Jack wrote:
Robert M. Gary wrote:

The plane is not designed to autoland itself smoothly, it is
designed to touch down within a specific spot on the runway and come to
a complete stop quickly.

The 757 autolands itself smoothly as consistently as the average pilot.
It comes to a stop quickly or not, depending on the Autobrakes setting
chosen by the crew. Is the 777 so different?

I guess I wouldn't consider an autoland in that series "smooth" and
would challenge you to find a pilot who claims he is not smooher than
the autoland system. I would describe a 767 autoland as a "thunk" and
certainly not a greaser. Its not hard enough to drop things from the
overheads of course, but its not something a pilot would write home
about in pride had he hand flown it. I'm not sure I understand your
statement about the autobrakes. Do you have knowledge of the auto brake
setting on the flight the OP presented? As I recall the Boeing switch
has RTO,OFF,10,20,30,MAX but that's from old memory. I didn't see the
OP's description of where it was set.



In case anyone has any fantacies [sic] of
being able to land a 777 by pushing an 'autoland button', an 'auto
land' is actually much more difficult than just hand flying.

Psychologically, maybe, and naturally systems knowledge and proficiency
is necessary, but your claim of "difficulty" needs more context. What
could be easier than watching it happen, in a physical sense?

You don't push a button and watch it happen. Its like saying shooting a
GPS approach is "sitting back and watching it happen" compared to an
ILS. It takes training to understand how to use your GPS system, how to
set it up, etc. It takes training to understand how to use the autoland
system.

-Robert