Avionics News August 2021 - 43

the controllers out at New Century Airport. They were
great to work with. We had to do all kinds of weird
stuff - crosswinds, tailwinds, downhill landings, icy
runway landings, and even high-speed brake tests on
snowy taxiways. They really went out of their way to
accommodate all of our requests. "
She also said that the project involved more than
just working with local ATC, aviation authorities
and governing agencies, and the FAA. The Federal
Communications Commission issued an experimental
special temporary authorization so the aircraft would
automatically communicate on 121.5 MHz in a
nonemergency, test situation.
" That was a first for the FCC, " she said. " They
actually had to figure out a way to amend the current
process to accept an autonomous voice on the airplane.
That's the only way we would be able to declare an
emergency. If you read the new ATC guideline, it has
been updated to ready that an automated system can
now declare an airborne emergency - it didn't say that
before.
" It wasn't part of the FAA certification process
because ATC doesn't get involved with those; we had
to work through those processes and find solutions to
things like 'If we do this, do you know how to make
that work?' Or 'Do you have a way to sign off on that?'
Trying to build together this awesome system and
trying to figure out all of the different parts of the FAA
that should be involved and wanted to be involved and
then realizing it's also a global system - it has to work
anywhere in the world, so EASA was part of our special
project from the beginning. "
Up there and back again
Piper Aircraft was the first OEM to do a " live "
demonstration of Autoland, and as Scheel said, it was an
exciting culmination of nearly a decade's worth of work.
" When Piper did full-up testing, it had representatives
from the DC area ATC as well as representatives from
the ACO in Atlanta, " she explained. " It was really cool
to hear - we were all listening to ATC back at Garmin
headquarters. They went up to altitude, pushed the
button, and the system flew the approach and landed at
Garden City, squawking and talking the whole time. It
was amazing.
" We've done so many landings over the course of the
program, and we've never scratched the paint on any of
the airplanes. Obviously, the idea behind Autoland is to
preserve the airplane and passengers. And that means
returning the airplane to flight. Once the airplane is on
the ground, you just disconnect the autopilot, and it's all
ready to fly again. "
After thousands of flight hours and even more
successful landings, Garmin's revolutionary Autoland
autonomous flight technology system was awarded FAA
and EASA certification in 2020.
The big challenge of small airplanes
What's next for Autoland? Will it ever be retrofittable
into older aircraft?
" As the technology matures, we see it moving into
other aircraft types, " Straub explained. " It will go up
and down in airframe sizes. Many other larger aircraft
already have things like autothrottles, FADEC, and
radar altimeters - those make it easier to transition the
technology to those models.
" But when you try to go down to smaller, piston
aircraft, it's a much bigger challenge. They don't have
the systems that Autoland needs to operate, at least the
way it is configured today. We have no way to control
the throttle or propeller, and most of them don't have
radar altimeters.
" GPS is excellent, but its altitude sensing is not
accurate enough for autolanding. You don't want to flare
at 10 feet above the runway. And another thing, not all
runways are flat - we figured that out pretty quickly.
The radar altimeter is the only way to know exactly how
high you are above the runway. But today, that translates
to about $10,000, another antenna, and more weight on
the airplane. Not many piston aircraft can handle that. "
While there are significant challenges like the
plethora of supplemental type certificates you'd have to
receive and such, Straub said he's confident technology
will continue to evolve and will open the door to more
Garmin Autoland applications in the future.
No matter how you look at it, the capability to
automatically land an airplane is an amazing feat of
technology, combined with an amazing level of personal
commitment and dedication by the folks at Garmin. It's
an accomplishment they are all extremely proud of.
But as you'd expect, even with all of the accolades
that Autoland has received over its short life, the team
at Garmin has not lost sight of what they set out to do in
the first place.
" Autoland needs to work just like a pilot would; the
best pilot possible on that given day, " Scheel said. " It
shouldn't be anything unexpected for anyone. In the
end, it's just doing its thing. " q
To learn more about Garmin, visit garmin.com.
avionics news * august 2021 43
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Avionics News August 2021

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