

As far as I know the pilot has 'landing aids' which help him land rather than actaully doing the landing. The system basically tells the pilot where he is relative to the ideal glide slope and he then makes the needed corrections. It may be possible that on some more advanced systems the plane can make the correctiosn automatically but automated landings are certainly not anywhere near routine today.

Going back to the topic at hand, I have always wondered myself if meteroites caused unexplained accidents down here. I'm not saying the Bermuda Triangle is a meteorite haven, but perhaps (as Conn Buckley mentioned) these meteorite instances might have led to an unexplained plane crash and so forth.

It is estimated that at least 400 tonnes of meteorite material falls to Earth every day, mostly as airborne dust. Who's to say none of that is big enough to hit the ground - every day - either?

Seanie.

Is it possible for the auto pilot to land a plane??
or does it only keep it on the straight and narrow.

Apparantly, concorde was the only plane that could be landed on auto-pilot, but it couldn't take off on auto-pilot.
Just a pearl of useless information I have :lol:
Bill.