Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-l
Hey 450knotOffice
At what point in the approach would you have to start manually flying the plane.
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Well, that depends on the airline's specific procedures, but when the weather is bad, most airlines require the autopilot fly the jet down to the point where the pilots see the runway, or "minimums" (the lowest altitude for that particular approach), at which point they may disconnect the autopilot and continue the descent to land normally. By the way, that's not to imply that the pilots can't fly the approach themselves, it's just considered the best way to fly the approach to the airport. Also, when the autopilot is disconnected, the actual guidance that the autopilot uses is still there for the pilots to use. Clicking off the autopilot does not disconnect the flight guidance and leave the pilots with only "raw data".
Quote:
Originally Posted by greglepore
Reading pprune, Air Canada A320's don't have gps, hence no RNAV.
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Interestingly enough, when looking at the two approaches, the LOC approach allows slightly lower visibility and a slightly lower Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA), so not using the RNAV shouldn't have been an issue. That airplane STILL internally creates a glidepath that the pilot is supposed to follow to the runway.