All Weather Landing: A Report on the I.F.A.L.P.A. Symposium Held in Amsterdam, October 17–19, Which Took as its Theme ‘The Last Hundred Feet’

MORE than 200 delegates and observers from sixteen countries attended the International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations (I.F.A.L.P.A.) Symposium on all weather landing, at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam from October 17 to 19, 1962. The Symposium, which was opened by Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands, heard presentations from a considerable proportion of the equipment manufacturers in the automatic landing field, covering the current state of their system development and testing. More than half of the symposium was allotted to discussion and many of the pilots present expressed their opinions. The dominant theme of the discussion, naturally enough, was the proper place of the pilot in the all weather landing operation. This aspect of the operation is probably now the most contentious in the whole field and views expressed at this meeting might have been expected to be of great value to equipment and aircraft manufacturers. In fact, although much of interest was said, it cannot be recorded that there was a large measure of agreement between the pilots present.