diamondaviators.net

Diamond has a been working on an autoland system since 2012, demonstrating it in 2015:
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all ... and-system
Can’t help but think they worked with Garmin on it.

I’d argue that with the simplicity of the DA aircraft’s one could guide the remaining passengers with the G1000 screens and audio out through lowering flaps and gear or even setting the throttle (there is a comm-link between G1000 and ECUs and they could ignore the trust stick potentiometer in software) and switching of the engine off so that a non trained person could execute these manual steps of the auto-landing and still has a very high chance of a safe landing on a long enough strip. This is a lot better than today where a non-trained person has only a small chance to survive. In newer aircrafts they should add servo-brakes, gear and flaps.

Regards,
Jan

So, has anyone with contacts in the factory or those who speak to Scott asked the question: is it coming to a Diamond aircraft near you soon? I have asked on their Instagram account so if I get a response will let you all know.
David

The system is advertised as a way to have the plane land if you are entirely incapacitated. Kids in the back asleep. No one is required to climb into the front seat and figure out where the landing gear level is.That's critical. It doesn't sell (and I am sure the price will be very steep) if it is a halfway measure. "Grandma will be fine, all she has to do is figure out how to shut down the turbine..."

You have a stroke. The passengers' next concern is only how to open the door to step out safely onto the runway. That's worth an easy million to a bunch of operators. Something that requires passengers to listen and follow directions, with possible fatal consequences if they make a mistake, is a liability nightmare instead.

But is the current situation better at all? You could upgrade a couple 100 DA40s, DA42s and DA62s which have G1000 with WAAS/LPV and the GFC700 by software only (!) with a decent chance of survival success compared to almost no chance of survival today. This can’t be worse than before! And obviously add radar altimeter, auto-gear,auto-flaps and a nice big button somewhere and you would be fine for new or retrofitted aircraft. What do I miss here?

My big worry about this new AutoLand technology has nothing to do with the technology. I'm worried about how Garmin, and ultimately aircraft manufactures, are going to market it. All the new advertizing that begins with "[cue dramatic music...] What will YOU do when your [husband/friend/pilot] has a [stroke/heart attack/passes out/etc] while you [and your family] are 20,000 feet in the air? etc. etc. etc." is going to scare the heck out of the non-pilot flying public by providing emphasis on something that ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS. Maybe AOPA or some other organization could step up here and try to help Garmin and others shape the way this is presented?

In reality, the ability of this technology to efficiently handle hypoxia events in the flight levels seems much more important.

Despite Diamond's vastly-superior safety record, the one area where it's hard to compete with Cirrus is if the spouse is concerned about pilot incapacitation. A new DA42-VI is a great alternative to the SR22T because of the superiority of twin engines vs. the 'chute in case an engine fails. But twin engines won't help with pilot incapacitation, whereas a parachute can save the day. (It would be interesting to see a statistical analysis of Cirrus 'chute pulls for reasons of engine failure vs. pilot incapacitation vs. loss of control in IMC vs. fuel exhaustion, etc.)

I hope that Diamond is planning on auto-land for the DA50 to compete with Cirrus, since I haven't heard of any plans for the DA50 to have a parachute.

Steve wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:08 pm It would be cheaper (and probably safer) to teach your wife to fly the airplane...

Certainly cheaper, YMMV regarding feasibility.

dselder1962 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:11 am So, has anyone with contacts in the factory or those who speak to Scott asked the question: is it coming to a Diamond aircraft near you soon? I have asked on their Instagram account so if I get a response will let you all know.
David

I also asked Amila Spiegel, Director Sales and Marketing, who replied:

hope you are doing fine. How are you? How are things with your plane?
Yes, we are aware of these announcements and have been expecting them. The Garmin Autoland is currently ONLY for the G3000 version. This should be clear.
Diamond for sure has some ideas on that but nothing we can share with the public at the moment.
Thanks and best, amila
And also:

sure, you can share that.
I think it is also understood that we do not wish to share our plans on every roadmap detail but you can stay assured that Diamond is having some good things coming up.
Thanks for asking and getting in touch with us. We do appreciate it.

So stay tuned I think is the main take home message.

David

This is targeted to pilot incapacitation BUT is only useful if there is someone else in the plane who is not incapacitated to activate it. Or maybe in partial incapacitation of the pilot. Otherwise if the pilot is alone or no one else is available (think hypoxia or CO) it's ineffective. And as pointed out elsewhere, how often does this scenario occur?

My cynical self figures it's more likely to be used in a pilot freak-out situation. If you look through the Cirrus accident reports you'll see a number of these caused chute-pulls. Others resulted in fatalities.

Retrofitting? An awful lot of work to deal with things like three-lever engine controls, avionics, flaps, and gear extension for all the various types out there.

Choice of airports is interesting also. KWYS, for example might seem like a good choice but it's closed and unplowed during the winter months. Many towered airports are only part-time operated and what frequency to use is time-of-day and even time-of-year dependent. I don't know that the current databases depict this in a usable form for such a device. Will it be able to deal with traffic avoidance, some of which will not be ADS-B, have transponders or even NORDO?