I’ve been working with an instrument student in the helicopter recently. Sometimes we fly an old-school ILS approach into KLWM that is equipped with an outer marker beacon (Wikipedia offers audio and visual examples). Thus she hears a loud tone upon reaching the final approach fix at which point the pilot typically has to do a bunch of things, e.g., decide whether or not to continue based on the latest weather report, start descending, advise ATC of one’s position, check fuel/engine gauges/warning lights, etc.
When we go to newer ILSes or GPS approaches, however, she doesn’t get any reminder that it is time to get serious about flying. If she happens to be looking down at the Garmin GPS receiver she may notice a change in the text displayed but certainly the aircraft, bristling with processors, doesn’t make any real effort to communicate with us. Back in the 1950s they figured out that pilots should be given audio wake-up calls at the final approach fix and also at the missed approach point (don’t see the runway? add power and climb out). Are humans today smarter somehow that these are no longer necessary? The Garmin GPS knows what the final approach fix and missed approach point is on every approach in its database. It is connected to the audio panel already. Why doesn’t it synthesize a voice warning: “Final Approach Fix” or “Missed Approach Point”? Why not at least use what we have in the aircraft to recover what we are losing as marker beacons get decommissioned?
One thing I always thought was cool about aviation is that a lot of the fundamental research in UX design was done to for aviation since it’s so critical there and bad UX can sometimes result in death, and even now that’s a problem, eg, if you’re flying a 777 into SFO and forgetting about piloting fundamentals like “power for altitude”. I suspect the answer is you’re correct here and Garmin will make a software change at some point, hopefully not in response to a lawsuit or death.
The aviation industry is great, the best really, at learning from mistakes and preventing reoccurrences of accidents, so this will be done as soon as major accident occurs as a result of not having such alerts built in.
Can you think of a precedent for a change that was made to the system (generally, not in isolated places) that was significant in preventing accidents, but did not benefit from the impetus given by a real disaster? If you can, the way it was promoted then might be applicable to your proposal now.
Because Garmin isn’t ProLine
This is the type of posting that will generate very few comments not because it is wrong or boring, but because it’s so Incontrovertibly correct that almost nobody can think of an insightful, unique comment in response.
By the time functions like this get approved, people are already riding in UAV’s controlled with a tablet.
“Your honor, we will show today that Garmin is responsible for this crash because their database omitted the missed approach point for this airport in their database, and their GPS receiver did not properly notify the pilot that she was in danger.”
Good point. Lots of room for improvement. Should VORs be identified by a three-letter Morse code? How many pilots can understand Morse code?