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Richard Casady

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:15:49 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Feb 13, 9:45*am, (Richard Casady)
wrote:
On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:11:10 -0400, "Don White"

wrote:
I'm sure the pilot had perfect visibility in the rain, fog and snow,
he was just scared....right, dummy?

The pilot is the necessary backup for the autopilot, which can land
the plane, and which does not use visible light and does not need
visibility. Rain and fog do not affect it. The pilot might have taken
the risk had there been a medical emergency or something.

Casady

An autopilot system can't make decisions based on deteriorating
weather conditions. A pilot can, and therefore did.

What makes you think it can't, for that matter. Computers can beat
nearly anyone at chess, and have been able to for a long time.

As far back as 1947 an autopilot on a DC-3 crossed the Atlantic and
landed with a pilot watching, hands off. The radio glide slope
instrument had been invented by then. There is even a book about it.

You missed the part about the autopilot being immune to weather. If
you trust the autopilot, there is no decision to make, you land every
time. They don't trust the autopilot. which is what I said. Pilots are
not failure proof either. They occasionally die on the job. That is
one of the reasons there are two. The Shuttle is totally unlandable
without the computer, so they have four of them. Two can fail in
succession and be outvoted. I happen to hold, since the seventies, a
commercial license with an instrument rating, and I can assure you
that neither approaches nor landings have to be perfect.

Casady