51–60 of 237 posts
Not to be a philistine about new technology: but somehow I think this would make people in the air and in the ground less safe. It's probably like having a parachute on the plane: just a great marketing sales point.
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 don't know if this can deal with the engine out, but in theory there isn't any reason it couldn't. There is an IPad app called "Xavion". With an engine out, Xavion will calculate an approach for you follow to a suitable airport, based on the aircraft's best glide speed + required runway length. Interestingly it doesn't use the published best glide speed and stopping distances, the app uses your flight history to figure out the aircraft's actual best glide and stopping distance.
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…
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.
$2.994M. Guess I'll just ride my bike then.
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.
I ran across a report somewhere that more airports (in the US) now have RNAV approaches than ILS ones. ILS equipment isn't cheap, and so many places don't have it. But a lot of folks now have GPS, especially because of the ADS mandate, and so while most probably aren't IFR-rated, I'm guessing if you're flying a turboprop or Cirrus jet, they probably are.
It does seem like a lot of airports have RNAV only and if they have an ILS they also have an RNAV.
Not to be a philistine about new technology: but somehow I think this would make people in the air and in the ground less safe. It's probably like having a parachute on the plane: just a great marketing sales point.
Net safety will probably increase because most people will never have that use case though.
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…
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.
Bear in mind even in takeoff and landing scenarios, unlike a public roadway, the airplane has pretty exclusive use of the runway as well.
Pilots are very unlikely the primary cost of aircraft trips. Things like jet fuel are probably much more of the cost driver.
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…
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.
The environment has shown quite clearly that we don't want to. We'd probably already have it if we did.
The safety design of aviation relies on having multiple highly competent people in the loop on every flight and exercising their judgement on dozens of things. And that's for the best-case scenario, they also have to be capable of choosing and executing fallback plans when part of the overall system (the plane, air traffic, radio navigation, flying conditions, ground conditions, etc...) degrades or enters an unexpected state.
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…
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.
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…
> During all phases of flight it communicates with passengers and appropriate air traffic control facilities regarding the new flight plan route and estimated time until landing. Which would suggest that if you need to be vectored to a runway, the aircraft can negotiate that with ATC automatically (and perhaps ATC can advise which is the most appropriate diversion?) This in the situation where the pilot is incapacita…
I strongly suspect it just announces itself.
"N123FOO DECLARING EMERGENCY; PILOT INCAPACITATED, AUTOLAND ENGAGED; CLEAR RUNWAY 21L; 12 MILES OUT" sort of stuff.