alt Hacker NewsAutoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
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Found the recording with VASAviation subtitles and timeskips (because I couldn't decipher it without!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Nl3LOZNjc
If you're one of the many developers at Garmin who worked on this, I can't imagine a better Christmas gift!
Absolutely amazing. Well done, Garmin. Imagine getting to go to work everyday to work on something that actually saves lives. Fantastic systems engineering work.
Garmin really is setting a standard for modern engineering. Hard to think of another company that still has solid engineering for both consumer and industrial applications.
This feels like the evolutionary endpoint of what people casually call “autopilot,” not the traditional aviation sense.
I wonder if a human is in the loop. Obviously the software is hardly ever used (a good thing), so you wouldn't need many humans available. If communication is possible, wouldn't you hand control to a pilot on the ground?
I don't know that they could actually fly the plane - is latency too high for landing? - but they could make all the decisions and communicate with air traffic control, other planes, and the passengers.
The computer announcing the pilot incapacitation is at 11:50.
It's amazing what this technology can do. I wonder what the interface in the cockpit was like, who activated it and why, how it chose the runway, and other details that will likely come out in the final report if not earlier.
I think the radio call could be improved a bit though. It spends sooo much time on the letters and so little on the "emergency" part. It almost runs that sentence together "Emergencyautolandinfourminutesonrunway. three. zero. at. kilo. bravo. juliet. charlie."
>Aircraft November 4.7. Niner. Bravo. Romeo. Pilot incapacitation. Six miles southeast of Kilo. Bravo. Juliet. Charlie. Emergency auto land in four minutes on runway three zero right at Kilo. Bravo. Juliet. Charlie.
It would be nice to hear something more like:
Aircraft November-Four-Seven-Niner-Bravo-Romeo. Mayday mayday mayday, pilot incapacitation. Six miles southeast of the field. Emergency autoland in four minutes on runway three zero right at Bravo-Juliet-Charlie.
Still amazing, and successful clear communication ... but it could use some more work :)
This is a huge milestone, and everyone at Garmin who worked on Autoland should be patting themselves on the back, they saved some lives today and will undoubtedly save more. Amazing technology.
We have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?
We massively discount how much better we make the world every day.
FYI, a King Air is a small general aviation plane, seating up the 13 passengers.
Proudly wearing my Fenix!
Unfortunately there was a plane crash on Thursday of a Cessna Citation 550 that killed former Nascar driver Greg Biffle, his wife, his two kids, and both pilots. Greg Biffle himself was a certificated pilot and helicopter pilot but not flying in the crash. Incredibly sad. Hopefully technology such as this can reduce these tragedies.
There needs to be a button on the console of every airplane which is "return the airplane to straight and level".
If only Biffle was in a King Air.
Awesome to see stuff like this. Light sport aircraft have parachutes. Cool to see safety being incorporated into the avionics and not just flying it, but getting her down safely.
I've ridden on a King Air a few times. Surprised how fast the thing was, traveling west to east we sustained 600mph ground speed. Also pretty quiet interior given it's powered by turboprops.
There are rumors that there were 2 pilots aboard, and that one of them accidentally triggered autoland, and they couldn't figure out how to turn it off:
https://vansairforce.net/threads/garmin-emergency-autoland-i...
Why doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.
This is Garman SafeReturn, and this is its first real save. Here's a demo.[1] It's been shipping since about 2020, originally on the Cirrus Vision Jet. There's a lot going on. The system is aware of terrain, weather, and fuel, but not of runway status. So it gives the ground a few minutes to get ready, sending voice emergency messages to ATC. If you watch the flight track, you can see the aircraft circle several times, some distance from the airport, then do a straight-in approach. It sets up for landing, wheels down, flaps down, lands, brakes, and turns of the the engine. It doesn't taxi. Someone from the ground will have to tow or taxi the aircraft off the runway.
It's mostly GPS driven, plus a radar altimeter for landing.
The system can be triggered by a button in the cockpit, a button in the passenger area, and a system that detects the pilot isn't making any inputs for a long period or the aircraft is unstable and the pilot isn't trying to stabilize it. The pilot can take control back, but if they don't, the airplane will be automatically landed.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ruFmgTpqA