Auto land and Glide slopes?

Question

Do pilots normally use auto land and glide slopes. Or do they usually land by hand?

Answer 1

Seldom autoland.  

Often use glideslopes.  Flying at or above the glideslope can sometimes be a requirement.

Answer 2

Auto-landing systems use the glideslope to find the runway, and there's a difference between flying the approach and landing the airplane.

Pilots flying transport-category aircraft almost always use the glideslope on approach and landing - stability on approach is critical when flying big heavy airplanes.

Very often if weather is marginal pilots will use the autopilot to fly the approach. That way the pilot can be a better observer of everything that is going on during the approach.

Usually pilots will actually land the airplane by hand (they'll turn off the autopilot at about 200 feet above the ground and fly the touchdown portion by hand.

Most autolanding systems, particularly older ones, don't land very smoothly. They're very good at getting the airplane on the ground at a particular place, but don't necessarily do it gracefully. Autolanding systems are getting better however, and probably pilots will use the autolanding systems more and more often.

Answer 3

Take-off and landing are the most interesting parts of a flight, usually, so most pilots are keen to handle both by hand (or at least with less automation than they use for the cruise portion of a flight).

If visibility is poor, pilots will use instruments to guide the landing but will monitor it closely, and they will take over and fly manually once they've descending to a certain altitude and the runway is in sight.

If visibility is really bad, pilots may do an autoland, and in that case the airplane flies itself to landing.  The pilots just monitor and watch. Pilots also do autolands periodically in better weather in order to keep the aircraft and crew certified (a certain amount of regular practice is required in order to prove that both the aircraft and the crew are ready and able to execute autolands correctly).

Answer 4

When you say glide slope, almost all airplanes nowadays have them and mostly all the commercial airlines use them in all their flights (by law, commercial air traffic is fly by IFR flight plan anyway).Although glide slopes are great indications of your glide path for landing, they are also used in other purposes as well (i.e. go around).

On the final approach it is mainly the pilot’s discretion how he/she wants to land the aircraft. If it is perfect VFR day, the PIC may do the old stick and rudder landing him. But on a pure IFR weather, the pilot depends a lot on Auto Pilot until the touchdown.Regardless; a pilot has always the hand on controls.

Answer 5

If its a bad day and visibility is poor ILS would be the best option, but if its a nice summers day, hardly any wind and visibility is great, they would do a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) This means they either fly by pure eye sight or they use the good old glide scope if needed.

Regardless of whichever landing option chosen, the pilots always have the hand on the controls & its a legal requirement to have a glide scope also.