There are rumors that there were 2 pilots aboard, and that one of them accidentally triggered autoland, and they couldn't figure out how to turn it off: https://vansairforce.net/threads/garmin-emergency-autoland-i...
Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
41–50 of 193 posts
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#42Absolutely amazing. Well done, Garmin. Imagine getting to go to work everyday to work on something that actually saves lives. Fantastic systems engineering work.
You'd be even more impressed if you saw just how little resources they have to use (ram, storage, cpu), or how old of a C standard they have to work with. I have a few friends that work on this.
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#43Why doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.
To always auto land it needs to be as good as a fully trained and competent pilot, a much higher standard.
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#44Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#45It's amazing what this technology can do. I wonder what the interface in the cockpit was like, who activated it and why, how it chose the runway, and other details that will likely come out in the final report if not earlier. I think the radio call could be improved a bit though. It spends sooo much time on the letters and so little on the "emergency" part. It almost runs that sentence together "Emergencyautolandinfo…
The cockpit side is very passenger friendly, it assumes zero aviation knowledge. It's a single button and once pressed the system will show on the screens that it's active, what to expect and where it is going. The passengers just sit and watch, while it tells you via voice and on the screens what's happening. No action required apart from the single button. It uses the navigation database (onboard) and weather data…
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
All modern autopilot systems I've flown have have a LVL (or equivalent) button.
When did that happen? I recall the Air France crash over the Atlantic where the pilots got disoriented. And many others, like JFKjr's crash.
To answer your question though, LVL has been around for close to two decades now. IIRC there was a Cirrus/Garmin partnership that added it to the latter's G1000/GFC 700 and it's since trickled out to other consumer-grade autopilots.
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#47I've ridden on a King Air a few times. Surprised how fast the thing was, traveling west to east we sustained 600mph ground speed. Also pretty quiet interior given it's powered by turboprops.
350mph true cruise airspeed for the stock aircraft, so I suspect you had a bit of a tailwind there.
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
All modern autopilot systems I've flown have have a LVL (or equivalent) button.
When did that happen? I recall the Air France crash over the Atlantic where the pilots got disoriented. And many others, like JFKjr's crash.
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#49There are rumors that there were 2 pilots aboard, and that one of them accidentally triggered autoland, and they couldn't figure out how to turn it off: https://vansairforce.net/threads/garmin-emergency-autoland-i...
And also didn't know how to work thr radio? Surely autoland doesn't disable communication
Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd be even more impressed if you saw just how little resources they have to use (ram, storage, cpu), or how old of a C standard they have to work with. I have a few friends that work on this.
Seems like Java is popular at Garmin.