11 ms·
Autoland saves King Air, everyone reported safe
- aftbit 10mo agoIt's amazing what this technology can do. I wonder what the interface in the cockpit was like, who activated it and why, how it chose the runway, and other details that will likely come out in the final report if not earlier. I think the radio call could be improved a bit though. It spends sooo much time on the letters and so little on the "emergency" part. It almost runs that sentence together "Emergencyautolandinfourminutesonrunway. three. zero. at. kilo. bravo. juliet. charlie." >Aircraft November 4.7. Niner. Bravo. Romeo. Pilot incapacitation. Six miles southeast of Kilo. Bravo. Juliet. Charlie. Emergency auto land in four minutes on runway three zero right at Kilo. Bravo. Juliet. Charlie. It would be nice to hear something more like: Aircraft November-Four-Seven-Niner-Bravo-Romeo. Mayday mayday mayday, pilot incapacitation. Six miles southeast of the field. Emergency autoland in four minutes on runway three zero right at Bravo-Juliet-Charlie. Still amazing, and successful clear communication ... but it could use some more work :)
- rogerrogerr 10mo agoCan’t say “the field” in the general case; there are many places in the NAS where the same frequency is used by a few uncontrolled airports that are close together.
- johng 10mo agoI'm pretty sure that every ATC already knows this automated voice and what it means.... in a year or two, after having stories and videos it will become even more well known and then people will say that repeating emergency too much or spending too much time on it is a waste of airtime.
- t0mas88 10mo agoThe cockpit side is very passenger friendly, it assumes zero aviation knowledge. It's a single button and once pressed the system will show on the screens that it's active, what to expect and where it is going. The passengers just sit and watch, while it tells you via voice and on the screens what's happening. No action required apart from the single button. It uses the navigation database (onboard) and weather data via datalink (ADS-B in the US, satellite in other places) to select an airport/runway. It looks for a long enough runway with a full LPV (GPS) approach available and favorable wind.
- dataflow 10mo agoThat's amazing.
- crooked-v 10mo agoIf anything I think it talks slower than the actual pilots around it did - https://youtu.be/K3Nl3LOZNjc https://youtu.be/K3Nl3LOZNjc
- ultrarunner 10mo agoSome of the audio replays I heard had silence cut out, but the aircraft transmits every two minutes, for about twenty seconds each. It does share the information I'd want to hear in an uncontrolled environment, but in a busy towered class delta it likely needs to be shortened. They had plenty of advance warning of this aircraft being inbound and cleared the airspace well before it arrived, but if it had happened with less notice critical instructions may have been "stepped on" at a critical time.
- Aloha 10mo agoThe only complaint is it uses phonetics for everything multiple times in each transmission, I'm a radio guy, I would use phonetics once, then otherwise spelled out letters - aka, "whiskey lima foxtrot" and WLF the next time I needed to say it.
- HNisCIS 10mo agoIn aviation you only use phonetics, hams are much less consistent about it so it looks weird from the outside.
- Aloha 10mo agoI'd actually argue that Aviation is the outlier among Part 90, Amateur, and Public Safety users. The general rule in most radio services is using both phonetics and not, as to try to balance intelligibility and communications density.
- HNisCIS 10mo agoIt's an outlier because typically the comms cycle is very fast and only a single cycle. The radios are also quite bad and there isn't room for errors that you'd normally correct naturally in the context of a longer conversation
- addaon 10mo agoThis is not how communication is done in aviation. Instead, it’s common to abbreviate to the last three alphanumerics of tail numbers (so “niner alpha bravo” for N789AB) after the first call — but this is conditional on not having a potentially confusing other aircraft on frequency (N129AB), and the system here can’t reasonably know that, so must take the conservative option.
- netsharc 10mo agoThe computer announcing the pilot incapacitation is at 11:50.
- nubg 10mo agoThank you. The time marks in the text were way off.
- mtlynch 10mo agoThe mp3 file is malformed but playable. I get different timestamps for the same audio if I jump around.
- IshKebab 10mo agoAmazing how bad the speech synthesis is for something so safety critical.
- ls612 10mo ago[flagged]
- HNisCIS 10mo agoThis, if it sounds too human ATC is going to try to help and possibly provide vectors, as they should, but The way the system works, ATC needs to be prioritizing clearing the runway and keeping aircraft away
- whatsupdog 10mo ago[flagged]
- tomhow 10mo agoPlease don't fulminate or introduce political flamebait on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- alwa 10mo ago
- exabrial 10mo agoI've ridden on a King Air a few times. Surprised how fast the thing was, traveling west to east we sustained 600mph ground speed. Also pretty quiet interior given it's powered by turboprops.
- reactordev 10mo agoIf only Biffle was in a King Air. Awesome to see stuff like this. Light sport aircraft have parachutes. Cool to see safety being incorporated into the avionics and not just flying it, but getting her down safely.
- ultrarunner 10mo agoThis is one of my biggest frustrations with aviation— the certification required to get this done is hugely onerous. The whole basis of certified aircraft is that they may not change, which makes improvements like airframe parachutes, auto land systems, and even terrain awareness, engine monitoring, etc. very costly to obtain. I think there is an argument to be made that there should be a pathway to airframe recertification to allow for innovation and improvement to take place in the aviation industry. Instead, the FAA is probably going backwards on this issue and doubling down on the regulatory framework that gave us the MAX-8 situation while narrowing any avenue for smaller firms to innovate [0] [0] https://avbrief.com/faa-wants-to-phase-out-ders https://avbrief.com/faa-wants-to-phase-out-ders
- nradov 10mo agoThere is simply no way to retrofit a parachute into an existing airframe. The airframe has to be designed around it from the start with appropriate stress points.
- inoffensivename 10mo agoThere are retrofit ballistic recovery systems available as a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for several existing airframes, e.g. https://brsaerospace.com/cessna/ https://brsaerospace.com/cessna/
- nradov 10mo agoIt's not clear what caused the crash of the private jet carrying Greg Biffle and family. The Garmin Autoland system is designed to address pilot incapacitation, not mechanical failures or active pilot errors.
- kylehotchkiss 10mo agoIf you're one of the many developers at Garmin who worked on this, I can't imagine a better Christmas gift!
- MuffinFlavored 10mo ago[flagged]
- mubbicles 10mo agono.
- throwawaysoxjje 10mo agoKinda weird you had to bring Stripe developers up where there’s pacemaker, and insulin pump, and ventilator developers.
- shrikant 10mo ago"This person sent goodwill to one group of people so obviously wants other groups to die in a fire" is not really devil's advocate...
- rozenmd 10mo agothe devil doesn't need an advocate.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- FL410 10mo agoThis is a huge milestone, and everyone at Garmin who worked on Autoland should be patting themselves on the back, they saved some lives today and will undoubtedly save more. Amazing technology.
- therobots927 10mo agoGarmin really is setting a standard for modern engineering. Hard to think of another company that still has solid engineering for both consumer and industrial applications.
- ultrarunner 10mo agoThe hardware side is routinely impressive. The software and business sides leave a lot to be desired.
- mtanski 10mo agoCane to say the same. I have a Garmin "smart" watch (with every app notification etc disabled) and I love the fact that I can do almost two weeks of exercises (ride, walk, gym) without needing to charge it. The bike computers are also solid. But sadly the UX of the software on these leaves a bunch to be desired, and I've been bitten by many software and firmware bugs in the last years... Including months for which HRM would randomly and persistently drop it's value from say whatever the real value (say 145 for argument sake) to 80.
- altcognito 10mo agoThat’s just most heart rate monitors. Often it isn’t enough conductivity (add water before activity) or the battery is low
- iamacyborg 10mo ago> Including months for which HRM would randomly and persistently drop it's value from say whatever the real value (say 145 for argument sake) to 80. It’s annoying but a proper HR strap fixes all the issues associated with wrist based optical readers.
- mtanski 10mo agoI know all of the wrist watches experience this issue, but this was extreme like drop from 145->80 for like 60+ min then rapidly shopt back up. Not like a small couple min blip. This was a near the top end model at the time, and after complaining Garmin support owned up that this was a firmware bug impact all sensors of that generation and it would take 2+ months to fix (took like 5). But they did send me a HRM for free and I've been using that. So I am grateful that and using it since. But for short rides (like 90 min or less) I don't always remember to think to bring the HRM. Prior to that I had two lower end Garmin watches, and despite having theoretically lower end HR sensors they did not experience such bugs or drop outs (an unexpected blip every once in a while). But I think the main point still stands, their software/firmware/UX has not moved in relation with the hardware. Next time I'm in the market I will be consider all the options. Feels like Coros and others have come a long way. Prob the biggest thing keeping me in their ecosystem is multi sport (variations of bike riding types -- I do all), hiking, strength training, erg, winter sports. But even there the list of strength exercises has not been updated in like a decade.
- darylteo 10mo agoFound the recording with VASAviation subtitles and timeskips (because I couldn't decipher it without!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Nl3LOZNjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Nl3LOZNjc
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 10mo agoAbsolutely amazing. Well done, Garmin. Imagine getting to go to work everyday to work on something that actually saves lives. Fantastic systems engineering work.
- briffle 10mo agoYou'd be even more impressed if you saw just how little resources they have to use (ram, storage, cpu), or how old of a C standard they have to work with. I have a few friends that work on this.
- sib301 10mo agoI am indeed impressed but not at all surprised considering what we used to get to the moon!
- ultrarunner 10mo agoSeems like Java is popular at Garmin.
- nradov 10mo agoAnd also — sadly — Monkey C. I cannot imagine what possessed them to invent their own scripting language for wearable device apps. It's sort of like JavaScript but worse and with minimal third-party tooling support. https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/ https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/monkey-c/
- Palomides 10mo agoit kinda sucks, but with the constraints it's at least understandable. they wanted an extremely lightweight language with a bytecode VM which could be ported to whatever MCUs in 2015, while also strictly limiting the functionality for battery usage reasons (and, uh, product segmentation/limiting third party access).
- 10mo ago
- WalterBright 10mo agoThere needs to be a button on the console of every airplane which is "return the airplane to straight and level".
- ryandrake 10mo agoAll modern autopilot systems I've flown have have a LVL (or equivalent) button.
- WalterBright 10mo agoWhen did that happen? I recall the Air France crash over the Atlantic where the pilots got disoriented. And many others, like JFKjr's crash.
- filleduchaos 10mo agoWhat does the AF 449 crash have to do with the existence of a button to return the aircraft to wings level + zero vertical speed? To answer your question though, LVL has been around for close to two decades now. IIRC there was a Cirrus/Garmin partnership that added it to the latter's G1000/GFC 700 and it's since trickled out to other consumer-grade autopilots.
- WalterBright 10mo agoThe AF 449 was in a stall, and the pilots panicked and did exactly the wrong thing. The pilot came out of the lavatory and immediately realized what was wrong, and pushed the stick forward. But it was too late. If the captain could figure it out, so could the computer. I recall another crash, not so long ago, of a commuter plane where the wings iced up a bit and the airplane stalled. The crew kept trying to pull the nose up, all the way to the ground. They could have recovered if they pushed the stick forward - failing basic stall recovery training. There are many others - I've watched every episode of Aviation Disasters. Crew getting spatially disoriented is a common cause of crashes.
- ajju 10mo agoSuper cool! We live in the future my friends :)
- cesarb 10mo ago> We live in the future my friends I second that. Hearing in the VASAviation video (linked by someone else in a nearby thread) the robotic voice announcing what it's doing, while it does a completely autonomous landing in an airport it autonomously decided on, with no possibility of fallback to or help from a human pilot, is one of these moments when we feel like we're living in the future promised by the so many sci-fi stories we've read as children.
- BrentOzar 10mo agoThere are rumors that there were 2 pilots aboard, and that one of them accidentally triggered autoland, and they couldn't figure out how to turn it off: https://vansairforce.net/threads/garmin-emergency-autoland-irl-first-use-reported-all-safe.240041/ https://vansairforce.net/threads/garmin-emergency-autoland-i...
- lsowen 10mo agoAnd also didn't know how to work thr radio? Surely autoland doesn't disable communication
- ilikehurdles 10mo agoseems like an unlikely rumor to be true at this time
- jibal 10mo agoThere's a rumor, that you are propagating. One person, Tandem46, made this claim ... no evidence provided.
- jibal 9mo agoP.S. https://avbrief.com/autoland-crew-consciously-let-system-take-over/ https://avbrief.com/autoland-crew-consciously-let-system-tak...
- charcircuit 10mo agoWhy doesn't it always autoland? We already have self driving cars, so a self flying plane seems imminent.
- TylerE 10mo agoBecause it requires specific equipment that many airports do not have, for one. It also doesn't understand things like noise abatement procedures. It has to be setup properly. You don't want pilots forgetting how to fly the airplane. Any of a dozen other reasons.
- scottbez1 10mo agoVery different standards - in its current form of emergency autoland it just needs to be proven to result in equal or better outcomes as a plane with no rated pilot onboard; the best case is another person that knows how to use the radio and can listen to instructions but the more likely case is a burning wreckage when the pilot is incapacitated. To always auto land it needs to be as good as a fully trained and competent pilot, a much higher standard.
- MBCook 10mo agoWe don’t have self driving cars.
- CamperBob2 10mo agoIf they didn't have to coexist with human drivers, we damned sure would. We have a couple of nuclear-powered self-driving cars on Mars.
- charcircuit 10mo agoI've confirmed with my own 2 eyes cars driving on the road without humans in them. I've also rode in a Waymo which had no driver. They definitely exist. Teslas also have self driving.
- CamperBob2 10mo agoThese people are basically Moon-landing deniers. They crop up a lot these days, sadly. I wish they'd crop up somewhere else.
- ursAxZA 10mo agoThis feels like the evolutionary endpoint of what people casually call “autopilot,” not the traditional aviation sense.
- vishalontheline 10mo agoWe have auto-pilot, and we have auto-land. Once we have auto-taxi and auto-takeoff, whats left?
- jordanb 10mo agoauto-troubleshoot
- PyWoody 10mo agoAuto-radio
- snuxoll 10mo agoEmbraer has been working on their auto takeoff system, E2TS, for some time. While improved safety during a critical phase of flight is a goal, airlines are looking at the possibility that it allows increased performance (higher MTOW, shorter runways, less fuel burn.)
- nodesocket 10mo agoUnfortunately there was a plane crash on Thursday of a Cessna Citation 550 that killed former Nascar driver Greg Biffle, his wife, his two kids, and both pilots. Greg Biffle himself was a certificated pilot and helicopter pilot but not flying in the crash. Incredibly sad. Hopefully technology such as this can reduce these tragedies.
- mrcwinn 10mo agoWe massively discount how much better we make the world every day.
- mmooss 10mo agoI wonder if a human is in the loop. Obviously the software is hardly ever used (a good thing), so you wouldn't need many humans available. If communication is possible, wouldn't you hand control to a pilot on the ground? I don't know that they could actually fly the plane - is latency too high for landing? - but they could make all the decisions and communicate with air traffic control, other planes, and the passengers.
- joshribakoff 10mo agoWithout even getting into latency, just consider the fact that you could lose the signal altogether
- mmooss 10mo agoSo then it's handed off to the autopilot and you are no worse off. But as much as possible, I'd much rather have a human pilot in control. Militaries have been flying UAVs for awhile now, which must have the same challenges.
- gpm 10mo agoOne major difference is if a uav crashes no one dies. But in china there is apparently now a commercial pilotless flying ev taxi service - which is autonomous with a human on the ground in the loop as you are suggesting.
- nradov 10mo agoRemote piloting for landing an aircraft that size is problematic because you need more sensors on the aircraft plus a reliable, high-bandwidth, low-latency data link. That doesn't really exist in most places. When the military lands something like an MQ-9 Reaper they typically hand off control to a pilot located within line-of-sight right at the airfield. That obviously isn't practical for civilian general aviation.
- tjohns 10mo agoThe problem is every aircraft model flies differently. The remote pilot would need to be familiar with that particular type of aircraft to safely land it.
- mrcwinn 10mo agoProudly wearing my Fenix!
- lupire 10mo agoFYI, a King Air is a small general aviation plane, seating up the 13 passengers.
- Animats 10mo agoThis is Garman SafeReturn, and this is its first real save. Here's a demo.[1] It's been shipping since about 2020, originally on the Cirrus Vision Jet. There's a lot going on. The system is aware of terrain, weather, and fuel, but not of runway status. So it gives the ground a few minutes to get ready, sending voice emergency messages to ATC. If you watch the flight track, you can see the aircraft circle several times, some distance from the airport, then do a straight-in approach. It sets up for landing, wheels down, flaps down, lands, brakes, and turns of the the engine. It doesn't taxi. Someone from the ground will have to tow or taxi the aircraft off the runway. It's mostly GPS driven, plus a radar altimeter for landing. The system can be triggered by a button in the cockpit, a button in the passenger area, and a system that detects the pilot isn't making any inputs for a long period or the aircraft is unstable and the pilot isn't trying to stabilize it. The pilot can take control back, but if they don't, the airplane will be automatically landed. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ruFmgTpqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ruFmgTpqA
- shrubble 10mo agoFamously the golfer Payne Stewart and the total of 6 people on the LearJet 35, died after a sudden loss of cabin pressure incapacitated everyone including the pilots. A system like this, would have detected it and possibly saved them. I wouldn't expect a whole lot more detail, as that airport is often used by defense contractors like Ball Aerospace, who have a large office nearby.
- jshier 10mo agoEven without autoland, I've never understood why there wasn't an emergency system to handle depressurization events when it detects no pilot input. There have been enough ghost flights, even in the last 20 years, that such a system could've saved hundreds of lives. (Helios Air 552) Automatically dropping altitude, or even just changing the transponder to some automatic value, would help.
- m4rtink 10mo agoI guess in some cases lowering altitude could result in flight into terrain or possibly entering airspace where collision with other aircraft would be more likely ?