Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability • Hacker News Board

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#141

Post by kparaju » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

nosequel wrote: post #110

asdfman123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: how close are we to totally self-flying planes? I feel like we could easily get there before we got self-driving cars, if we wanted to. Would the costs for short hops be comparable to a commercial airplane ticket? Because it would be awesome to charter small flights from an app to jump to a nearby city.

We've had truly autonomous long-range flight since 1998 with the RQ-4A Global Hawk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_H... A couple highlights from the Records section: > On 24 April 2001, a Global Hawk flew non-stop from Edwards AFB to RAAF Base Edinburgh in Australia, making history by being the first pilotless aircraft to cross the Pacific Ocean. The flight took 22 hours, and set a world re…

Do you know how these drones communicate with the ATC to state their intentions? Is there a flight plan made ahead and plan that they don't deviate from? I could not find any information online.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#142

Post by AWildC182 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

kgilpin wrote: post #94

asdfman123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: how close are we to totally self-flying planes? I feel like we could easily get there before we got self-driving cars, if we wanted to. Would the costs for short hops be comparable to a commercial airplane ticket? Because it would be awesome to charter small flights from an app to jump to a nearby city.

One thing to keep in mind is that any type of auto-fly is dependent on a LOT of automation systems on the plane itself being functional. For example, instruments, sensors, autopilot, auto throttle. To be considered safe, an auto-fly needs to be able to gracefully degrade as the subsystems in which it depends start to fail. Human pilots are trained to handle this by compensating for system failures in a variety of way…

Gyro powered steam gauges are all but gone from aviation. The GA fleet is even shedding them at a promising rate. MEMS based independent systems with backup power are solid state and far more reliable than a janky vacuum pump driven by the engine running a couple clockwork instruments.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#143

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #98

asdfman123 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a wide range of unusual, one-off edge cases that almost never happen which would be impossible or difficult to find. And maybe catching/handling them properly would involve more sensors, when people really just want a well-trained human who is able to improvise in the cockpit. It would be difficult code a machine to find a good landing spot in extremely variable terrain. For instance, I saw a video o…

I'm not a pilot, but the by far most dangerous time to have an engine problem is the period that starts the moment you have accelerated too much to safely stop the plane on the ground and that ends with having sufficient speed and altitude to glide back to an emergency landing. There surely are defined procedures for reaching the least deadly outcome for every phase within that period (basically a lookup table based…

Yup:

> V_1 is the critical engine failure recognition speed or takeoff decision speed. It is the speed above which the takeoff will continue even if an engine fails or another problem occurs, such as a blown tire.[9]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds

The plane has to keep going until V_2 (or V_2_min).

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#144

Post by AWildC182 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #85

Question: A private jet is obviously bad for the environment, but how does a propeller plane compare carbon-wise to driving a car the same distance?

Piston engines are more efficient than turboprops which are more efficient than turbofan/turbojet engines. Newer piston engines are by far the most efficient option but are not used frequently as the piston fleet is very old.

To compare to a car, just using vehicle efficiency (not per passenger) a typical cessna is in the realm of a full size SUV in terms of carbon footprint. Both are about 10-15 mpg. The aircraft in the article is far worse but only because it's rather large and turbine powered. Optimized designs like the Long-EZ can easily hit in excess of 30mpg cruising at 160mph.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#145

Post by appstorelottery » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #75

eternalny1 wrote: post #24

This is a seriously impressive bit of software engineering. It seems as simple as "push a button" to the layman but what happens when: There is a thunderstorm between the airport and the runway The nearest runway is closed due to a blizzard There is a mountain between the normal 3-degree glide-slope and the runway, an "offset approach" There is a 40-knot crosswind You have an engine out That's just a few, I'm a comme…

From https://www.piper.com/model/m600sls/ "The routing algorithm determines a path to the Final Approach Fix (FAF) of the chosen published approach that avoids terrain, obstacles, and significant weather." That handles all of your contingencies except an engine failure. If you have an engine failure and a pilot who can't dead-stick a landing you're probably screwed. But you're still no worse off in that case than you…

I think this a case for better GA trining. Expecting engine failure on takeoff, building the counterintuitive pitch-down reflex to avoid stall, and so on. Knowing your minimum maneuverable speed (and marking it on your air speed indicator). Expecting something to go wrong is the key mindset. A GA death happens roughly once a week for the reasons you outline. Emergency situations are not time to learn new skills, you need to have it down.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#146

Post by ssully » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

l33tman wrote: post #112

usrusr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a situation where a machine would excel? One challenge is the abundance of decisions with only one non-deadly option, the other challenge is lack of time. The first challenge is solved by well-defined decision trees and mental checklists, but those make the second challenge harder. Computers don't need to balance between checklist thoroughness and decision latency, they can look at all the data they have i…

Yes I agree.. As long as the system can simulate the degraded plane, and is fast enough, it can brute force through a huge number of decision trees and scenarios in milliseconds to find the optimal. A human would do something similar but will prune the tree much more heavily than the computer as the human is slow. This is analogous to any chess engine, the difference is that the plane flight requires a much more diff…

The basic strategy is simple, but implementing it is not. I think a perfect real world example is Tesla's recent roll out of their summon feature. The basic strategy of having your autonomous car pull out of a parking spot and pick you up at the door is simple, but the actual implementation shows how difficult that actually is.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#147

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

guidoism wrote: post #119

pc86 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAPS is not supposed to be used because you have an engine out under most circumstances - you are perfectly capable of dead-sticking a Cirrus onto a runway just like any other small GA plane. And it's not a gentle float, it's ~1700fpm or about 20mph, straight down. The airframe and seats absorb a chunk of it but compared to a 500-700fpm descent on an engine-out landing, pulling CAPS because your engine dies with any…

The insurance companies apparently want pilots to pull the CAPS rather than try to dead stick it. That’s what I was told when I got checked out in the SR22 by the flight school. They drilled it into me. What happens when blah blah blah? Pull the CAPS. That was the answer to everything.

>The insurance companies apparently want pilots to pull the CAPS rather than try to dead stick it.

Well of course they do.

CAPS does a pretty good job putting an upper bound on the worst case result. They don't care if you screw your plane up because that's a known cost and you'll pay it back through premiums if you keep flying.

Dead sticking it has a very good chance of being no more expensive than a normal landing if you find a runway and not all that expensive if you find a good field or empty highway (i.e. a big towing bill) so of course most pilots would prefer to dead stick. But this comes with a small chance of you crashing into a daycare and maxing out your policy. The insurers do not want this.

Most decent pilots with good situational will be able to make the correct call between CAPs and dead sticking it. They're telling you to go CAPS all the time because they have to deal with idiot pilots too. It's the same reason every drivers ed program emphasizes brakes, brakes, brakes, despite the steering wheel being a far better way to avoid many problems. They don't trust you to make the call.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#148

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

kejaed wrote: post #50

throw0101a wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cat II/III use ILS which send out signals on the runway(s) in question. IIRC, those signals need to be monitored to make sure they're with-in certain tolerances because II/III is used in minimal visibility conditions, so there's very little time to correct things at the last minute. It's about trusting a whole bunch of equipment to work properly because you're basically flying with a blind fold on otherwise. This Gar…

The marketing videos say the airport needs to have a published GPS approach.

GPS WAAS is good only down to 200 and 1/2 (200’ above ground cloud base and 1/2 mile visibility underneath)

Cat II ILS can go down to 100 and 1200RVR (100’ bases and 1200’ of runway visual range)

Cat IIIc can go down to 0/0.

200 and 1/2 is perfectly usable for most day to day weather and is certainly good enough for unexpectedly incapacitated pilot.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#149

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

And Cirrus announced the same thing. This isn’t type specific but a characteristic of the new Garmin G3000.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#150

Post by briandear » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #31

eternalny1 wrote: post #24

This is a seriously impressive bit of software engineering. It seems as simple as "push a button" to the layman but what happens when: There is a thunderstorm between the airport and the runway The nearest runway is closed due to a blizzard There is a mountain between the normal 3-degree glide-slope and the runway, an "offset approach" There is a 40-knot crosswind You have an engine out That's just a few, I'm a comme…

It's to be used only in the event that the pilot is incapacitated. Because it's an emergency feature engaged by a passenger or automatically, it probably can't manage all complex situations. It may be just good weather emergency landing. Check fuel and wind, steer to nearest emergency airport and land. Best effort is better than no effort and dying. > There is a mountain between the normal 3-degree glide-slope and th…

Almost airport with runways long enough to land G3000 equipped airplanes will have a published approach. What will be interesting though is how this system handles circle to land approaches.