A B757 captain advised that his air carrier's requirement to engage the autopilot/ at 500 AGL is inc...

Attributes
ACN	1156295
Time
Date	201403
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	LEBL.Airport
State Reference	FO
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B757-200
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Takeoff
Route In Use	SID GRAUS 3Q
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Autoflight System
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Narrative:

Apparently lebl ATC called up and wanted to know why we started our turn late on the graus 3Q departure from lebl. The SID requires a turn at 500 AGL. Unfortunately we are required to turn the autopilot on at 500 AGL per the company's airport operations tailored page so after the autopilot is turned on it takes the jet awhile to figure out where it is and where its going and you're through 1;000 feet AGL before it starts turning. A better way to do this is to hand fly the initial 164 heading then turn the autopilot on. Until the company's autopilot requirement is removed we will continue to have problems with this departure.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B757 Captain advised that his air carrier's requirement to engage the autopilot/ at 500 AGL is incompatible with the need to comply with restrictions on the GRAUS 3Q RNAV SID out of LEBL.

Narrative: Apparently LEBL ATC called up and wanted to know why we started our turn late on the GRAUS 3Q departure from LEBL. The SID requires a turn at 500 AGL. Unfortunately we are required to turn the autopilot on at 500 AGL per the company's airport operations tailored page so after the autopilot is turned on it takes the jet awhile to figure out where it is and where its going and you're through 1;000 feet AGL before it starts turning. A better way to do this is to hand fly the initial 164 heading THEN turn the autopilot On. Until the company's autopilot requirement is removed we will continue to have problems with this Departure.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

A B757 captain advised that his air carrier's requirement to engage the autopilot/ at 500 AGL is incompatible with the need to comply with restrictions on the graus 3Q RNAV SID out of lebl.