Nick writes:
> Land a plane with auto pilot? Not on any of my flights, thank you.
Chances are they've already done it to you Nick :-)
I believe many of our modern airliners and many larger airports have the
capability (and certification) for operations down to zero/zero (ceiling /
visibility) conditions. These "Category III" (IIRC. Someone with an actual
rating can correct me if I'm juggling terminology poorly) operations require
special crew training and the runway and aircraft need the appropriate
equipment of course.
Even in cases where such operations are not approved, I believe most modern
autopilots are capable of continuing an approach to touchdown, it's just
that under most circumstances the autopilot will be disengaged at some point
during the approach.
There are no major technical barriers to doing what Jeff's asking about, and
it would not take too much of an emergency before such a system would be
better than the current alternatives.
G.
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *