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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

#211

Post by briandear »

eternalny1 wrote: post #71
usrusr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still makes me wonder: do you really need/want all that automation or would it make more sense to prepare for putting a remote pilot into the loop? Not for virtually holding the stick, but for looking at telemetry, communicating and doing all the high level decisions.

This is what some of the new "fully automated" semi-truck companies are doing. Remote truckers in an office, similar to a UAV drone pilot.

Most trucks drive similarly. A Vision Jet is a far different airplane than a Pilatus. Automation is better because the computer is designed for that specific aircraft as opposed to having a bunch of on-call pilots that just so happen to be type rated for that specific plane. And if they aren’t type rated, they are more of a liability. It’s very expensive to get type ratings so that remote pilot concept just wouldn’t scale. A 787 pilot isn’t going to know the intricacies of a Kodiak and besides, what pilot is going to want to sit in a ready-room for a shift for days on end with nothing to do? An incapacitated pilot is so rare that automation is a high enough percentage that it’s a fine solution. There is already a pilot shortage — hiring type rated remote pilots to just sit and wait around isn’t going to be easy.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#212

Post by zarkov99 »

rexaliquid wrote: post #163
zarkov99 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be a lot simpler to have a remote pilot access the controls? Why go through all this ?

Establishing, maintaining, and handling the inevitable connection issues of the data connection necessary to remote pilot an aircraft is a lot more work than integrating a "best route" algorithm with existing autopilot features, automated radio communication, and calming cockpit UI.

I was assuming that this was a solved problem, given how prevalent drone warfare is now.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#213

Post by tialaramex »

Stevvo wrote: post #54
antoineMoPa wrote: post #49

$2.994M. Guess I'll just ride my bike then.

They mentioned it can be retrofitted in older aircraft. So it might be an option in the future if you are doing $100k panel upgrade in your 1950s tin can airplane.

As the plane gets older and less sophisticated it gets harder to put all the pieces of the puzzle together without ripping the whole aircraft to pieces and starting over.

Even after touching down, the aircraft this is built for have computer control for the brakes and full rudder authority, so it can do a pretty good approximation of a proper short field landing based on GPS and wheel speed sensors. Do you want to add computer controlled brakes and wheel speed sensors to your tin can? No? Then we have to assume the plan is to just roll to a halt and that cuts our list of viable landing sites and hurts survivability considerably.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#214

Post by Scoundreller »

DuskStar wrote: post #128
Scoundreller wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAPS sounds great over open water or desert, but not so great over a populated area. At least a non-pilot co-passenger might want to try their luck gliding to open area and then pulling it.

A 20mph vertical impact into someone's roof really isn't the worst of outcomes.

I’m thinking more like power lines, or the chute catching a tall building, some industrial facilities may not be great either. Or moving traffic.

You’ll go wherever the wind pulls you. And might hit the side of something faster than 20mph before hitting the ground.

And hitting a crowd at 20mph.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#215

Post by exikyut »

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.

Then the SpaceX stage1 (or stage2, or however they call it) is a missile that only makes great landings. :D

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#216

Post by bstrong »

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.

"One unusual capability of the Snark missile was its ability to fly away from its launch point for up to 11 hours, and then return for a landing. If its warhead did not detach from its body, then the Snark could be flown repeatedly."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-62_Snark

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#217

Post by iancmceachern »

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.

Yeah but an average human couldn't, and thankfully still cannot buy one. This is feature on a (and more to come) civilian aircraft, two very different things.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#218

Post by Animats »

tialaramex wrote: post #38
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #22

The tech is still interesting, even if similar things that are used even in non-emergency scenarios have existed in large jets for a few decades. The one thing I don't understand is if it always just relies on WAAS and GPS no matter what, or, if depending on the runway it chooses to land, it may use something like an ILS.

It won't try to do ILS. I think the issue is that where GPS is available it can definitely put that plane down. Maybe it's not the world's greatest landing due to GPS inaccuracy, not right on the centre line, tries to put the gear through the floor - maybe the airframe ends up totalled, but if every passenger on the plane walks away it's a huge success given the pilot was incapacitated. Whereas for ILS that gets you…

The system, which is from Garmin, includes a radio altimeter, a short-range radar pointed straight down. So it's not reliant on GPS for precise vertical position during landing. This allows the system to do a proper landing flare just above the runway.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#219

Post by saganus »

saganus wrote: post #140
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…

What kind tech stack/development processes do you think are needed for something like this? At a very naive level, for example: typed language vs dynamic; formal verification of the code or not (or to what extent); what kind of QA? (can't even imagine how to test this "in production" given the amount of edge cases like the ones you describe; hw and sw redundancy; to name a few. I have zero experience with airplane so…

Interesting responses. Thanks!

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#220

Post by redis_mlc »

Not sure what HN is getting all excited about ... the Piper M600 is $3 million, and since Mexico is humid, they've had composite delamination problems ...

Or you can just pull the throttle to idle, and trim for Vx, which is the "descend through clouds" emergency procedure.

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