Garmin Emergency Autoland Flight Trial

[Applause] you know I've been flying airplanes for over 30 years and immersed in avionics technology for almost as long I thought I've seen it all but that was until Garmin invited me out to their Olathe Kansas hangar this past summer to fly with autonomy now garments autonomy is several layers of autonomous automation that includes the latest technology called emergency auto land now let's click our heels and go back out to Kansas to get a look at this system this trips gonna be worth it [Music] and we're airborne off the new century air center in Kansas with garments Erik sergeant from garments flight ops in the brand-new piper m600 single-engine turboprop now get this I'm gonna press a button on the instrument panel and I'm gonna hand command over to the airplane it's going to put the aircraft in emergency auto land it's gonna find a near a suitable runway put itself on the runway and stop and before we do that let's go back down to the ground and talk to Garmin still stropped a vulnerable bit more about this technology where it came from and then we'll come back up here to the cockpit and I'm gonna press that magic emergency auto land button well the genesis of autonomy auto land really was many years ago we noticed that the convergence of many different technologies were coming together and it enabled us to do what we conceived doing many years ago when you think about what a pilot does they a v8 they navigate and they communicate and when we translate those functions to the automation in the airplane we look at the autopilot as the aviate portion of that sequence we certainly are known for our navigation capability precise navigation enabled by wasps and s pass across the world and then we look at communicate we have many communications radios there software enabled so that we can enable transmissions by software control and we can send messages through those radios to communicate what we want to communicate so when you bring all those together we realize we have a lot of the building blocks of what a pilot takes for granted almost normally does as part of his role but we got to thinking what happens you know when the pilot for whatever reason can't perform his normal function I'm a pilot I fly business colleagues on the airplane like many other people on the airplane including my own family for personal transportation as a pilot we have the role the obligation and responsibility to take them safely where they're going and get them on the ground but you think about what if something prevented that and that really was the genesis of autonomy autoland that we're talking about here today one way to characterize the system here is it's a system designed to work around a functioning airplane we kind of simply say sometimes bad pilot good airplane so if the pilot is not able to do that function we have the system's capability here to take over and do that to into the extent the pilot needs the automation to help supplement their ability to land that airplane safely so that's how we like to think about what we're doing here so Eric before we engage the emergency auto land what might we expect once we do hand the command over to the airplane so once you press the button and then the like you said the commands handed over the airplane it's gonna go into a level mode it'll run the algorithm to find the newest nearest suitable Airport once it finds that Airport it's going to navigate to that Airport it'll communicate on frequency till ATC that we're headed to that airport and then it'll conduct an auto land where it automatically deploys the flaps in here and gets us down to the runway and stops on the runway so what you'll see as a passenger is uh will announce on the system what their plan is gonna do and once you need to do as a passenger which is nothing you just need to sit back and let the airplane do it do what it's set up to do and it'll get you down with the nearest suitable airport it's got retractable landing gear and the auto land system is going to take care of everything it's got auto throttles and everything is automated correct it's got all frontals it will manage your power in your speed we also manage the landing gear and the deployment of flaps as well as pressurization controls and what if we were too high to make a make a landing what would what would the system do to make sure that we're at the right altitude and right speed to commence the approach so it'll the system will do its best to get down to a suitable Airport and then once it does if it is too high it'll continue in a holding pattern until it's established on the right airspeed and right altitude to make a transition to landing once the system is activated it's gonna go into predefined speeds via the the FMS or connect slow rate applied about 200 knots and then will come downhill descending at about 230 knots gets us down safely and efficiently and gets a set up for our landing and for folks watching at home where it proves flying in 4,500 feet and I was showing 180 knots and I'm gonna go ahead press the button okay ready emergency autoland activated the emergency auto land system is controlling the aircraft and will land at the safest nearby airport please remain calm avoid touching the flight controls which may interfere with Auto land your destination is shown on the bottom of the left and right displays your estimated time to landing is shown on the top of all three displays emergency auto land has already informed air traffic control of your situation if you would like to talk to air traffic control adjust your microphone so it's clear and close to your mouth like a walkie-talkie press and hold the talk button on the screen and the center console release it when you are done talking speak clearly and slowly so the microphone can pick up your voice after the conclusion of this video you will hear regular automated broadcasts updating air traffic control of your location so you can see it's calculator route to the airport avoiding terrain obstacles and weather and we're gonna head descent to get configured for landing the GPS approach gives us the lateral vertical guidance necessary to to get down to the runway the system selected this is a G 3000 system and this Piper m600 the primary flight displays have really been dumbed down basically just just show speed and altitude and of course there's attitude data why have we be made the PFD so so simple just so a non-pilot get decipher it for the glance exactly a non-pilot can easily see AF HSCs plus my speed what's my altitude where's my airport you know so they don't have to worry about the engine data the different courses and they can easily see what's going on now this aircraft of course is pressurized so the system will take care of cabin pressurization as well affirmative it will take care of preservation so it will manage all the position controls so now we're in a descent we're doing about a 230 knots indicated descending out of 4,500 feet for this approach typical speed for a descent instead craft the clapper has configured to descend about 230 knots that meant it'll slow appropriately for the next the different segments on the approach well the hand will go down or no the hand won't go down okay but the passengers won't need to do anything but once they exit that hold the gear and flap will come down and they'll be gear down and locked now we won't hear it on this demo but the the system will auto announce on the radios yes it'll it'll announce on the radios where it is what airport it's heading to and it'll let the ATC know that there's a possible pilot incapacitation so that hopefully emergency services can be on their way now the throttle handle won't move on the auto problem so it'll wanted we'll do is on short final it will come back it'll to idle okay and then that's the end of the throttle movement salt the change in pitch the boat the flaps and elaina gear come down same time affirmative they're both down and locked and we're ready for landing now approaching the runway will be crapped into the wind and then once we get it to the flare maneuver we'll decribe the airplane and aligned with the runway heading and so when it's straight down the run or stripped down the runway and it will apply braking and a will apply braking so after we do touchdown and it's detected we're off the ground then we'll come to a stop that's the 500-foot call out and the screen shows that two miles remaining and tells the passengers that were landing in one minute short final hundred knots over the fence at 1,200 feet on the approach and we're just about to come over the runway threshold rolling out and the system is applying brakes system is advising passengers to keep hands and feet away from the controls as we come to a stop on the runway wait for aircraft and propeller to stop before exiting the aircraft press the black button on the seatbelt receiver to unbuckle your belt to open the door pull the silver latch and rotate the handle upwards push the top portion of the door outward once the top portion of the door is open a second latch will be visible on the top center panel lift the latch up and to the left while holding on to one of the side cords gently push down on the bottom portion of the door to fully open the cabin absolutely flawless automatic landing with an instrument approach stopped on the on the runway but a scratch on the airplane now could be a situation where the pilots hypoxic the people on board so the system activates the sense to a lower altitude and at that point maybe the pilot comes back to consciousness so a system can easily be deactivated as well again with the press of a button and say no we no longer want this automation in place and it's designed that way to be a safety net around the occupants of the airplane to help out to the extent needed but not to do more than what is needed to safely return the airplane to Mandy I get the question about can this system be retrofitted yes it has certainly there's nothing that technically prevents it we need a good autopilot navigation capability communications capability and then we do think of some ancillary things like maybe I need to lower the landing gear and maybe need to stop the airplane on the runway but some of those things are are the varying degrees dependent or not for some airplanes fixed gear airplanes obviously a little bit more simple maybe lighter airplanes don't may not even need braking capability on a long runway so there's variables that will make it either easier or harder to bring this to the aftermarket we haven't made commitments at this point but we think it's technically possible to do and we're excited about that we're working directly with FAA and Yossef on this and they've been great partners they recognize the opportunity I think people always ask a question what about or is he to say no but we had to work together to find solutions of how can we do this how do we say yes you know what's really unique here with this is airplanes have had the ability to land themselves for many years you've probably written on commercial airliners I can actually do that under some conditions what's unique about this is now with the touch of a button a passenger can land the airplane very different than what the world is known before and it's making it so much more accessible to such a broader range of aviation and aircraft what you see here is the emergency auto landing system flying a second-generation Cirrus Vision jet now Cirrus calls a system safe return and the company said it plans to deliver 20/20 models with a safe return as standard that's for price Piper said to 20/20 m600 SLS models include auto land as part of the halo package this airplane is priced at two point nine nine four million dollars and other than the typical two percent model year price hike Piper said the auto land capability didn't raise a selling price at all the new SLS trim stands for safety luxury and support because it has five years of warranty and support attached to it the company has plans of retrofitting the autothrottle and some existing m6 hundreds but it hasn't committed to retrofitting the auto Land and you could read the full report of Garmin's Auto land system in the upcoming December 2019 issue of aviation consumer magazine for aviation consumer up Larry Ellison oh and thanks a lot to Eric Sargent for the great demo [Music]

Channel: AVweb

Views: 431,287

Rating: 4.9218969 out of 5

Keywords: Garmin Autoland, Garmin Autonomi, Garmin G3000, Piper M600, Cirrus Vision Jet, Aviation Consumer, Larry Anglisano, AVweb, Garmin

Id: d-ruFmgTpqA

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/rblue]

Still landed off the center line. It’s as if I programmed it.

I’d like to see what it does 18g35 or something.

[u/Stronger_Raven]

First time for me to see this tech from Garmin. Looks very interesting!

[u/Ben2018]

Neat feature but as soon as I saw the "keep hands and feet away from controls" screen I couldn't help but think of the AI becoming sentient and displaying this screen on its own. I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that.

[u/Mobe-E-Duck]

Wonder what it does if there isn't an LPV or LNAV/VNAV available at an airport reachable by current fuel.

[u/fffflying]

People shit on Garmin, and maybe rightfully so in some circumstances, but they've done far more than anyone else for GA avionics systems. From G1000 to their GPS/Nav/Comms to their experimental stuff (G3x, G5) to this, its just incredible.

[u/izanti]

That truly is some incredible technology.

[u/[deleted]]

Is this the first autopilot with the ability to control the gear and flaps? I wonder if we are going to be seeing Cirrus and Pipers flying around with CAT III capabilities someday soon.

[u/vtjohnhurt]

Do you press the Land Me button or pull the Chute? Maybe they should have a "Do Something" button that automates the flip of the coin.

[u/TransientVoltage409]

I am normally extremely skeptical of new technology (I'm in IT so it comes naturally), but I admit I am impressed with this demo. It obviously relies on a lot of moving parts all working together, so I wonder how the system would handle e.g. a stuck servomotor or something, but I can see systems like this saving lives where BRS systems do not - BRS saves lives, but this autoland thing tries to save the airframe too, and removing that (irrational) hesitancy to pull the handle is valuable.

The trick will be to stop pilots from using it all the time until their hand flying skills wither away. I don't see a technical solution to that issue.