[HN Gopher] Autoland Saves King Air, Everyone Reported Safe
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Autoland Saves King Air, Everyone Reported Safe
Author : bradleybuda
Score : 48 points
Date : 2025-12-21 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (avbrief.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (avbrief.com)
| aftbit wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| Can'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 wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| The 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.
| crooked-v wrote:
| If anything I think it talks slower than the actual pilots
| around it did - https://youtu.be/K3Nl3LOZNjc
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Some 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 wrote:
| The 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.
| netsharc wrote:
| The computer announcing the pilot incapacitation is at 11:50.
| nubg wrote:
| Thank you. The time marks in the text were way off.
| mtlynch wrote:
| The mp3 file is malformed but playable. I get different
| timestamps for the same audio if I jump around.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Amazing how bad the speech synthesis is for something so safety
| critical.
| ls612 wrote:
| They probably want to make it sound as clearly robotic as
| possible so some idiot at ATC doesn't try to argue with it.
| exabrial wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| If 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.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| If you're one of the many developers at Garmin who worked on
| this, I can't imagine a better Christmas gift!
| FL410 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Garmin 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 wrote:
| The hardware side is routinely impressive. The software and
| business sides leave a lot to be desired.
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(page generated 2025-12-21 23:00 UTC)