[trekky1700]

From what a pilot told me, I believe the A320 he flies can take off, fly, and land totally on its own. I'm sure the same is true for other planes.

Also, if I recall correctly, he said in certain conditions it's against regulations for a pilot to be manually controlling the aircraft, such as landings in high winds.

[cmurf]

Literally none of this is true.

"land totally on its own" suggests autonomy. In reality it's a three part certification: pilot, plane (autopilot), and runway. There is only one zero visibility landing system, and that's the ILS CAT IIIc.[1] If there's no ground capability for the runway (does not exist or is down for maintenance) then the plane can't do a CAT IIIc landing.

In practice there is no such thing as landing without an explicit clearance to land. Clearance is given by ATC to the pilot via AM radio. The autopilot has no language listening or speaking skills at all. Numerous clearance modifications happen during a flight, given verbally.[2]

The plane also doesn't taxi itself into position, and it doesn't retract or subsequently deploy landing gear. Many tasks aren't available to the autopilot, nor are many transitions between tasks.

About the last statement, FAR 91.3(a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft. You could construe FAR 91.13(a)No person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another. as requiring the pilot to use automation if the aircraft manufacturer requires it in certain situations. Otherwise, no, and I have only ever heard of autopilots needing to be disabled in high wind situations.

[1] Example instrument approach procedure. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see it explicitly requires ground navaids and a certified crew. http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1709/09077I35RC2_3.PDF

[2] Example STAR which most airports don't have, but when they do you'll even see these are really just designed to allow ATC to "plug in" a smaller subset of data like an altitude or speed, without having to recite the entire arrival instructions. Can it be automated? No, because the variables are delivered by voice. The STAR is useless without the variables, and variables are useless without the STAR. http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1709/09077POWDR.PDF

[Piskvorrr]

Fairly sure it still needs the pilot to tell it "now we're taking off", "now we're cruising", "now we're landing" (and under what parameters). Doing that switch automatically seems unsafe.

The other part sounds improbable - quite the opposite, a pilot always needs to be able to take over in case the automatic systems fail.