I know that right after takeoff pilots switch on autopilot. I would like to know if the initial turns \[to place the plane on the route to its destination\] are made manually by the pilots or are made automatically by the plane’s own system. If that’s the case, before each flight do the pilots enter the route into the “computer” and the autopilot follows it until it’s time to land?
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For many commerical aircraft, the autopilot can either be instructed to follow a heading dialed in on a control panel, or follow a route set in a computer (LNAV aka lateral navigation mode on Boeing jets)
The first turn after takeoff would likely still be hand flown, until the plane reaches a couple thousand feet in altitude.
Once the autopilot is engaged it will either follow the preprogrammed route from the flight computer, which includes the desired altitude, speed and heading (direction).
The pilots can alternatively also generally set any one of those 3 things manually (in Airbus this would be ‘managed’ vs. ‘selected’) by turning little knobs on the console, selecting the speed, altitude and/or heading they want the plane to follow.
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