Autoland Inop?
Autoland Inop?
You know how you get your ILS all lined up and are coming in on final approach right? Well for some reason for me when I engage my autoland it lands me JUST shy of the runway? Should I disengage and fly the flare automatically, or do something different with the engage?
Squawk box
Problem: Autoloand does not work or lands rough!
Solution: Aircraft not equipped with autoland!!!
I couldn't tell you for sure since I've never flown any of the airplanes in Lock-On with autopilot, but generally speaking IRL, an autopilot follows the beam of the localizer (horizontal) and glide slope (vertical) for guidance. The glide slope transmitter is usually placed 750 to 1,250ft down from the approach end of the runway and offset from the centerline by about 500ft. The beam does get very sensitive towards the end, as the slope is only 0.7 degrees wide on either side of full scale needle deflection which equals only a few feet at close range from the antenna location. Given the angular width of the glide path, at the FAF (final approach fix or outer marker, usually 4-7nm from the runway) the same beam could be a several hundred feet wide. In the real world, for a non-autoland CAT III approved plane, approach and crew (those aren't as common as people think), the autopilot would be armed to intercept the localizer while on the final vector towards the final approach course and once the localizer is captured, it would capture the glide slope (normally from below) and start using the autopilot's algorithm to track the signal, making corrections for wind and deviations far more subtle than most other autopilot modes. At no less than 200ft (non CAT II and CAT III approaches) the pilot would disengage the autopilot and hand fly the remainder of the approach to landing (including rounding out the landing or flaring).
I could be wrong, but I doubt any of the Lock-On planes have autoland!
Hope that helps!
LD
Problem: Autoloand does not work or lands rough!
Solution: Aircraft not equipped with autoland!!!
I couldn't tell you for sure since I've never flown any of the airplanes in Lock-On with autopilot, but generally speaking IRL, an autopilot follows the beam of the localizer (horizontal) and glide slope (vertical) for guidance. The glide slope transmitter is usually placed 750 to 1,250ft down from the approach end of the runway and offset from the centerline by about 500ft. The beam does get very sensitive towards the end, as the slope is only 0.7 degrees wide on either side of full scale needle deflection which equals only a few feet at close range from the antenna location. Given the angular width of the glide path, at the FAF (final approach fix or outer marker, usually 4-7nm from the runway) the same beam could be a several hundred feet wide. In the real world, for a non-autoland CAT III approved plane, approach and crew (those aren't as common as people think), the autopilot would be armed to intercept the localizer while on the final vector towards the final approach course and once the localizer is captured, it would capture the glide slope (normally from below) and start using the autopilot's algorithm to track the signal, making corrections for wind and deviations far more subtle than most other autopilot modes. At no less than 200ft (non CAT II and CAT III approaches) the pilot would disengage the autopilot and hand fly the remainder of the approach to landing (including rounding out the landing or flaring).
I could be wrong, but I doubt any of the Lock-On planes have autoland!
Hope that helps!
LD
I'LL CALL IT WHAT I WANT TO!!!! 
Thanks guys. It wasn't until I was landing 5 feet short of the runway till I realized maybe it wasn't used for that. But when you put it on RTN mode it lines you up w/ the runway and automatically changes it to LNDG mode and slows u down and everything. I'll probobly still use it, but just not ride it all the way in.
Thanks guys. It wasn't until I was landing 5 feet short of the runway till I realized maybe it wasn't used for that. But when you put it on RTN mode it lines you up w/ the runway and automatically changes it to LNDG mode and slows u down and everything. I'll probobly still use it, but just not ride it all the way in.