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Garmin Autoland

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:47 pm
by Colin


This really needed its own thread. This floated this morning. I can't believe they didn't mention it at NBAA, but maybe it is a little too scary for that crowd. Why would I pay for two pilots to fly my TBM when I can have one and the Garmin Autoland? So much less expensive than another employee (401K, health plan, etc).

Wasn't there a big meeting with Garmin and Diamond in Austria a few months ago? Do you think they were trying to decide whether to be part of the announcement?

My wife watched the video and said, "So what's the dollar amount my life is worth?" I told her it was about $4m, figuring am SF50, training, and increase in running costs. Again, I would much rather have a DA62, since I really love hopping people from FHR – BFI and that's a little tough to justify if you are burning 30gph, or whatever that little Cirrus jet burns an hour.

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 5:15 pm
by Antoine
Amazing Colin...

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 5:20 pm
by jb642DA
Here's a link to an AvWeb article on the emergency autoland system. Also has a 15 minute video of a live demo (to a full stop on the runway) of the "emergency autoland" in the Piper M600.

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/[ur ... 30%2C+2019[/url]

Here's a direct ink to the 15 minute video - https://youtu.be/d-ruFmgTpqA

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 7:41 pm
by CFIDave
Colin wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:47 pm]...that's a little tough to justify if you are burning 30gph, or whatever that little Cirrus jet burns an hour.
It's actually 70 gallons per hour to cruise in the Cirrus Vision Jet!

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:12 pm
by Colin
See, it's probably only twenty minutes down to Boeing from Friday Harbor, but that means burning an hour of fuel to drop someone to get their Lyft to SeaTac and fly out. I do that in the DA42 for under fifty dollars (in my head it works out to about that in fuel costs). I just can't justify spending almost three hundred dollars on it. That's why the DA62 makes more sense to me even though the price starts getting sort of crazy and it really is near a SF50 if you think about a partnership... But $300 to drop someone at the airport? Can anyone do that?

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 1:07 am
by jb642DA
A "loaded" SF is two times (or more) the cost of a DA62 - so you can be your own partner in the DA62 :D :D

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 4:09 am
by Boatguy
Diamond should be all over this as it's a much better answer to non-flying partners than a parachute. This will actually land you at an airport as opposed to dropping you out of the sky into whatever happens to be below. This is a far more compelling story than the Cirrus parachute.

We have FADEC engines which need the auto-throttle logic, but no physical re-engineering. Want to buy an airplane and this is a $30K software add-on (SVT was $11,500)? Every spouse will agree to this expenditure in a heart beat!

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 7:20 pm
by Colin
Physical engineering involved: braking, gear extension, shutting down the engines. I'd love to know what they do about some of those, like if you are dropping the gear and you don't get three green. Land anyway?

It seems like if you have an incapacitated pilot the chance of ALSO having something go wrong with the airplane would be small.

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 7:38 pm
by pietromarx
There is another video and discussion of this where the Garmin folks say that many of the runways are long enough for the brakes to work without autobrakes. This is true on most light airplanes because the rotors and pads are in constant contact. The modifications needs for non-FADEC engines are a little more complicated, but not much so. Servo assist on fuel and mixture.

With regards to Colin's questions on the 3 greens for retractable gear ... well, you're going to land eventually. The only real question is whether to get it over with now or later. Having witnessed a single gear up landing (on a King Air), I can say it was pretty much a non-event. And the braking was excellent.

Re: Garmin Autoland

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:08 pm
by Steve
Colin wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2019 7:20 pm Physical engineering involved: braking, gear extension, shutting down the engines. I'd love to know what they do about some of those, like if you are dropping the gear and you don't get three green. Land anyway?

It seems like if you have an incapacitated pilot the chance of ALSO having something go wrong with the airplane would be small.
I am concerned about the inherent complexity, both apparent and inapparent, in a system such as this (think G1000 vs steam gauge panel - my airplane has never been grounded for an instrumentation or navigation failure in 18 years - how many G-1000 owners can make the same claim?). Understanding a complex system like this goes way beyond the systems knowledge required to fly the airplane safely. The chance of this system being FMC all the time is questionable, and will that ground the aircraft? Will a functional auto-land if so equipped be on the MEL?

It would be cheaper (and probably safer) to teach your wife to fly the airplane...

Steve