Originally Posted by
DirectTo
Alder, since you're an -11 guy, and I fly an airplane with no Cat 2/3/autoland capability of any sort, I got a question for you.
I was jumpseating on an FX MD-11 that did an autoland for currency. Light winds, beautiful morning. The landing itself was a thing of beauty...really nice and remarkably soft.
Is that normal? I would have thought autoland would be more of a "get it down, firmly and at the touchdown point so the numbers are valid" sort of thing. Or did I just catch it on a lucky day?
Probably a combination of aircraft, conditions and a lucky day. In general, on the -11, I would say they're usually very good landings but not necessarily always perfect. I've never seen one land outside the touchdown zone, so the numbers should be valid.
The worst one I ever saw was on an A320 at ORD for a cat-3 update. The bottom just fell out at about 20 feet and we had to hide in the cockpit while the pax got off because HAL had a bad day.