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Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

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Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#181

Post by kjkjadksj »

iamacyborg wrote: post #135
kjkjadksj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the hardware is kind of stupid. They push you into basically buying a separate gps device for each and every hobby you do. It would be nice if there was one gps device that could be a bike computer, exercise watch, golf gps, etc etc. Yes, some devices have multisport mode but usually feature locked compared to the more sport specific device, and for no good reason really. I guess that would prevent them from sel…

You’re basically describing the Fenix/Enduro lines, albeit the screen will be a bit small to use as a proper bike computer

I’m imagining a device where you can take off the strap bands and mount it on a garmin mount to your handlebars.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#182

Post by iamacyborg »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #181
iamacyborg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re basically describing the Fenix/Enduro lines, albeit the screen will be a bit small to use as a proper bike computer

I’m imagining a device where you can take off the strap bands and mount it on a garmin mount to your handlebars.

You can just strap the watch to the handlebars, no?

There’s also a mode where you can extend the display from your watch to a bike computer, for instances where you’re doing a multisport activity (or just want to record on a single device).

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/06/garmins-triathlon-extend...

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#183

Post by Animats »

shrubble wrote: post #112
Animats wrote: post #96

This is Garman SafeReturn, and this is its first real save. Here's a demo.[1] It's been shipping since about 2020, originally on the Cirrus Vision Jet. There's a lot going on. The system is aware of terrain, weather, and fuel, but not of runway status. So it gives the ground a few minutes to get ready, sending voice emergency messages to ATC. If you watch the flight track, you can see the aircraft circle several time…

Famously the golfer Payne Stewart and the total of 6 people on the LearJet 35, died after a sudden loss of cabin pressure incapacitated everyone including the pilots. A system like this, would have detected it and possibly saved them. I wouldn't expect a whole lot more detail, as that airport is often used by defense contractors like Ball Aerospace, who have a large office nearby.

There's a bit more detail today.[1] Air taxi service, plane flying with two pilots, no pax, loss of cabin pressurization, system activated automatically, crew decided to let it finish its job.[2]

[1] https://avweb.com/aviation-news/garmin-autoland-activation-c...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/plane-emergency-landin...

[3] https://www.buffaloriveraviation.com/

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#184

Post by jakesgates »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #181
iamacyborg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re basically describing the Fenix/Enduro lines, albeit the screen will be a bit small to use as a proper bike computer

I’m imagining a device where you can take off the strap bands and mount it on a garmin mount to your handlebars.

Garmin bike mount for fenix watch https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1221709/

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#185

Post by WalterBright »

manarth wrote: post #179
WalterBright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former engineer who worked on the 757 flight control system, I am not terribly impressed with that design. Having 3 pitot tubes iced over means they read 0 velocity. It is reasonable for the computer to be designed to recognize that if all three pitot tubes read 0, then the pitot tubes are the problem. With the altimeter unwinding, it should be able to recognize a stall. With the turn and bank indicator, and the…

The FAA report[1] gives a more comprehensive description of events. The pitot tubes had differential icing, and didn't all read 0kts – they reported different velocity against each tube, such as 40kts or 60kts (against an expected baseline of ~ 275kts). The computer correctly recognised the data was invalid and rejected it. It's a common narrative that the captain immediately figured out the issue. The report and tra…

> he had not identified the stall

Thank you. I had not seen the transcript before.

Is it possible that 40/60 kts indicates a stall? Nevertheless, the drop in altitude while the nose was up should also indicate a stall.

I know that designing avionics, and accounting for all possible scenarios is a difficult job, and we learn from the failures. But I don't buy that it was impossible/impractical for the avionics to figure out what was going on based what the other instruments were saying.

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#186

Post by nickpsecurity »

jacquesm wrote: post #129
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am retiring next year. So that should solve my problem :). I don’t know how other medical device companies are working but in mine leadership is dominated by people who know medical devices from a sales or medical perspective. Software is kind of secondary to them although it’s becoming really important. A lot of our processes aren’t very good for software so we end up doing a lot of work that makes no sense and ma…

I've worked with a startup in the medical device space. Well funded. They were indistinguishable from most other startups, except in one detail: they did everything right. They made some extremely high tech stuff, very lightweight, and technology wise they were closer to watchmakers than to software and hardware people. I loved working with them and helped them to improve their yield (their QA was so strict that of t…

What you describe sounds nothing like most, safety-critical development I've heard of. Whereas, I've heard the other person's story countless times when I studied high-assurance systems. Very slow, top-down, process-heavy, paperwork-heavy, and outdated tools.

On the other hand, it sounds like the company you mentioned is worth imitating where possible. They sound awesome. Are you allowed to name them? Is there any writeup on how they balanced velocity and regukatory approval?

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#187

Post by HNisCIS »

Aloha wrote: post #160
HNisCIS wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In aviation you only use phonetics, hams are much less consistent about it so it looks weird from the outside.

I'd actually argue that Aviation is the outlier among Part 90, Amateur, and Public Safety users. The general rule in most radio services is using both phonetics and not, as to try to balance intelligibility and communications density.

It's an outlier because typically the comms cycle is very fast and only a single cycle. The radios are also quite bad and there isn't room for errors that you'd normally correct naturally in the context of a longer conversation

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#188

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #185
manarth wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA report[1] gives a more comprehensive description of events. The pitot tubes had differential icing, and didn't all read 0kts – they reported different velocity against each tube, such as 40kts or 60kts (against an expected baseline of ~ 275kts). The computer correctly recognised the data was invalid and rejected it. It's a common narrative that the captain immediately figured out the issue. The report and tra…

> he had not identified the stall Thank you. I had not seen the transcript before. Is it possible that 40/60 kts indicates a stall? Nevertheless, the drop in altitude while the nose was up should also indicate a stall. I know that designing avionics, and accounting for all possible scenarios is a difficult job, and we learn from the failures. But I don't buy that it was impossible/impractical for the avionics to figu…

Consider the inputs the avionics had:

1. 40/60 kts on pitot tubes - could that be showing a flat spin?

2. rotating compass - flat spin?

3. altitude drop - stall

4. attitude - level, no bank

5. engines - operating normally

6. GPS - no forward progress

Does that add up to a stall?

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#189

Post by jibal »

jibal wrote: post #82
BrentOzar wrote: post #37

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...

There's a rumor, that you are propagating. One person, Tandem46, made this claim ... no evidence provided.

P.S.

https://avbrief.com/autoland-crew-consciously-let-system-tak...

Re: Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe

#190

Post by snypher »

dingaling wrote: post #137
silisili wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating. My uncle was a pilot, and I asked him 15 years or so ago about the job. He was going on and on about computers and autopilot, claiming that pilots were only really needed anymore for takeoffs and landings, and they could sleep during the rest. Probably realizing the liability in what he said, he was quick to clarify that he didn't, of course. In that short time span we now have a system that can…

Even take-off doesn't really need a pilot; the production Lockheed TriStar airliner had full automation and on at least one occasion ( 25 May 1972 ) flew entirely from runway to runway, across the USA, without pilot intervention.

There's a little more information here if anyone else was curious;

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/l...

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