Weird questions...

[Burble]

The Eurofighter has a bunch of thermal imagers which are sold through the company I work for and to some extent partly designed by one of our engineers.

[Will]

Well you're my hero too Paul!

[Burble]

I should bloody well hope so too!

[TinkerBell]

Thankyou Goose for the awesome responses

Originally Posted by Darrin

Also the wiper blades themselves are vertical like a bus. So the wind goes the same direction...


At least some of them are...

That is GENIUS! I never thought of that!

Originally Posted by Will

Aww bless young Tinkerbell You know the planes land themselves now too yeah? I think it's called ILS? In fact Goose will no doubt correct me, but I believe there have been flights where pilots have not had to touch the controls once other than information gathering and radio - I don't think they did it with passengers on board though. Also auto-pilot is just that it flights the plane for you automatically. Furthermore if you ever sat in the cockpit of a large plane you can hardly see in front of you, the side windows yes but straight ahead, there's hardly a need unless you're taxiing or coming in on approach. I wish they still allowed you to sit on the flight deck I miss those days.

Yes I am young Still learning in fact! I knew they had auto pilot but I assumed the pilots did something! Other than just checking the computers are working otherwise surely the pilots would be called computer techs! I want to sit in the flight deck, that sounds SOOOOO coool!!!! Damn to being young and not around in those years


AND I have another question!


Do cats and dogs get pins and needles?!?

[Feek]

Just back to the original questions, aeroplanes can land themselves providing the airport is suitably equipped. However most of the time the autopilot will fly the plane from a few seconds after takeoff until very close to landing where the pilot will disable the autopilot and hand fly the final approach and landing. Pilots like to actually fly the 'plane and the landing is one of the few chances they get for manual handling.

Of course, the pilot has to program the autopilot which is a job in itself!

Except where visibility is incredibly poor where the aircraft can and in some situations must perform an autoland. It can read the ILS (Will, the ILS is the system at the airport which provides a 'beam' for the aircraft to fly down, it's not the system in the aircraft itself) and doesn't need a visual sighting of the runway. If the pilot is flying manually he must be able to see the runway at 'decision height' and if he can't then he must abort the landing and go around for another try or divert.

(Pilot in the context of this post means either Captain or First Officer and I am of course talking about commercial aircraft)

[Goose]

Oooh, tricky question as dogs can't run around going 'ow ow ow'!

Will, you are correct sir. There are 3 main categories of ILS, each giving different levels of accuracy. Category IIIc is the best, and allows the plane to land via autoland no matter what visibility. It's a little scary to think about it, as it means the plane could land on the runway at night, with no runway lights. Scary stuff.

It all comes down to workload. Some use autolanding a few times a year, some use it far more often. In fact, I bet it varies tons from company to company. Also, it depends on the airport itself (and the certification!).

Some companies insist that new pilots use autopilot pretty much constantly, so they can concentrate on take-offs and landings (the important parts!). Also, if there is a problem at any point, the autopilot does have a limit to what it can handle, so it tends to be safer to do certain parts of the flight by hand.

Edit: Feek,

[AboveTheSalt]

Originally Posted by TinkerBell

Eeeeek, that is slightly worrying, computers flying me around the world!

To be honest, I would probably be happier being flown by a computer than a human.

As I understand it, the recent Spanair MD82 crash at Madrid airport which killed some 150 people was probably due to the Pilot (or First Officer) failing to deploy the wing flaps and slats (which increase lift at low speeds) - as a result, the plane simply fell out of the sky after take-off.

[Feek]

What I don't like is the fly-by-wire systems, remember Paris where the driver advanced the throttles but the Airbus decided not to do it and he went through the trees?

It's partly why I don't like the Airbus range.

[AboveTheSalt]

Originally Posted by Feek

What I don't like is the fly-by-wire systems, remember Paris where the driver advanced the throttles but the Airbus decided not to do it and he went through the trees?

It's partly why I don't like the Airbus range.

Happened ten years ago on a very early model A320 and so far as I am aware, has not happened again:

The newly delivered Airbus A.320 was to perform for Air Charter a series of flights on behalf of the Mulhouse Flying Club. The crew were to overfly Mulhouse-Habsheim airport two times (first at low speed, gear down at 100 feet and the other at high speed in clean configuration) as part of an airshow.
The aircraft took off from Basle-Mulhouse (BSL) at 14:41 and climbed to 1000 feet agl. The crew started the descent three minutes later and Habsheim was in sight at 450 feet agl. The first officer informed the captain that the aircraft was reaching 100 feet at 14:45:14. The descent continued to 50 feet 8 seconds later and further to 30-35 feet. Go-around power was added at 14:45:35. The A.320 continued and touched trees at the end of the runway at 14:45:40 with a 14 deg. pitch attitude and engine speed being 83% N1. The plane sank slowly into the forest and a fire broke out.

PROBABLE CAUSES: "The Commission believes that the accident resulted from the combination of the following conditions: 1) very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles; 2) speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack; 3) engine speed at flight idle; 4) late application of go-around power. This combination led to impact of the aircraft with the trees. The Commission believes that if the descent below 100 feet was not deliberate, it may have resulted from failure to take proper account of the visual and aural information intended to give the height of the aircraft." (Link)

[Feek]

Oh I know that, it's just that certain things stick in ones mind and that's one of them. It was nearer 20 years ago though