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Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

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Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#191

Post by jsmith45 »

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…

There even exists software for auto-planning a route for a dead stick landing: Xavion, by the author of x-plane.

I seem to remember reading like 4 or more years ago, that there was an experimental autoland system actually powered by that software, and could autoland in a dead stick situation.

EDIT: Found the experimental engine-out auto-land system based on the same technology as xavion: It is called the VP-400 by Vertical Power. I'm not sure if it ever became a purchasable product.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#192

Post by OnlineGladiator »

AWildC182 wrote: post #171
Daviey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cruise missiles have had similar technology for a long time. I try to make my landings a little less eventful.

A "good" landing is one which people can walk away from and a "great" landing is one where you can use the cruise missile again so by definition, a cruise missile can complete neither a "good" nor a "great" landing by design.

Well in theory it could fail in such a miraculous way that everything is intact and it just skidded across the dirt - so while that might be considered a "good" landing it would be considered a "bad" missile launch.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#193

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

> Cruise missiles have had similar technology for a long time.

Until GPS guidance came into use they were relatively crude terrain followers requiring a preloaded flight plan over a known terrain profile with sufficient bumpiness to protect against IMU drift. Nothing at all like this technology.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#194

Post by asdfadsfgfdda »

jonplackett wrote: post #181
carleverett wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not good. A Cessna 172 cruises at 140 mph and burns 8.5 gph of 100LL fuel, the equivalent of 16.5 mpg, and this is at cruise speed, not accounting for taxi, run-up, and flying the pattern during a normal flight. Not to mention we're still burning lead in most propeller aircraft as well. Fortunately this isn't a very popular way of getting around.

It’s interesting that it’s not insanely bad. I assumed it would be maybe 2-10X worse but it’s in a similar ballpark. Would a full on private jet be way worse? Would these planes carry a fair few people than a car? If so what’s it like taking passenger numbers into account? I guess super-rich folk probably would be happy to fly just themselves in a big private jet and also be travelling waaaay further than they ever w…

There's actually a huge range in private planes. This M600 plane does about 7 mpg, 250 knots at 45 gph. A typical light jet might do 400 knots at 125 gph (3 mpg). But a light jet cannot not fly nonstop to a different continent. For these trips, a large business jet might do 450 knots at 300 gph (1.5 mpg), but only the very super rich can actually afford these. Even most celebrities will be flying the airlines for long international trips.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#196

Post by jsmith45 »

rexaliquid wrote: post #137
jillesvangurp wrote: post #133

Sounds very similar to something Austin Meyer (creator of x-plane) implemented a few years ago called Xavion: http://xavion.com/ This is an ipad app that calculates a best glidepath to the best runway and guides you to the runway safely. It's intended for emergency situations when you lose an engine and quickly have to decide on an airport/runway. However, it sort of snowballed into an app with a lot of situational a…

Similar, but also kind of the opposite. Xavion is for when you have a functioning pilot, but a malfunctioning plane. Emergency Autoland is for when you have a functioning plane, but not a functioning pilot.

Austin Meyer did help on an actual autoland device that was based on the same concept: the VP-400 by Vertical Power. But I'm not sure it ever went anywhere. In theory with that system, you could push the "oh-shit" button if you lose your engine, and it would take over the autopilot to try to automatically fly the calculated path.

Of course I don't think it was as fully integrated, so no automatic radio callouts or anything.

I'm not sure if the product actually ever became available.

HOWEVER: If you have a TruTrak autopilot, and an an iLevil ADS-B receiver, then Xavion has a super experimental "auto" button that will actually control the autopilot, to attempt to automatically fly the calculated course.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#197

Post by AWildC182 »

segmondy wrote: post #189
AWildC182 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But planes fly in straighter lines and will use less distance to get to their destination compared to cars. So you can't really use mpg. Best will be to measure gallons used per hour.

Depends on the route. Flying IFR you can get routed all over the place. Also, head/tailwinds exist. It's more just to show ballpark relative efficiency numbers.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#199

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

appstorelottery wrote: post #186
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that was covered, to the point of automatic reflex, during my Private Pilot training. I'm pretty sure it was standard, and not just my Instructor.

Private training varies, I have a friend that didn’t build that reflex properly until training for instrument cert. If you ask lots of private pilots - what’s more important: constant awareness of minimum maneuverable speed, or stall recovery - I expect most will answer stall recovery. Commercial pilots will answer the opposite. It’s a different mindset that’s been driven by commercial airlines. My point is GA traini…

I agree that that answer is strange. I would have assumed that everyone would answer that it's better to avoid the stall in the first place than have to deal with recovering from it. Clearly, I'm wrong!

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#200

Post by andrewg »

o-__-o wrote: post #77
griffinkelly wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've flown airplanes with solid GA plane autopilot that'll fly down to decision height, but you still have to put in flaps, gear, change throttle. To have an airplane do all that on its own is quite impressive, particularly to do a 'nearest' type input on a Garmin then to land it on the appropriate runway, still confuses me sometimes if its a new airport I've never been at. I'd be interested to know if it declares an…

Why? Airbus and Boeing and even smaller planes like bombedaire have had this capability. With ads-b requirements on all planes it puts GA aircraft in line with jets (ads-b requires transmitting internal information that autopilot also processes) What I’m trying to say is that the auto land functionality is not a feat, it’s like self parking cars.. been around for 20 years just now cost efficient and safe enough for t…

Autoland, as used in a capable airliner, is much more limited than this. For an airliner, it's a procedure with lots of configuration and monitoring done by a pilot, in cooperation with air traffic control, which usually concludes with descent on a 3-degree or so path through touchdown and braking. Not to mention things like flaps and landing gear are still usually manually selected.

This is much more impressive, not the least of which because the system itself figures out the best place to land (taking into account operational constraints), how to get there (taking into account weather avoidance), and how to be at the right speed, altitude, configuration, etc. to perform the final approach to landing.

So to use your analogy, getting a bit closer to a self-driving car than just self parking!

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