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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

#221

Post by jonplackett »

asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #194
jonplackett wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lon…

Thanks for the calculations! It’s weird how a more advance technology like a jet can be so successful yet an order of magnitude less economical. Usually it’s the reverse. But when you’re rich it’s time that’s money

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#222

Post by tim333 »

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…

>very few pilots will ever experience a scenario like that outside the simulator

One thing that no doubt helped with Sullenberger was he was a hobby glider pilot where that kind of situation comes up regularly if in a much less dangerous way as gliders are slow and light.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#223

Post by folken »

PacketPaul wrote: post #68
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 have them now, just not passenger carrying. Military drones are autonomous.

They are remotley piloted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w5NGKt71k4

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#224

Post by cjrp »

stanski wrote: post #32
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…

The marketing material suggests that weather and runway conditions are taken into account when selecting a landing site. So I would assume the answer to all of those is that it won't pick that runway. And if the aircraft is low on fuel or isn't making enough power to make that runway... Well, the usual happens - a forced landing, aka a crash landing. I don't think this is meant to be used as a cop-out by the pilot. "…

In the Vision Jet I believe low fuel / no suitable airport in range leads to automatic CAPS deployment by the autoland system

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#225

Post by capekwasright »

jonplackett wrote: post #221
asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lon…

Thanks for the calculations! It’s weird how a more advance technology like a jet can be so successful yet an order of magnitude less economical. Usually it’s the reverse. But when you’re rich it’s time that’s money

The short answer is that higher speeds come at a steep price. The relationship between velocity and the power required to overcome drag at that velocity is cubic, so that large business jet requires on the order of 50x more power to fly at 450 kts than it would flying at 120 kts, like the little Cessna might.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#226

Post by throw0101a »

briandear wrote: post #211
eternalny1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> ... what pilot is going to want to sit in a ready-room for a shift for days on end with nothing to do?

Possible scenario: if pilots are already sitting in a simulator for currency training / testing, it may be possible to have the sim be 'reset' to a live feed in an emergency.

You wouldn't have them hang around 'just in case', but rather use people who are already present for some other reason.

Another possibility: pilots are hours-limited for a given time period. If you have pilots that have hit that limit, some may be willing to spend time in a ready-room for a nominal bonus.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#227

Post by kgilpin »

AWildC182 wrote: post #142
kgilpin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most of the GA fleet is still vacuum powered for backup.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#228

Post by pc86 »

guidoism wrote: post #177
DuskStar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure 20mph is correct. The POH says it's the equivalent of being dropped from 10 feet. It's not something I want to experience but it doesn't really sound that bad.

Post-CAPS deployment descent is about 1700fpm which is 19.3-ish mph.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#229

Post by pc86 »

whyaduck wrote: post #205
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it his plane or a company plane? There's a big difference between taking on a little extra risk for your money vs someone else's money.

What's "a little extra risk"? A 5% chance you'll die? 1%? 0.1%? Compared to what? Those are actually very large risks when the cost is your life. When the survival rate of using CAPS is an order of magnitude (or more) safer? Use the chute. Not to mention how bad a decision it would be to dead stick if there are passengers on board.

> When the survival rate of using CAPS is an order of magnitude (or more) safer?

    [citation needed]

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#230

Post by FabHK »

savrajsingh wrote: post #89
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…

I’d hope that autoland connects to Garmin HQ and then they can coordinate and also just call up the tower and tell them what’s going on. Managing airspace and radio communications is the tricky part imo

Autoland will squawk the emergency code 7700 on the transponder, and announce itself on the emergency frequency 121.5 and the local CTAF (common traffic advisory frequency, IIRC, which coincides with tower frequency if the airport is towered).
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