Now the $3 million plane can autoland like a $300 drone

In the last two years, the new FAA attitude toward avionics in light aircraft has resulted in what looks to pilots like a revolution (ordinary consumers, though, will say “You mean it couldn’t already do that?”).

Here’s the latest: Garmin Autoland. After the elderly classic GA pilot has a heart attack from reading one Trump tweet too many, the Cirrus Jet will land itself, corrected for any crosswinds, and hit its own brakes:

Well, now, with certification pending for Autoland on the M600 SLS and shortly thereafter on the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet, the Garmin panel goes to the next step of beginning an automated sequence of events that results in a safe touchdown on a runway, where it rolls the airplane to a stop, shuts down the engine, broadcasts a message on the local frequency that the airport is closed because of a disabled aircraft on the runway, and plays a video on the multifunction display that instructs the passengers how to open the door and get out.

Of course, that is not a requirement because the Autoland system would have already (although not in our demonstration) begun transmitting on the tuned frequency and the emergency frequency of 121.5 MHz a message telling anyone listening that N60HL, in this case, had a possibly incapacitated pilot and that it would be landing at New Century AirCenter in six minutes. It would update and broadcast that message every 30 seconds—listening to make sure that it didn’t transmit over any other radio calls. Once near the Class D airspace of the tower, it would have changed one of the radios to the tower frequency and kept the other on the emergency frequency. The system also would have changed the squawk code to 7700, the emergency code.

During those first few seconds after I hit the Autoland button, the system went through a series of complex calculations and decision-making processes to determine the nearest suitable runway based on runway length, width, and surface; fuel remaining; crosswind component; terrain; obstacles; and general weather information. The system requires an RNAV approach, but beyond that, the runway and weather criteria can be decided by the airframe manufacturer.

Like a chess grandmaster, we certificate holders can now proudly say that we’re able to do what an inexpensive microprocessor can do!

Of course the $2 microprocessor can’t exercise the kind of judgment that an experienced pilot would, right?

The system even forecasts its own weather if the nearest suitable runway is a significant distance away, long enough that the current ADS-B or SiriusXM weather may not be valid. It uses the latest weather trend information, for example, to determine if a thunderstorm might move into the runway environment where it intends to land. It will route the airplane around thunderstorms as well as terrain and obstacles, all of which it gets from its internal databases. If en route to a runway it determines, because of changing weather conditions, that another runway is closer or more suitable, it will change its destination. It can even estimate changing barometric conditions and adjust the altimeter—using algorithms. Garmin engineers say the calculated barometric readings are within 0.01 inches of mercury of actual ambient conditions.

Time for the single pilot plus dog crew! (the dog bites the pilot if he/she/they/ze tries to touch anything)

5 thoughts on “Now the $3 million plane can autoland like a $300 drone

  1. Cool, Garmin! Now do helicopters! Imagine passengers on every sight-seeing tour looking at the pilot and not worrying that “if he dies, I die”.

    • Interesting perspective by Otto Pilot. I found that most tour passengers seemed to take comfort in the pilot wanting to stay alive.

    • I want to die like my grandfather did, peacefully in my sleep, and not screaming in terror like his passengers.

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