Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe • Hacker News Board

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#61

Post by MBCook » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:29 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #39

Why doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.

We don’t have self driving cars.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#62

Post by vishalontheline » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:31 AM UTC

We have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#63

Post by jordanb » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:36 AM UTC

vishalontheline wrote: post #62

We have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?

auto-troubleshoot

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#64

Post by Palomides » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:48 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #50

ultrarunner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Java is popular at Garmin.

And also — sadly — Monkey C. I cannot imagine what possessed them to invent their own scripting language for wearable device apps. It's sort of like JavaScript but worse and with minimal third-party tooling support. https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/

it kinda sucks, but with the constraints it's at least understandable. they wanted an extremely lightweight language with a bytecode VM which could be ported to whatever MCUs in 2015, while also strictly limiting the functionality for battery usage reasons (and, uh, product segmentation/limiting third party access).

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#65

Post by cesarb » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:56 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #27

Super cool! We live in the future my friends :)

> We live in the future my friends

I second that. Hearing in the VASAviation video (linked by someone else in a nearby thread) the robotic voice announcing what it's doing, while it does a completely autonomous landing in an airport it autonomously decided on, with no possibility of fallback to or help from a human pilot, is one of these moments when we feel like we're living in the future promised by the so many sci-fi stories we've read as children.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#66

Post by PyWoody » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:57 AM UTC

vishalontheline wrote: post #62

We have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?

Auto-radio

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#67

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 2:59 AM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #61

charcircuit wrote: post #39

Why doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.

We don’t have self driving cars.

If they didn't have to coexist with human drivers, we damned sure would.

We have a couple of nuclear-powered self-driving cars on Mars.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#68

Post by anonu » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 3:00 AM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #63

vishalontheline wrote: post #62

We have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?

auto-troubleshoot

Claude "fly this plane"

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#69

Post by charcircuit » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 3:04 AM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #61

charcircuit wrote: post #39

Why doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.

We don’t have self driving cars.

I've confirmed with my own 2 eyes cars driving on the road without humans in them. I've also rode in a Waymo which had no driver. They definitely exist. Teslas also have self driving.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#70

Post by nradov » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 3:07 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #15

netsharc wrote: post #5

The computer announcing the pilot incapacitation is at 11:50.

Amazing how bad the speech synthesis is for something so safety critical.

The embedded systems qualified for use in general aviation avionics have very limited hardware resources. They are severely constrained by form factor, power, and cooling. It's amazing that the developers were able to get speech synthesis working so well.