The A-320 autothrottle system is really no different than any other in the job that it does, but a little different in how it's operated. I'm reaching back a few years to the six years in the left seat of that plane, now, so I may not get all the details exact here.

The Airbus autothrottle levers are a big rheostat with detents that have switches in them, and all electronic. The autothrottles are set in either a Takeoff/Climb detent or FLEX detent at the start of the takeoff roll. The detent serves the same purpose as remote buttons in other planes. On the 757/767, we push the throttles up to the required power setting, then push an EPR (Engine Pressure Ratio, a thrust measurement) button. The EPR button in the 75/76 is the equivalent of the TO/GA or FLEX detent in the 'Bus.

The whole time, though, the Captain's hand is on the throttles, no matter whose takeoff it is. More on this in a minute. At V1, Takeoff Decision Speed, the Captain takes his or her hand off the throttles, signifying that the go/no-go decision has passed, and we are committed to fly, no matter what happens.

All throughout this process, the Captain has complete control of the throttles, and is charged with the decision to continue or abort up through reaching V1 speed, which is calculated for every takeoff, and is different for every one, based on airplane weight, power setting, air temp, density, runway condition, and a few other things. The nature of the potentially timely decisions that are made, and could be made, during the takeoff roll require that only one person be in that position. The Captain is trained for this, and though the first Officer may have been trained in the past, the decisions are solely those of the Captain. The F/O of course is backing up the Captain by monitoring the whole situation and if needed, speaking his or her mind, but overall, it's the Captain's decision.

The autothrust & autothrottle system is like a throttle with no return spring, but the associated computers also do fine-tuning on the thrust settings as the plane accelerates, climbs into different ambient air conditions, etc. For it to change configuration, though, we have to make inputs. The computers do not have control of the thrust mode, though.

As far as the rest of the "autotakeoff" myth, no computers on board are capable of making critical decisions, like whether to abort a takeoff given a certain set of conditions, or what exactly to do immediately following an engine failure, blown tire, big loud crunchy noises, cracked windshield, etc, so all takeoffs are hand flown.

I know there are unmanned aircraft out there, but they do not have people in them because their missions are too dangerous. If one of them is faced with unusual situations requiring a split second decision on flight control inputs while on a takeoff, they most likely will crash, but maybe not. In airline flying, we strive for a lot more certainty than that. Passengers' lives, and we also like to think flight crews' lives, are too precious to be trusted to computers for flight requiring the "human touch", so to speak.

On an autoland as opposed to a hand flown landing, there is a lot of pre-planning, systems requirement checking, monitoring, and potential decisions based on airplane and ground equipment conditions, as well as some complex weather reporting criteria. The whole reason we do autolands in the first place is to land when the runway visibility and usually also flight visibility is very low. Naturally, the conditions have to be much more highly controlled and more closely monitored.

There are a lot of callouts, with required conditions needing to be met, during the autocoupled approach and autoland, and certain systems need to me monitored continuously. There are a lot more conditions that require a go-around than that allow a landing, but fortunately, the reliability of those systems is very high, but still we are always prepared for a failure. That's one of the difficult parts, since in real life, they are so good. Of course, we get a ton of malfunctions in the simulators every 9 months!

On every autoland, the Captain's hands are not just near the yoke. The left hand is on the yoke, and the right hand is on the throttles. The right thumb is on the go-around button, the eyes are on the instruments, and the ears are both wrapped around the First Officer's callouts. The First Officer is also monitoring a ton of stuff, none of which is any less critical than what the Captain is monitoring.

In one of my other lives, I've flown countless ILS, VOR, NDB, LOC-BC, LDA, etc approaches in Part 91 (non-airline) flying. None of it is easy, though it was quite monotonous and routine sometimes. In fact, though the rules, equipment, conditions, etc . are vastly different in 91 vs. what we do, the requirements are essentially the same: you have to know what you're doing, and you can't be a dip-stick! Personally, Right now, I would not get in a small single-pilot airplane and fly in instrument conditions, let alone do an instrument approach in bad weather, without a lot of sharpening up with a qualified instructor. So, my hat's off (oops, been off for 3 years now) to you if you do them in little planes.

I personally make a PA announcement prior to every autocoupled approach for the purpose of doing an autoland, with an offer of "amnesty" for anyone with any electronic device that's not OFF, and ask everyone to turn ALL their stuff off. Given that the FAA, FCC, Boeing, Airbus, and United Airlines all want electronics off during flight, I do not wish to be a test pilot during an autoland. I know there are a lot of people who will read this and think they know better, but I don't wish to argue that point when we're in a very "electronics-intensive" phase of flight. Eventually, I think things will lighten up regarding electronic devices, but for now, I'll just play by the rules. They say chickens can't fly. I say, BS, because I'm a chicken and I can fly!

The Sterile Cockpit phase is unrelated to preparing for an autoland since the preparation begins far ahead of the Sterile Cockpit phase. As professionals, we do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

FAB