Garmin has developed a new emergency autoland system for single pilot ops that can land at the nearest suitable (GPS approach with vertical guidance) airport in the event that the pilot becomes incapacitated (or in the event of zero-zero visibility). They claim it can be adapted to even piston singles with some additional servos and sensors. It functions in a very HAL sort of way (good HAL, not homicidal HAL, we hope), speaking to passengers in a soothing voice and telling them where and when they will be landing. It even extends flaps and lowers gear (without moving the levers). There is a guarded red button for passengers to push if the pilot becomes incapacitated, but it also senses when a pilot is no longer alert and self-activates. It is only meant for emergencies, but I imagine it will be widely abused by pilots as a standard autoland feature. That raises the concern: how robust is the air and inertial data? How wrong can this thing go?
The system is predicated on the concept of "bad pilot, good airplane", which means it becomes useless if the airplane systems are also compromised, so this won't be removing the co-pilot on transport category aircraft anytime soon.
But for general aviation, welcome to the single-pilot future.
The system is predicated on the concept of "bad pilot, good airplane", which means it becomes useless if the airplane systems are also compromised, so this won't be removing the co-pilot on transport category aircraft anytime soon.
But for general aviation, welcome to the single-pilot future.
Comment