Garmin Autoland

geezer said:
Another what if? The ATIS advises a temporary closure for pothole repair, and the truck full of asphalt and spreading equipment is on the runway for half an hour? Does the software understand voice messages from the ATIS or tower person?

I suppose that the software has some type of go around signal that will become standard at all towered airports in the future, but that feature will have to be standard before Autoland should be approved by the FAA.
Click to expand...

Could happen that the runway is closed. We could come up with all sorts of esoteric reasons for how it might not work quite right. But when you consider the low probability that the system will be used at all and the low probability that the runway it chooses has a paving truck on it, you’re into some really unlikely situations. So, yes, could happen, but not likely.

It does not understand anything broadcast at it. But it does broadcast every 30 seconds on the local frequency (changing the frequency as it progresses along its route to the airport; as well as broadcasting on the emergency frequency) its intended landing runway and time to destination, so any airplanes in the area can give way, just as happens when a pilot declares an emergency.
 
AKiss20 said:
I wonder if there is ever a plan to integrate this with CAPS. Maybe then it could pitch to CAPS deployment speed and pull the chute and alert emergency services? That being said, I’m sure Cirrus is wary of giving anything beyond a physical handle pull the authority to deploy such a system.
Click to expand...
If Autoland in the Vision Jet can’t find a suitable runway it will advise the passenger via a video on the MFD how to pull the CAPS handle. On the jet, once the handle is pulled, the autopilot comes on and slows the airplane to the proper deployment speed and proper attitude before it fires the rocket for the chute.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I bet if it is squawking and not talking, they would clear the runway.
Assuming a controlled field.

Hey if the pilot wakes up, can he call it off?
Click to expand...

The pilot can deactivate it by hitting the AP or autopilot disconnect button.

It broadcasts a message every 30 seconds about what airport it is going to and which runway and when it will be there—changing frequencies as progresses to its destination, so local pilots should know to give way.
 
TomHaines said:
If Autoland in the Vision Jet can’t find a suitable runway it will advise the passenger via a video on the MFD how to pull the CAPS handle. On the jet, once the handle is pulled, the autopilot comes on and slows the airplane to the proper deployment speed and proper attitude before it fires the rocket for the chute.
Click to expand...

Wait so you’re saying that the order of operations is

1) Autoland tells passenger to pull the CAPS handle on the MFD
2) passenger pulls CAPS handle but CAPS does not immediately deploy but rather now autopilot slows plane to CAPS deployment speed
3) once that speed is reached CAPS deploys automatically

Is that right? If so, it sounds like the CAPS handle is already not a direct physical initiation of the rocket motor (like pulling a firing pin or something) but rather just an input to some form or control system. That’s interesting and somewhat surprising to me.
 
AKiss20 said:
Wait so you’re saying that the order of operations is

1) Autoland tells passenger to pull the CAPS handle on the MFD
2) passenger pulls CAPS handle but CAPS does not immediately deploy but rather now autopilot slows plane to CAPS deployment speed
3) once that speed is reached CAPS deploys automatically

Is that right? If so, it sounds like the CAPS handle is already not a direct physical initiation of the rocket motor (like pulling a firing pin or something) but rather just an input to some form or control system. That’s interesting and somewhat surprising to me.
Click to expand...

Correct. In the jet, CAPS is electronically controlled.
 
I'm NORDO at my non-towered home-drome, and collide with a large male elk in rut, on the first 1,000 feet of our 5,000 foot runway. My nose gear is collapsed, and my rag-wing beauty is sideways on the runway, fuel flowing freely from a ruptured header tank. Struggling free of the wreckage, with a rapidly expanding and compass-shaped knot on my forehead, I lurch out onto the (formerly) active runway, waddling at top speed away from the now-smoking wreckage; gasping and concussed, I manage another thousand feet down the center line, finally collapsing on my ass, dazed and stunned. Looking up, my headache, money, marriage, concern for the elk, and IRS problems are solved by the impact of a Vision Jet right between my eyes.

Just as well, since the Garmin equipped death-lance is also on fire, having plowed through the pyre of my now orphaned aerial conveyance. Trailing smoke, fire, and expensive parts, and spattered with human remains (or, in my case, at least primate), its blood and fuel soaked brakes, now also bathed in flame, fail, and it rockets off the end of the runway, and through the carefully placed McDonald's drive-thru, immolating all aboard, along with a Cub Scout pack in a 12 pax van waiting on their Happy Meals...

Just as well, in that I don't live to deal with the lawsuit brought by the children of the Vision Jet pilot, their patriarch having been killed by the reckless and irresponsible actions of the little airplane pilot. The good doctor (or lawyer, or money launderer, or limousine liberal, or whatever) was forced to engage the auto-land feature, so as to deal with an emergency bowel movement (caviar consumed past its prime) .

Garmin joins the suit, since their life-saving software and avionics suffer unwarranted bad press, and sales are depressed to the point that only pseudo, wannabe, pretend pilots, with more money than knowledge of statistics are the only remaining customers. McDonald's releases a statement that the airport, opened in 1930, should never have been allowed to have airplanes land so close to a gathering place for children. They offer free (cold) coffee for a day, and initiate a hostile takeover of Garmin, based on the depressed stock price.

Please hold my calls, and do not be offended if I ignore your responses. This is satire, and no pilots lacking in spiritual elan or a true aviator's temperament were injured in it's creation.
 
Sundancer said:
I'm NORDO at my non-towered home-drome, and collide with a large male elk in rut, on the first 1,000 feet of our 5,000 foot runway. My nose gear is collapsed, and my rag-wing beauty is sideways on the runway, fuel flowing freely from a ruptured header tank. Struggling free of the wreckage, with a rapidly expanding and compass-shaped knot on my forehead, I lurch out onto the (formerly) active runway, waddling at top speed away from the now-smoking wreckage; gasping and concussed, I manage another thousand feet down the center line, finally collapsing on my ass, dazed and stunned. Looking up, my headache, money, marriage, concern for the elk, and IRS problems are solved by the impact of a Vision Jet right between my eyes.

Just as well, since the Garmin equipped death-lance is also on fire, having plowed through the pyre of my now orphaned aerial conveyance. Trailing smoke, fire, and expensive parts, and spattered with human remains (or, in my case, at least primate), its blood and fuel soaked brakes, now also bathed in flame, fail, and it rockets off the end of the runway, and through the carefully placed McDonald's drive-thru, immolating all aboard, along with a Cub Scout pack in a 12 pax van waiting on their Happy Meals...

Just as well, in that I don't live to deal with the lawsuit brought by the children of the Vision Jet pilot, their patriarch having been killed by the reckless and irresponsible actions of the little airplane pilot. The good doctor (or lawyer, or money launderer, or limousine liberal, or whatever) was forced to engage the auto-land feature, so as to deal with an emergency bowel movement (caviar consumed past its prime) .

Garmin joins the suit, since their life-saving software and avionics suffer unwarranted bad press, and sales are depressed to the point that only pseudo, wannabe, pretend pilots, with more money than knowledge of statistics are the only remaining customers. McDonald's releases a statement that the airport, opened in 1930, should never have been allowed to have airplanes land so close to a gathering place for children. They offer free (cold) coffee for a day, and initiate a hostile takeover of Garmin, based on the depressed stock price.

Please hold my calls, and do not be offended if I ignore your responses. This is satire, and no pilots lacking in spiritual elan or a true aviator's temperament were injured in it's creation.
Click to expand...
I made the "air sucking through teeth" noise reading that. Kinda cringed there when I hit the thumbs up, I did. But that was rather, er um, creatively graphic. What happened to the elk?
 
Eric Stoltz said:
I made the "air sucking through teeth" noise reading that. Kinda cringed there when I hit the thumbs up, I did. But that was rather, er um, creatively graphic. What happened to the elk?
Click to expand...

The elk was dazed and had a gash in its antlers from the small plane. Lady elks found this appealing and were drawn to him, which led this elk on to father lots of other "elklings" that repeated said scenario at similar airports in the area for years to come.

The whole incident going down (no pun intended) as the great Garmin scout massacre at McDonald's...or as the elk (named Randy) would call it : Randy's lucky day
 
It seems like runway incursions and NORDOs in the pattern are more common than incapacitated pilots. Maybe the fact that they accounted for the very rare case without accounting for the merely rare case just makes this an imperfect system, not a bad one. But considering the years of boasting about zero unsuccessful deployments (by Cirrus's counting), isn't this system potentially less safe CAPS?
 
Lindberg said:
It seems like runway incursions and NORDOs in the pattern are more common than incapacitated pilots. Maybe the fact that they accounted for the very rare case without accounting for the merely rare case just makes this an imperfect system, not a bad one. But considering the years of boasting about zero unsuccessful deployments (by Cirrus's counting), isn't this system potentially less safe CAPS?
Click to expand...

SurfaceWatch and SafeTaxi already exist for runway incursion concerns. Various traffic options exist for NORDO aircraft, of course if, let's say, I'm flying my hot air balloon around the approach path for an Autoland aircraft it won't see my balloon (no electrical system) and could run into it.

I guess I should just go back to bed and stay in there. Oh wait, a meteor might fall on my bedroom, so that's not safe either.

Maybe I should ride horses. Kansas has a law that you can't sue stables if you get injured riding a horse because it's inherently risky. There we go, logic.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
SurfaceWatch and SafeTaxi already exist for runway incursion concerns. Various traffic options exist for NORDO aircraft, of course if, let's say, I'm flying my hot air balloon around the approach path for an Autoland aircraft it won't see my balloon (no electrical system) and could run into it.

I guess I should just go back to bed and stay in there. Oh wait, a meteor might fall on my bedroom, so that's not safe either.

Maybe I should ride horses. Kansas has a law that you can't sue stables if you get injured riding a horse because it's inherently risky. There we go, logic.
Click to expand...
So you agree with my conclusion that this may just be an imperfect system, not a bad one? And what of the fact that Cirrus is offering it as a substitute for a system that it credits with a 100% success rate?
 
Rgbeard said:
Wait a LONG time. I don't see ANY retrofit options on the horizon. It's either factory-installed, or nothing, IMO.
Click to expand...

Not true. I have the G2 and it is retrofitable!
 
Last edited:
Lindberg said:
So you agree with my conclusion that this may just be an imperfect system, not a bad one? And what of the fact that Cirrus is offering it as a substitute for a system that it credits with a 100% success rate?
Click to expand...
What system is that? If you’re referring to CAPS then I ask you for a source that Cirrus is removing CAPS? I haven’t seen anything to that effect.
 
Lindberg said:
So you agree with my conclusion that this may just be an imperfect system, not a bad one? And what of the fact that Cirrus is offering it as a substitute for a system that it credits with a 100% success rate?
Click to expand...

All systems - read that again - ALL SYSTEMS have imperfections. Designed by man and all that. Every single system has a failure mode associated with it. Any engineer worth his salt knows this.

Autoland is not a substitute for CAPS, just like airbags are not a substitute for seatbelts. Cirrus is not removing CAPS from the SF50 and adding Autoland. They are systems that have differing use cases and together provide additional safety together. When you look at the number of Cirrus crashes where a pilot should have pulled the CAPS but didn't because they were afraid of damage to the aircraft (and thought "I can get this back on the ground myself" when they couldn't), it would seem that someone would be much more willing to push the Autoland button if things were going downhill.

It's funny - we all talk about being sick of reading NTSB reports, and then when a feature comes along that has a legitimate means of reducing some of these reports, people complain about it. Can't please everyone I suppose.
 
I have to say, I am not a pilot, but this system seems to be a really good feature. I can imagine it would make my wife more comfortable if she were flying with me in this plane. Those who can afford an SF50 can probably afford this option. I imagine this option will sell pretty well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ted
Fallsrider said:
I have to say, I am not a pilot, but this system seems to be a really good feature. I can imagine it would make my wife more comfortable if she were flying with me in this plane. Those who can afford an SF50 can probably afford this option. I imagine this option will sell pretty well.
Click to expand...

I think Cirrus said it will be standard for 2020+ SF50s.
 
Eric Stoltz said:
I made the "air sucking through teeth" noise reading that. Kinda cringed there when I hit the thumbs up, I did. But that was rather, er um, creatively graphic. What happened to the elk?
Click to expand...
Elk Tartar. But he was out of season, so my estate was fined $1,500.00.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
All systems - read that again - ALL SYSTEMS have imperfections. Designed by man and all that. Every single system has a failure mode associated with it. Any engineer worth his salt knows this.

Autoland is not a substitute for CAPS, just like airbags are not a substitute for seatbelts. Cirrus is not removing CAPS from the SF50 and adding Autoland. They are systems that have differing use cases and together provide additional safety together. When you look at the number of Cirrus crashes where a pilot should have pulled the CAPS but didn't because they were afraid of damage to the aircraft (and thought "I can get this back on the ground myself" when they couldn't), it would seem that someone would be much more willing to push the Autoland button if things were going downhill.

It's funny - we all talk about being sick of reading NTSB reports, and then when a feature comes along that has a legitimate means of reducing some of these reports, people complain about it. Can't please everyone I suppose.
Click to expand...
I don't think we're complaining about it - just mocking it; I didn't note anyone suggesting it should be banned; more along the lines of discussing some possible failure modes and misapplication.

I think the accident stats are about where they should be, but that's just me. If you keep the AOA below the critical angle, keep fuel in the tanks, and stay out of killer weather, you'll likely die outside an airplane, and getting squished in GA will fall into the "noise" realm for you.

Mid-airs in cruise flight and pilot incapacitation are so infrequent as to be extreme outliers. Personally, well within my risk tolerance envelope. But heck, if I bought an EXP, I might like a BRS, if it didn't have a "proper" airplane engine.

But I think the actual ROI on something like this isn't there; it's more a crutch for skittish spouses, or for pilots with the money (and perhaps timidity) to feel the need to embrace it. Which is fine, each to his own. But if it saves even one life, then it was probably way too expensive, in price, maintenance, payload, and unforeseen glitches in operation.

For a lot of us, GA is for fun, vice serious travel for work, etc. Absolute, iron-clad safety isn't necessary, or even desirable. Skills to be proud of seem reduced in importance, if the consequences of incompetence are removed.
 
I read a comment online that the system goes for $130K??? So, it’s not about hating technology or pointing out an imperfect system. None of that really matters because for me, I can’t afford to spend money on a system that costs more money than an entire aircraft. I want safety for my pax but it still has to be within reason.

If you have an SF50, then an extra $130K doesn’t matter. More power to ya. For the little guy wanting to put this system in their light single, it isn’t going to be a reality anytime soon.
 
Palmpilot said:
The article claims that this feature could have saved JFK Jr. I'm wondering if it has been tested for recovery from a graveyard spiral (which I suspect is what he got into).
Click to expand...

Heck, I think even the "blue button" will do that.

And, remembering when the blue button first came out, we all bagged on it then just like we're doing with this feature now, but it's also now retrofittable on many airplanes for under $20K and that includes a brand new modern autopilot. I've gotta say, I like this development.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ted
What's "the blue button"?
 
Palmpilot said:
What's "the blue button"?
Click to expand...

A button that will return the plane to straight and level when pushed. Basically unusual attitude recovery if the pilot can't do it.
 
Palmpilot said:
What's "the blue button"?
Click to expand...

The LVL button that will return the plane to straight and level. Initially introduced on factory new SR22s with the GFC700 several years ago, and mercilessly mocked at the time. Now it's on the GFC 500 and 600 too, and any of us can add it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top