Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability • Hacker News Board

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#81

Post by heelix » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #78

heelix wrote: post #76

Very cool option. The rocket propelled parashoot ^h^h parachute essentially totals the aircraft when used. Even a crash at post touchdown landing speeds is likely easier on those on board. The autopilot features available to GA and experimental aircraft are quite impressive for holding things at a specific ask in various weather conditions. Not uncommon to have the autopilot active when flying in IFR conditions to he…

>...parashoot A typo but that slip created a great brand name for a rocket-propelled parachute the "ParaShoot".

ah god damn it. I was just coming back to make an edit as enough coffee registered the mistake.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#82

Post by usrusr » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #59

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.

Engine failure on takeoff is tricky to deal with. See Sullenberger landing on the Hudson for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

Isn't that a situation where a machine would excel? One challenge is the abundance of decisions with only one non-deadly option, the other challenge is lack of time. The first challenge is solved by well-defined decision trees and mental checklists, but those make the second challenge harder. Computers don't need to balance between checklist thoroughness and decision latency, they can look at all the data they have in practically zero time.

Mandatory bad car analogy: a driver will often prefer a faster response over spending time to check the rear view mirror before slamming the brakes, a computer would never have reasons to do so, they can check without meaningful delay.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#83

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

Stevvo wrote: post #66

mtw wrote: post #64

Does this aircraft have LIDAR or cameras? Wondering how it works with other air traffic and potential collisions. This is one of the biggest challenges for self-driving cars and I can't see any details about this in the Garmin G3000

The G3000 has ADBS in/out, and from January 1st ADSB out will be mandatory in the US, so it will know where other traffic is. Additionally, the autoland talks to ATC, and ATC can tell other traffic to get out of the way.

Even without that the chances of two planes colliding is nowhere near what autonomous vehicle are facing. + a lidar wouldn't do much in the air, it can't see very far, that's why we have radars.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#84

Post by technofiend » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #56

anonu wrote: post #8

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.

If this system doesn't alert the outside world that it's been used more than a few intoxicated people are gonna use it to land at uncontrolled airports. Just get close and press the magic button. Net safety will probably increase because most people will never have that use case though.

Funny, but no. It definitely alerts people and those kind of alerts come with consequences. Declaring an emergency will trigger a later review by the FAA with potential action from them ranging from nothing at all to removing the pilot's license.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#85

Post by jonplackett » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

Question: A private jet is obviously bad for the environment, but how does a propeller plane compare carbon-wise to driving a car the same distance?

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#86

Post by mothsonasloth » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

Interesting to use the word HALO, seeing as its already used as an acronym in aviation for High Altitude Low Opening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_military_parachu...

There is also TALO, which stands for Tactical Air Landing Operation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJdISjq8Wg

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#87

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

campfireveteran wrote: post #41

nabla9 wrote: post #10

Garmin Autoland is emergency only autoland. Not to be confused with CAT II/III autoland used in normal operations.

Btw, here's probably the only actual cat IIIC landing video on YT: https://youtu.be/gthcuZV8agI

That's terrifying. Cool, but terrifying.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#88

Post by asdfman123 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #82

tim333 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engine failure on takeoff is tricky to deal with. See Sullenberger landing on the Hudson for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

Isn't that a situation where a machine would excel? One challenge is the abundance of decisions with only one non-deadly option, the other challenge is lack of time. The first challenge is solved by well-defined decision trees and mental checklists, but those make the second challenge harder. Computers don't need to balance between checklist thoroughness and decision latency, they can look at all the data they have i…

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 of a plane safely crash-landing landing on a four-lane highway with traffic. It would be impractical to code something to handle that very rare situation.

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#89

Post by savrajsingh » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

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

Re: Piper Announces First GA Aircraft with Autoland Capability

#90

Post by tialaramex » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

griffinkelly wrote: post #65

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've flown airplanes with solid GA plane autopilot that'll fly down to decision height, but you still have to put in flaps, gear, change throttle. To have an airplane do all that on its own is quite impressive, particularly to do a 'nearest' type input on a Garmin then to land it on the appropriate runway, still confuses me sometimes if its a new airport I've never been at. I'd be interested to know if it declares an…

It sets 7700 and broadcasts what's happening, incapacitated pilot is an emergency so that's what it will tell everybody. If there's a controller on frequency it's up to that controller what to do about it, but there's no use arguing with a machine and the pilot is incapacitated, so my expectation is that a controller will keep other traffic out of the way, and if the autoland has picked somewhere with a local tower they'd call that tower and give it heads up it has got an incoming emergency, expect to close the incident runway while they clean up the aftermath.

Regardless, the machine will be broadcasting its intentions and again, there's no arguing with a machine other pilots will just have to accept that it's intending to land and stop on the runway putting it out of use until further notice.

Since the machine can't see lights, I assume it doesn't care whether they are functioning. So in the dark it's likely to land at some small airfield which is actually closed, slightly scary for the passengers to just come to a halt in darkness far from anywhere but arguably safer since nobody else is going to make the error of landing when the runway remains occupied.