Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

ILS generally still requires manual visual approaches from the minimum altitude to the ground. Only ILS Cat III-C is a true autoland that can take the aircraft down all the way to the ground.

Even then, aircraft certification requirements even for Cat III-C capable aircraft requires that pilots be able to conduct a visual approach because the ILS system can fail.

An aircraft that has literally no recourse when ILS Cat III-C capability goes down (either on the aircraft side or the airfield side) does not seem like a good idea, especially because in this case large categories of emergencies are positively correlated with avionics failure.

For example an engine failure may cause power loss to avionics, so your fancy AR webcam feed is more likely to go down in that situation just when you need to make an emergency landing.

Not impossible to overcome of course - you certainly can ensure your avionics have its own isolated (and multiply redundant) power source so that it does stay up in the event of many kinds of emergencies, but personally I'd need to really see the homework on that before I'd feel safe flying in that kind of setup.



The category of of ILS does not dictate its autoland status. You can do an Autoland on nearly any ILS provided the FAC is aligned with the RWY.

A CAT IIIB ILS will permit in most states a landing with a radio altitude of 0.


But whether or not it can do an ‘Autoland’ currently is irrelevant because as the parent said:

> Even then, aircraft certification requirements even for Cat III-C capable aircraft requires that pilots be able to conduct a visual approach because the ILS system can fail.

Whether or not it can do an ‘Autoland without the pilot being able to check’ while satisfying the regulator’s inevitably vastly more stringent rules is what matters.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: