You don't have a smartphone or tablet Skuzzy? (iPhone or Android based?... and now it's looking like win8 too)
Airplane mode has been a very standard and common feature now for all mobile platforms - what windows8 is specificly customed to. I use it frequently on my phone, but most (grounded) people probabley never do need to or want to, primarily what it's for is it prevents your device from killing the battery since otherwise it'll constantly be scanning for and trying to establish network/cell connection - so it kills all your networking until its renabled.
Skyrock, unless your new laptop has a touchscreen - windows 7 is far better for you, especialy if you're primarily utilising your laptop for gaming. This sounds like a sleep/power saver feature, win8 just isn't recognising you actively using the network/internet/computer while running AH... or maybe whenever you go afk for 5+ min (or simpley don't touch your computer while autopilot is on), and you really are technicaly afk, it kicks on (very likely I suspect, laptops have agressive default power saving settings).
But yeah, sorry, otherwise I have no idea how win8 works. Try browsing windows support forums to see if you can disable it from automaticly kicking on - if you were using a more familiar windows version then I'd guess it's in your power management settings. Good luck!