Use of Automation (Auto Landing) on an Instrument Landing System
Most pilots make use of automation if they feel they are incapable of landing the planes manually in bad weather.
Charles Raisor from Quora posed this very common and interesting question.
Horrible Weather Conditions
So, what were my horrible weather conditions?
Well, amongst others, poor visibility, strong cross winds and rain were some of the conditions I was most concerned about when landing a plane.
Today, most major airfields are equipped with the Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) that enable a plane to land safely in bad weather conditions.
Modern airplanes have been designed to land even with zero visibility but the ground equipment has to be maintained to a very high standard.
As such, the maintenance and installation costs are very high and most major airports only install an ILS up to a category other than that which permits zero visibility landing.
Instrument Landing System
The conventional wisdom is never attempt to land a plane in poor visibility without a good instrument landing system. Instead, divert to a better airport!
On 10 April 2010, a Russian airliner crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk with a loss of 96 lives due to fog and poor visibility. The President of Poland, his wife and almost the whole Cabinet perished. The tragedy was due to the crew’s failure to divert to an alternate airport despite being warned many times of the poor weather conditions.
However, if there were an Instrument Landing System, the plane would have landed safely.
My unforgettable moment
Many years back on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Perth, I encountered poor weather on my arrival. It was a stormy and rainy night and I could not land because the landing runway did not have an Instrument Landing System. As my fuel was approaching the diversionary limit and the weather was unsuitable, I diverted to Adelaide, about 1,000 miles away.
It was my longest diversion. When I finally landed at Adelaide, the passengers clapped at the safe touchdown. My senior flight attendant then related to me that a passenger had commented that it was better to be late than to be ‘dead on time’ (literally) as a consolation.
Conclusion
“There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” so goes the saying in one poster in my flying school at RAF Acklington in England in 1968.
Those who were pilots have scared themselves just a few times have understood the truth of this expression. Apparently, one version on the origin of this saying arose during the First World War where the average life expectancy of pilots was low. Their boldness versus inexperience were a crazy waste of resources then.
What this cliché was trying to inculcate in us was, don’t be a show off. When the odds are against you, don’t land! Chicken out if you have to.
From lessons learnt, I just did that at Perth when the weather was against me and the fuel was running low!