but that stuff is still toy category compared to the big boys
Yes it’s Mickey Mouse but we are not talking about similar wing spans, similar speeds and similar landing distance?
I expect so, auto-land in emergencies but not auto-land in weather, is pulling CAPS in zero/zero count as Cat3c landing?
Also, I wonder what is the min runway length & width for DA42 AutoLand at MTOW? they picked the easiest GA aircraft to land, maybe across all GA aircrafts built after 1900 !
is pulling CAPS in zero/zero count as Cat3c landing?
Only if the „landing“ occurs within the touchdown zone. A balloon license to judge winds would be handy.
It already exists in manned drones.
This is the sort of thing that only makes technological sense when you have 100% FBW to start with. The technological platform has to be up to speed. Yes, it’s possible to hack something up, but a pig is still a pig etc. It would be like installing self driving in a 1972 Volvo. Possible – yes. Makes sense – no. Something that would make sense is replacing 1940 technology engines with modern FADEC “multifuel” engines capable of operating on any fuel from mogas 95 to 100LL to E85 and everything in between.
I’m not sure if this is a thing the average GA pilot even wants (except FADEC and FBW). But it’s also the sort of thing that comes naturally when FADEC and FBW is already there. The pilot has first to be put out of the loop, then automatic and even autonomous operation makes sense. Otherwise you might just as well install a double set of flight controls and put a live and breathing pilot there 
Ultranomad wrote:
A few GA aircraft, e.g. AN-2, have an “autoland” feature in the form of full-stall landing: you just pull the yoke all the way and it lands
Have you ever tried it in the AN2? I have… it is something which works in theory but mostly ends with the loss of the airframe plus can easily go very wrong. It has really nothing to do with what is debated here, if at all, it is something similar to CAPS. VS is quite massive, we never were allowed to actually land the plane like this but were simply demonstrated how this feels at altitude. Impact would have been pretty remarkable.
Snoopy wrote:
Cirrus sells many planes cause they have a chute. The newest seller is emergency autoland. „It’s fine honey, if I die just push this button.“ Looking at the age curve in GA it probably makes sense, lots of GA geezers are approaching TBO.
Cirrus has done everything right in that regard. The emergency autoland however puts that on a new level: With it, the goal definitly is to reuse the airplane again! With CAPS, it’s not.
Having said that, the autoland capability of that emergency system could be implemented for daily use quite easily on the technical level, if it can autoland as it does, it definitly can do it out of an LPV approach, as that is pretty much what it does right now. All that would be required is to add the “Land” mode to the AP, it would probably not even require additional development other than mode integration.
However, as some others have said here, the problem with this is not technical, but regulatory. CAT II and III ops requires redundancy, at least in commercial applications, so you need dual everything, which is a total show stopper for GA. The only way around that would be to develop these options for Part NCO and forego all the duality, which would be something I could imagine in the US but never ever in Europe.
The 2nd show stopper is: CAT III capable airports are almost all slot regulated. In CAT II/III ops their capacity goes down to about 30% of normal ops, so the last thing they would want is GA planes coming in that way. They would have an easy solution to that problem: Simply ban CAT A airplanes for IFR arrivals, which is essentially what quite a few airports do even now by reducing their acceptance rate in the slot system even in sunshine and daylight.
Seeing all that, I would give the chance of developing a system like this technologically as very high, but with practically zero usability here in Europe. In the US, with the better infrastrucure and attitude to GA however, it could well develop into something which could get quite popular, not necessarily only in CAT II/III conditions.
Ibra wrote:
Here is something to try in DA40/DA42 with G1000W, what if you keep GFC700 hooked to LPV autopilot bellow 200ft down to 50ft in good weather?
You don’t need a G1000 or GFC700 for that. This is exactly what my test pilots who did the then required certification flight with my airplane did using the Stec 55x, GNS430W and the Aspen PFD. They let the AP fly until they felt it was unsave on an LPV approach, which was basically until just before the flare at 10-20 ft off the ground. The airplane was perfectly on centerline and glidepath. As CAT III ops do require (and mostly have ) very low xwind, practically any AP capable of a LPV approach with full vertical guidance of a WAAS GPS which is thus capable can do that.
Remember that big jet autoland is really quite primitive. They switch to a RADALT at about 150ft and do a fairly crudely computed flare based on that.
The Garmin Autoland is a safety marketing and significant other feel good feature. It has one real use case which is pilot incapitation in a situation where a single pilot with no backup who is able to do at least an emergency (survivable crash) landing is flying the the aircraft which has absolutely no malfunctions.
How often does this case happen in practice. How many people have died last year in GA airplanes across Europe because the pilot got incapitated and nopbody else in the plane could at put it down into a field?
Malibuflyer wrote:
It has one real use case which is pilot incapitation in a situation where a single pilot with no backup
It also enables risk compensation, where the pilot flies although he is not feeling that well.
Malibuflyer wrote:
The Garmin Autoland is a safety marketing and significant other feel good feature.
The same applies to CAPS in most cases, even though that one also has the possibility included to save situations such as massive in flight damage. But it’s main function is as well a safety marketing and spouse approval feature.
Malibuflyer wrote:
How often does this case happen in practice. How many people have died last year in GA airplanes across Europe because the pilot got incapitated and nopbody else in the plane could at put it down into a field?
I don’t think ever here in Europe. I recall ONE case I know of for sure where the pilot of a King Air died in flight (US/FL) and the only reason we know that is because the passenger (PPL Pilot) managed to land the King Air safely.
Another case where something like this might have saved the day was the Helios 737 where the pilots forgot to turn on cabin pressure and both became incapacitated because of hypoxia. The steward (PPL/C172student) who entered the cockpit would have been able to get the plane to land with a feature like this.
However, it is not just the only case, it could also, as CAPS has, help in cases that a single pilot gets disoriented or otherwise paniked, like quite a few times when CAPS was deployed in a otherwise perfectly safe airplane.
And it would be an interesting feature for non-BRS capable airplanes.
But with regards of autoland being introduced into every day IFR ops as an option, the technology involved for this feature is a significant step in that direction: It basically has “done” autoland now. I would not be surprised if it will be introduced as a regular AP mode sooner or later, even if it may not be CATII/III capable for regulatory reasons.
Would that be a bad thing? I don’t think so. Even in CAT I approaches with 500m RVR autoland may be a safety enhancement particularly in SP operation. A
Remember that big jet autoland is really quite primitive. They switch to a RADALT at about 150ft and do a fairly crudely computed flare based on that.
It depends. The fail operational part is where it gets more complicated. I believe double digit million $ biz jets would all have a system if it were primitive. They do not.
