lost_in_asia

My attempt at answers from flyinryan:

Im not a UA pilot but I can take a stab at these. I am am currently flying a 767 on a contract with a Japanese Airline based in Tokyo. Im on here because I commute to work on UA each month. Japanese airlines are much less "laid back" that US Airlines but some of the stuff is similar.

1. At my company, we do all international flights and we start our briefings 1:30 minutes prior to departure time. For us, we only do an actual face to face briefing with a dispatcher for an ETOPS flight. For all other intra-Asia flights, we do out own briefing on a computer. All flight plans and calculations are pretty much done and we just review the weather and make any necessary changes then off we go to the airplane. China flights are a little more involved because well, it's China.

2. Autopilot use varies on the pilot. Some turn it on immediately, some hand fly to 10,000 ft, and there are a few who hand fly all the way up to cruise altitude.

3. Most approaches are flown coupled to the autopilot initially. I personally disconnect around 1500 - 1000 feet to do a manual landing. Autolands are not all that common unless done for currency. Every once and a while I will manually fly an ILS, especially if I have a sim check coming up.