About six weeks ago Garmin introduced a new auto land feature for private aircraft. It senses when a pilot is non-responsive, and it can be easily activated by passengers. It finds the nearest appropriate airport, communicates with air traffic control and lands the plane on its own.
Most aviation accidents in the U.S. involve light aircraft. An average of three times a year a private pilot becomes incapacitated while flying. This looks like a game changer for worst case scenario events.
Electronic Stability Protection, the new system briefs passengers through the multifunction display(s), makes radio calls (announcing location, aircraft type, and intention to land at the chosen airport), times the flare based on available data (radar altimeter and GPS), brings the aircraft to a stop, and shuts down the engine.
This new system can route around thunderstorms and other obstacles, and even determine midflight that another airport is more desirable and make a correction.
Putting this sort of power into the hands of general aviation seems like a huge win, but some pilots are concerned that it’s a step to replacing humans in the cockpit entirely. This is a great advance for when the machine works well and the pilot fails, but it’s not a solution for when the machine fails.
(HT: losingtrader)
This will kill people….a lot. Way ,ore da ferrous than THREE incapacitation per year.
Ryan is dumb. Navy jets regularly autoland on moving carriers, no issue with this at all.
I see what you did with that photo 😉 lol
re: This looks like a * game changer * for worst case scenario events.
I don’t see how this as a game changer, UNLESS it is required to be installed. It won’t be cheap and therefore it will not be adapted by the private pilots most likely to benefit.
They should put this on every Cape Air–er, Cape Scare flight. For example the one where the pilot went into a diabetic coma (because he didn’t tell FAA he was a type 1 diabetic, which would have been disqualifying) and a student pilot passenger had to land the airplane…and did so with the landing gear up.
As to general aviation, a new high performance single engine plane is close to or more than $1 mill. This easily fits into the budget of a new purchaser.
Current autopilot and avionics technology on cheaper models of single engine planes is vastly superior to what it was 20 years ago. A pilot can program the route and altitude and the plane will fly to the destination and execute a precision instrument approach. This does require pilot intervention in complying with ATC clearances, non-standard departure and arrival routes, traffic, etc, but the idea someone who flies for business wouldn’t buy this is incorrect. Heck, there are full glass cockpits in training aircraft, and full autopilot in many rental aircraft.
Autoland is a logical extension of the really cool tech that has been happening in general aviation.
The average non-pilot is not familiar with how automated air carrier approaches already are.