Many of us, however, do not give resale a whole lot of thought when negotiating the best possible purchase agreement. Often we are so excited by the thought of having our own aircraft and no longer having to share with fellow students or flying club members that we forget the day could come when we want to sell.

• READ MORE: The New Owner: The Power of Networking

When that day arrives, we need to think about how to approach the sale and how to use our personal networks and other resources to attract potential buyers. I mentioned personal networks first because I believe they are the best resources many of us have. While advertising your aircraft on aviation sales websites with good photos and a thoughtful, honest description is a good way to get nationwide attention, there also are advantages to marketing locally.

Over the years, I have looked at dozens of aircraft for sale at my home airport and at others nearby. When I was a student, my instructor often would say, “Let’s walk over to the hangars.There’s an airplane for sale that you should see.”

When I began shopping, I asked him, other pilots and local mechanics a lot of questions about different models they had owned or maintained. They were happy to talk and frequently recommended other people with opinions worth considering. And, of course, many knew of airplanes that were for sale, officially and unofficially, and would tell me which ones they thought were “good ones” and which were “dogs.” Typically, they also had the seller’s phone number handy.

I considered several of these aircraft, and while it took me a long time to find the right one, the local search was illuminating. One day my instructor showed me a Mooney M20 that belonged to another former student. She was moving across the country and wanted to sell. The airplane was beautiful, with newer paint and interior. Sitting in it for 10 minutes, however, confirmed that the seating position would not work for me.

With that visit I was able to remove Mooney’s from my wish list, which seemed efficient. The owner eventually changed her mind, took the airplane out west with her, and still was flying it the last time I checked. The other candidates found buyers fairly quickly.

I think that, deep down, pilots want to believe their first airplane can be their last if they do well in the selection process. If you find a high-performance piston single that is much faster than the trainer you flew previously, with enough useful load to carry your family and baggage and sufficient range to reach your favorite vacation spot, what more could you want?

• READ MORE: Finding Your Ideal Aircraft Without Remorse for Buyer or Seller

I can think of a few things, like more speed and greater range, to reach that new favorite vacation spot you and your family discovered while flying frequently in your new airplane. How about pressurization, so you can fly higher, faster, and make the most of your recently acquired instrument rating.

We bought our Commander, Annie, from a partnership of three pilots, two of whom were switching to Cirrus SR22s. For a few years, Annie had been fast enough—but not anymore. I spoke with one of the sellers last week and asked him how he liked the Cirrus. He said he misses the Commander’s comfort and handling—which is a polite thing to say—but loves the SR22’s speed. “Now those 500 nm trips seem to go by in no time,” he said. Annie still takes a while to go that far.

We found our airplane online but within a 25-mile search area. If we were to sell it, we would focus again on the local market and try to get it done by word of mouth. But we are not selling, though we understand why many do. Temptation is everywhere.

My wife, sons, and I have been traveling together in Annie for less than six months, and already we cannot stop talking about turboprops. Our airplane is a perfect fit for us, but every time we land at a new destination, without fail, there is a gleaming TBM, Piper M600, or other turbine single on the ramp.

Next come the questions like, “How fast will that one go?”

The post Prepare to Sell Your Aircraft By Tapping Local Resources appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The selections within the pool for buyers offer well-targeted capability and niche design—and the segment continues to attract new entrants from the original equipment manufacturers specializing in these mounts. Daher has led the way in 2022, with the introduction of two new models to its portfolio, the autoland-capable TBM 960 (successor to the 940) and the Kodiak 900, a serious reimagining of the backcountry hauler into a much faster baby. The 900 provides a different flavor of competition for the Cessna Grand Caravan EX—though the classic from Textron Aviation still comes in lower on price point, and you can’t put a 900 on floats—yet. Stay tuned.

Updates from Epic on the E1000 GX preserve speed while upgrading the useful load: You can pack in five adults, a show’s worth of bags, and full fuel—and stay under the maximum takeoff weight of 8,000 pounds. The Pilatus PC-12 NGX is sold out well into 2024, proving the endurance of that model’s attraction—and the M600/SLS Halo (also with autoland) and the M500 from Piper offer an easy step up from high-performance piston singles and twins.

On the multiengine side, Textron Aviation added the Cessna SkyCourier officially to its lineup in 2022, redefining the top end of its twin-turboprop product line. Deliveries to launch customer FedEx started earlier this year in the freighter version, while a passenger model seats up to 19 people. 

Turboprop sales suffered a bit from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, falling from 525 deliveries in 2019 to 443 in 2020, with a rebound to 527 in 2021. The year thus far portends a return to rosy skies for the segment: Through June 2022, GA turboprop manufacturers reported 247 shipments with projections for an even stronger second half of the year. That runs counter to many years, when fourth quarter sales soften. However, lease rates on aircraft also tend to become more favorable at year end, and may combine in 2022 with a bump in sales closings in December when the U.S. faces a potential loss of recent tax advantages on aircraft purchases—as long as rising interest rates don’t spoil the party.

According to Lou Seno, chairman emeritus of Jet Support Services, a provider of hourly cost maintenance programs for aircraft engines and airframes, this could have a real effect on the last quarter. “In 2023, we go back to the regular depreciation schedule,” says Seno, as the bonus depreciation schedules implemented for aircraft placed in service after September 27, 2017, and before January 1, 2023, are no longer available—unless there is an extension granted to the IRS code.

For those owner-pilots and businesses looking to add a capable turboprop like a Beechcraft King Air 360 as a capital investment this year, the timing may be just right—if they have an order in or can negotiate a place in line. Most manufacturers are taking positions well into next year—or the year after.

Single-Engine Turboprop

Multiengine Turboprop

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The Piper M600 at a Glance

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Ten years later, the newest evolution of the PA-46 series—Piper’s M600/SLS Halo—proposes to do both, delivering an envelope of protection readily managed by transitioning pilots while at the same time upping the ante in speed and payload. When the M600 update to the M500 first arrived on the scene in 2016, those dream numbers—the result of 100 more horsepower up front from a flat-rated PT6A-42A engine—really came true.

This year, with the FLYING Innovation Award-winning Autoland from Garmin giving the M600 its Halo, Piper’s quest for an ever-higher level of GA safety got a serious boost. The folks at Garmin will tell you Autoland couldn’t have come to fruition without Piper, and the feeling is mutual. “The M600 SLS and its Halo Safety System with Autoland is the result of an unwavering commitment to safety as well as the desire to evolve our products based on market input,” said Piper president and CEO John Calcagno. “This standard feature brings peace of mind to pilots and their families.”

Chasing the Grail

When FLYING first flew the initial M600 in market-survey mode five years ago—just hours before the FAA signoff on the type—we had a sense the PA-46 series had found its sweet spot, and the type has achieved great success. For the photo shoot for this article, we captured serial No. 173 in flight over the Atlantic Ocean, and I flew my demo flight in serial No. 163, currently in experimental mode, to test out several new goodies on board. Piper delivered 36 of the PA-46-600TP M600/SLS aircraft in 2020 and six in the first quarter of this year, to make a reported total of 161 out the door since its debut—with clearly more in the immediate pipeline.

Handling characteristics and performance make it comparable in some ways to half a Beechcraft King Air 200, according to pilots we talked with for this report. When Piper moved from the M500 to the M600, the extra 100 shp coaxed from the Pratt & Whitney PT6-series engines made all the difference in the world. In this case, they are the same 42s you find on King Air 200s from the early 2000s, but on the King Airs, they’re rated at 850 shp per side, while the M600 offers 600 shp. In the air, the M600′s wing makes it respond like the larger airplane, and the climb rate as high as 3,000 fpm stacks up well against the turboprop twin as well. Add in a range while carrying five passengers with light bags (a total of 1,000 pounds) of up to 800 nm—and the fact that it sips half the gas—this makes the M600/SLS a compelling choice for owners who fit that use case.

A Protective Halo

The Halo-equipped M600/SLS debuted with Garmin’s Autoland as the premier feature in the model’s standard lineup beginning in 2020. But the well-rounded roster of capabilities that Autoland and its accompanying avionics, known collectively as Autonomi, pack onto the turboprop make it just part of an overall “safety system,” as Piper calls it.

To recap, in case you aren’t familiar with Autoland: The orchestrated suite of software and hardware directs the airplane to the nearest suitable airport in the event of pilot incapacitation. It does so by controlling the aircraft’s navigation, descent, weather and terrain avoidance, gear extension, flight-into-known-icing activation, flaps, braking, and all communication with ATC. While it’s designed for passengers to initiate with a guarded button on the panel, the pilot can start the sequence via that same button, or the airplane can initiate Autoland itself if the pilot is unresponsive in certain cases.

Hypoxia recognition incorporated into the emergency descent mode takes it one step further, monitoring the pilot any time they engage the autopilot above 14,000 feet msl. If the pilot is unresponsive to the system’s prompts, EDM will bring the airplane below 14,000 feet. After that descent, the system will initiate the Autoland sequence if no further response comes from the pilot after a set period of time.

Halo also includes Garmin’s electronic stability and protection, synthetic vision, SafeTaxi, TerminalTraffic (which syncs with ADS-B-equipped aircraft and ground vehicles), SurfaceWatch (directing you to the runway before takeoff and to the ramp after landing), Flight Stream 510 to create a Bluetooth connection between the aircraft and your mobile device, and an autothrottle system.

I flew the model Piper currently has in experimental/market-survey status, N163HL, specifically so I could test out the latest update to the Garmin autothrottle that was originally incorporated into the M600 for Autoland. With the upcoming approval, the pilot can use the autothrottle outside of the Autoland sequence. And as tested, the A/T certainly does its part to assist the pilot—but more on that a bit later.

Preflight to Approach

Both models observed for this report feature the optional five-blade Hartzell composite propeller, approved in spring 2017, which—other than looking completely badass on the ramp—delivers an improved vibration signature inside the airplane, as well as likely better takeoff and climb performance, though no concrete numbers have been established by Piper. The steel-shank core is wrapped in carbon composite material and trimmed with a nickel-cobalt leading edge with a mesh erosion screen to protect the blades from foreign-object debris. That’s important because a single nick on the blade renders it unairworthy. As we noted on my preflight walk-around with Piper Aircraft business development director Dan Lewis, a stray drop of rain clinging to the leading edge can look an awful lot like a chip out of that blade. We were both relieved when it wiped off. That said, the propeller carries a lifetime guarantee, the result of a blade strength between five and 10 times that of blades with wood cores. Continuing on the walk-around, a hidey-hole-size compartment under a circular access panel near the horizontal stab can retain towels, testers and other cleaning accoutrements.

The fuselage could do with a few more inches in the cross section—a common refrain from those who will need to sit knee-to-knee with their fellow passengers in the back. I’m a not a large human, but it still took nimble maneuvering to drop myself into the left seat. Once settled into the flight deck, though, the M600 feels like a real front office, with a well-thought-out panel, easy-to-reach circuit breakers, and electrical-system controls on the overhead immediately in front of the pilot.

While taxiing, the rudder pedals remain a bit stiff, but the flight controls improve greatly in feel once you’re airborne. In fact, the relatively moderate pitch force in comparison to the slightly heavier aileron response reminded me of being in a stretched Bonanza with a longer wing. The same nose-heavy profile on landing will also echo that of a front-loaded A36, especially with two or three people placed towrds the front, and light baggage.

My introduction to the stand-alone autothrottle began in its takeoff setting, which comes on line as the powerplant reaches 700 pounds of torque. It felt like we were just getting started down the runway when the autothrottle captured the lever under my guiding hand. I continued steering, but the autothrottle set the Pratt & Whitney out front to the most efficient takeoff power setting and held it there as I came through 85 knots and rotated.

The climb from nearly sea level to 14,500 feet—above the lifting condensation level, its commensurate clouds and bumps, and general coastal fray—zoomed along at a variable rate between 2,500 and 3,000 fpm, with the total climb completed in less than six minutes on the G3000′s clock. With a couple of clearing turns in the last part of the climb, I agreed with the prior assessment that the airplane’s coupling is not unlike that of its larger brethren.

At 14,500 feet, I disconnected the A/T, which had held us at the maximum efficient torque setting throughout the climb, and Lewis walked through the M600′s protective features that predated the Halo version: electronic stability and protection and underspeed protection. Added since we previously flew the M600 in 2016 is overspeed protection, an addition to the emergency-descent-management protocol first installed with the G3000 in the model that year. During the overspeed-protection sequence, I watched and listened as the airspeed approached the top end, and when it rolled past 248 knots, a voice announced, “Autothrottle,”—which was already engaged from the takeoff and climb—and the power lever moved as the system adjusted the torque to a lower setting to keep us from blasting through the invisible speed wall.

With all of the envelope protection baked into the M600, it’s important to note the ability to override all of it in the event an evasive maneuver is required. That tough wing is responsible in part for a green arc (73 kias to 251 kias) on the tape that goes all the way up to the barber pole at 251 kias, the VNO.

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That said, it almost felt like a setup when things played out as they did when we headed back toward the airport. Upon descending down to 4,000 feet to duck below a scattered cumulus layer and line up for an approach into Vero, Lewis called out, “Skydiver!” and gestured out to the front of the airplane. Sure enough, there was a canopy at 12 o’clock and well inside our traffic bubble. I hit a 30-degree bank left to avoid the person hanging in the straps, only to see another canopy come through my field of view. I banked harder and pressed the autopilot-disengage button on the yoke to release the ESP, which would have resisted my momentary bank past 45 degrees to steer clear of the skydiver.

“The autothrottle will catch you a little faster than the system [alone] will,” says product marketing manager Bryant Elliott. “It will start increasing power before that underspeed kicks in. So, if the autothrottle is not engaged, the airspeed at which the underspeed is captured will be a bit lower.” The upshot? The enhanced aircraft flight-control system, launched with the M500 and M350 in 2015, now has another layer of protection.

When you look at what Garmin has been working on all along, they just needed a way to tie all the systems together to create Autoland. The Garmin GFC 700 has been able to fly an approach all the way to the ground the whole time; it just needed a way to extend the gear and flaps and flare and brake correctly.

Angels in the Panel

Up front, you can configure the screens to display any way you want—except maybe the latest Netflix movie—including full-screen PFDs on the left and right with traffic and map insets, as well as a split screen on all three displays featuring large-scale versions of pages such as weather, terrain or the engine-indication system. The big screens are driven by a pair of GTN 850s positioned side by side vertically on the center console above the power quadrant.

The daily summer thunderstorms had yet to kick up along the Treasure Coast during our demo flight, so we couldn’t find much to scope on the onboard radar. The M600 included the standard Garmin GWX 75 with an optional enhancement package—this option is now the newly rebranded Garmin GWX 8000 (previously the GWX 80). When the M600 debuted, its clean-sheet wing streamlined the radar pod into the leading edge of the right wing, improving ground clearance and allowing for a wider gear stance by a couple of inches on each side. The result of the change to the main gear is improved crosswind handling, with a demonstrated limit of 17 knots. “Ground clearance was not really an issue—it was getting the radar away from the fuselage,” Elliott said. The false feedback from the propeller went away with the change.

The GWX 8000 brings large-aircraft radar capability to the owner-flown market. Primary among its features is StormOptix. As Elliott noted: “Piper has offered the ground-clutter suppression and turbulence detection since the launch of the GWX 75, but the additional Auto Mode and volumetric scanning are unique to the GWX 8000. Also, the volumetric scanning provides advanced ground-clutter suppression and advanced turbulence detection, as well as zero blind range,” which means that returns are maintained in the system’s memory, enabling them to be presented on the screen until they are essentially zero nautical miles away.

Placing the GWX 8000 into auto mode activates the three-dimensional volumetric scanning with automatic adjustment of the antenna sweep to create a picture of the scanned volume. Those of us who recall single-color onboard radar (often a ghostly green) will be blown away by the 16-color palette available on the new display. Because of the diameter of the antenna, the wind-shear option is not available in the M600—but other enhancements, such as predictive hail and lightning, will be available with future software loads.

Backup instrumentation is now provided by the Garmin GI 275 integrated flight display, with its smaller, round-dial presentation, taking the place of the Aspen Avionics Evolution PFD.

One area where the M600 shines is in operational cost: That figure runs roughly $750 per hour according to the Aircraft Cost Calculator. How does this compare to other single-engine turboprops in the lineup? Though steep in comparison to piston-powered, high-performance singles, it ranks well among its peers in the single-engine-turboprop class, with the M600 besting the Daher TBM 940 and Pilatus PC-12 NG by nearly $200 per hour—and about $50 less per hour than the Epic E1000. Granted, with each of those competitors, you gain carrying capability and speed in varying amounts.

The new black-and-silver paint schemes manage to look both cool on the ramp and hot in the air. Interiors have had an update as well, with the EXP package now standard in the M600/SLS. But it’s more than an illusion of comfort and protection that the cabin environment provides. With the FLYING Innovation Award-winning Halo quietly standing by, the pilot now has the ability to give their passengers a true safety net of their own.

Piper M600/SLS Halo Statistics

The Right Training

An accident claimed a Piper M600—but fortunately not its pilot—in a runway-excursion event earlier this year. The preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board points to the pilot’s low time in type. Interviews with the broker who sold him the airplane indicate that the pilot’s low total time and laissez-faire approach to the type-specific training offered by Piper may have contributed to the airframe’s demise.

Piper offers a five-day transition course to the M600 through its partner, Legacy Flight Training at Vero Beach and Scottsdale, Arizona. And though the training in type is important, it’s also worth noting that the PA-46 series puts pilots into the midlevels (between FL 160 and FL 300) often for the first time. This means flying a fast, pressurized aircraft above some of the weather, but not all. It means exposure to high-altitude flying above FL 250—and getting the requisite training if you go there. It means more exposure to in-flight icing. These conditions are all straightforward enough to handle while everything is going well, but once a chain of events links up, experience up here can be a swift and harsh teacher. In the nonturbine PA-46s, flight in the midlevels required precise engine management, somewhat ameliorated by the altitude-happy PT6A.

This story appeared in the September 2021 issue of FLYING Magazine

The post We Fly: Piper M600/SLS Halo appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Piper announced at the show the certification and availability of Garmin’s GWX 8000 weather radar system for the M600, M500, and M350 models. Featuring StormOptix, it represents Garmin’s most advanced radar technology bundled into one package—and the first such certification in owner-flown, non-jet GA aircraft. Its Auto Mode and 3D volumetric scanning provide easier threat identification and reduction of pilot workload. In a nutshell, you just don’t have to fiddle with it the way a pilot does with legacy radar systems.

A multi-angle, volumetric scan ahead of the aircraft collects data, which then goes into the expanded system memory. The system compares and contrasts the various scans to identify and delineate ground versus airborne weather radar targets, depicting the weather returns and omitting the ground returns. The system runs at a scan/refresh rate of 4 scans at 5 seconds each, plus 5 seconds for processing, for 25 seconds between images. Auto Mode allows the pilot to select the Weather mode, and the volumetric scanning becomes automated, making an automatic adjustment of the antenna sweep pattern to build a picture of the scanned volume. An enhanced color palette makes that picture pop in brilliant color as compared to legacy systems.

The GWX 8000 with StormOptix debuted on the Citation Longitude. The GWX 8000 StormOptix is intended to replace solutions such as MultiScan and RDR 7000 radars, which are targeted at high-end business jets and commercial aircraft. It includes all past GWX 75 features as well.

Calcagno also commented on strong sales on the M600 and M500, plus great market acceptance of the Piper 100i for flight training. While a handful of M600s are available before the end of the year, the M500 and 100i are essentially sold out until the second quarter of 2022.

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Most pilots have at one time or another read an NTSB accident report created by the independent US agency responsible for investigating mishaps in all forms of transportation. And most of us have thought: “Wow. I’d never do anything as crazy as that pilot.” Yet pilots of all categories continue to make mind-numbing mistakes in judgment when in command of an airplane. Sometimes pilots do make silly decisions and are lucky enough to get back on the ground safe and sound.

Some NTSB critics believe the board’s probable cause determinations don’t dig deeply enough into the pilot’s state of mind at the time of an accident or incident. To be fair to investigators, it’s not the NTSB’s job to explore the minds of pilots unless that led to the accident or incident itself. Like Joe Friday, the lead detective on the old Dragnet TVseries, the NTSB’s investigators really just want the facts. That leaves some of us to read between the lines for clues into how other pilots make decisions.

On June 15, 2020, a private pilot—non-instrument rated and owner of a new Piper PA-46 M600—lost control of his airplane shortly after touchdown in a right crosswind at the Williston Municipal Airport (X60) in Williston, Florida, following a 1,100-nm flight from Abilene, Texas. The aircraft was substantially damaged during the Part 91 VFR flight. Local Florida weather at the time of the accident was good VMC with just a few scattered clouds at 4,800 feet. The Piper M600 is a sophisticated single-engine, glass-cockpit aircraft powered by a 600 hp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine. It’s capable of carrying up to six people a distance of more than 1,600 nm at speeds up to 274 knots. The M600′s service ceiling is 30,000 feet, but without an instrument rating, the pilot would have been unable to legally fly higher than 17,500 feet. A search on FlightRadar 24 indicates the pilot made the entire trip at 17,250 feet, perfectly legal, but hardly smart. No word on whether he was talking to ATC along the way. All in all, his flights in the M600 represented quite a step up from the Cessna 172 the pilot had flown until the purchase.

The NTSB Factual Report—ERA20LA230—said the aircraft was tracking straight down the runway at touchdown, but then pulled hard right as soon as the nose gear touched the pavement. The nose gear separated from the airplane before the aircraft came to rest in the grass on side of the runway. Luckily neither the pilot nor the passenger aboard was injured during the excursion. The NTSB found only one item out of norms: the front tire pressure was 73.5 psi when it should have been 88 psi.

There were a number of news stories last summer about PA-46s experiencing excursions as the result of incorrect tire pressure, but that turned out not to be the case in the Williston accident. Even though the NTSB’s factual report didn’t include a probable cause, the NTSB reported there were additional facts that might point directly to the pilot’s poor judgment and risk management skills.

This private pilot had logged just 99 hours of total flight time, of which 54 were in the M600 since earning his private pilot certificate just 2 ½ months earlier. The only other airplane he’d experienced was a Cessna 172, for his first 45 hours of instruction. After accepting delivery of the turboprop, the pilot refused to attend the factory-authorized M600 training, preferring to send an independent flight instructor who later trained the pilot in the airplane. As it turned out, the 1,000-mile journey to Florida was the accident pilot’s first trip without his instructor aboard. A representative of the dealership that sold this pilot the M600 told investigators at the time of purchase, the pilot did not meet the flight experience requirements for the insurance company to provide coverage for the pilot to use the airplane. The pilot chose to make the flight without any insurance coverage on the aircraft, himself, his passenger, or for anything they might encounter along the way.

An M600 expert said they believed the excursion stemmed from poor pilot technique, as a result of the aircraft touching down at too high a speed, an incorrect roundout technique, and an inability to handle a crosswind landing.

The post NTSB Reports Don’t Always Reveal the Complete Story appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

As Piper’s current new single-engine turboprop fleet—the M500 and M600—grows in numbers and capabilities, the factory, working with AeroMech, has added reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM) as a factory option on all new aircraft. Previously, RVSM could only be added to these airplanes post-production. RVSM certification is required for all aircraft operating worldwide above FL280.

Piper said in a news release, “Operating in RVSM airspace will allow M500 [and] M600 pilots to gain fuel savings, lower their carbon footprint, increase range, and fly above weather. Owners investing in RVSM can expect higher resale values and shorter time on the market when it comes time to sell or trade. The RVSM STC has been approved by the FAA, EASA (Europe), and ANAC (Brazil) with Canadian (TCCA) approval in process.”

Piper Aircraft product marketing manager, Bryant Elliott said, “Opening RVSM airspace for Piper M500 and M600 products is a great opportunity for our owners and operators to unleash the full capability of the aircraft and operate above weather up to FL300 with increased range. Using the AeroMech STC, we can deliver this performance upgrade prior to flyaway using Piper skilled technicians with no avionics changes.”

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Your punishment for whatever mistake you’ve made in an airplane shouldn’t be the ultimate one. Not for you—and certainly not for your passengers.

That’s the underlying philosophy inspiring engineers to create revolutionary safety technologies for light aircraft across the past century. Advancements such as the large-format multifunction display with in-cockpit weather, upset protection and emergency-descent protocols—and whole-airframe ballistic recovery systems—stem from this drive toward solving our mistakes as pilots. Case in point: About 20 years ago, Cirrus delivered the airframe parachute to a certificated light airplane as standard equipment—known as the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System. Just a year or two later, Cirrus debuted its version of the wide-horizon primary flight display—around the same time as in the Lancair Columbia—but soon after, the innovative PFD followed in a cascade of single-engine pistons and twins.

Proponents saw into the future with the possibilities; those pilots with a reactionary take questioned the potential misuse of the technology. In a handful of cases, those skeptics proved to be correct—but for the bulk of the general aviation public, the result has been a net gain in both safety and utility. While the most recent statistics have shown an uptick in the fatal-accident rate (according to the most recent 2018 NTSB data), it’s premature to say more pilots have come to grief solely because of technology.

Say you’ve stumbled into IFR conditions or a situation in which you couldn’t fly your way out—we can all agree it’s better to learn your lessons by living to study the aftermath. And it’s the case even more that technology can save you from making those mistakes in the first place.

Autonomy refers to a state of being able to make choices and execute decisions as sovereign unto one’s self. Garmin’s Autonomi suite uses various tools to hand over that state to the airplane in an emergency situation—most likely when the pilot becomes incapacitated—and offers passengers an “out” they didn’t have before. The company has now introduced the key element: Autoland, the breakthrough system that allows those parts of Autonomi to not only escape the immediate hazard but also bring the airplane to a safe—and really quite-normal—landing.

Approaching Autoland

As a company, Garmin has created an environment within its walls where the testing of new ideas doesn’t necessarily need to go anywhere—so dreaming up the basic elements that would constitute the Autoland system for light aircraft fit right into the mix. But from the beginning, the engineers doing that forward thinking didn’t want their efforts to coalesce into just a “really great R&D project” and nothing else, and instead drove toward a system with broad practical application across several levels of aircraft types.

Bailey Scheel—senior aviation-programs engineer and manager at Garmin—grew up in Idaho, where she first learned to fly and where her family flew a Cessna 180 throughout the backcountry. Her excitement in joining the Autoland development team lies in its multifaceted nature: “The breadth of the project touches everything in the avionics, touches everything in the airplane—the radios, the transponder, the flight-control system, the [flight-management system], the displays—it touches everything,” she says. “There were definitely technical challenges in each of those areas, but just wrapping our arms around what it really was, was probably one of the more difficult things.”

The research into Autoland began in 2011; the first flight took place in May 2014. In September 2015, Garmin looped in the FAA, and in February 2016, it performed its first automated landing on an actual runway surface. Before that, all of the landings took place in the sky.

Jessica Koss is Garmin’s aviation-media-relations specialist and an experienced flight instructor, and she describes the process—which, to anyone familiar with Garmin’s creative side, makes perfect sense. “We’re very vertically integrated as a company, and part of that integration includes our own aviation database team,” Koss says, “so we actually built airports up in the sky—at 5,000 feet or what have you—and we would practice the approach to landing at altitude, the flare, the landing, all of that before we brought it down to the ground.”

In 2016, Piper Aircraft stepped up to the plate, eventually committing roughly $3 million in assets to the program, including test aircraft. “Over three years ago, I said, ‘I’m all in, whatever you need,’” says Piper president and CEO Simon Caldecott. “It’s a big advantage [for] our class of aircraft. We see more and more people who want to buy a seat in an airplane—and to know there’s a safety benefit.”

The platform of choice? The manufacturer’s flagship, the M600. Piper’s customers can fly the aircraft under BasicMed, as long as they keep operational weight to 6,000 pounds or less and stay below 18,000 feet. Not to suggest that those flying under that program are more likely to suffer a medical emergency; in fact, any one of us could fall prey to a sudden cardiac event or stroke.

But Caldecott and the Piper team identified a sweet spot inhabited by the M600 for the first implementation of Autoland—the bones of the airplane fit the project. The airframe’s big enough to have room to work with while putting into place all of the required components. It also had an option for a radar altimeter, which turned out to be important for the first application of the system.

Most pilots might think they would never use the Autoland function—and all companies involved in its debut hope they’re right. But Caldecott believes in the value of the system—what Piper has branded Halo—enough to envision that it will become standard on Piper’s full lineup of aircraft at some point in the future.

How Did I Get Into This?

Autoland engages under two separate conditions: when someone in the airplane, either the pilot or passenger, presses the guarded button or the system detects a lack of response from the pilot.

In the latter case, Koss describes two branches of the Autoland architecture based upon emergency functions already familiar to pilots using recent versions of Garmin’s series of flight decks. “The first scenario, think of it as your EDM scenario,” Koss says. “The pilot is flying straight and level [with the] autopilot on, at one of those hypoxic altitudes, and they don’t interact with the flight deck. They’re going to get that message, ‘Are you alert?’ and they just have to push any button on the flight deck [to answer the system’s query], and if they don’t, then EDM will descend [the airplane] to a lower altitude.” After a period of time, if the pilot continues to not interact with the flight deck or do anything, then Autoland activates.

The other automated scenario anticipates the need for aircraft recovery from a serious upset. Let’s say an inexperienced—or less-than-current—pilot gets into the clouds and starts banking really hard or pitching up aggressively or lowering the nose. “Then ESP will engage, and then again if ESP is engaged for a prolonged period of time…it will go into level mode,” Scheel says. If level mode is active for two minutes, and the pilot does not take the airplane out of level mode, then Autoland activates without further prompting from anyone in the airplane. “And that’s probably the more desirable condition for [the pilot and any passengers]—especially if you’re upside down and disoriented.”

All Elements In Place

When someone inside the airplane presses the button, Autoland immediately launches into its activation sequence. Two of the engineers behind its development describe each element of the process and how their work evolved to deliver the desired outcome: a reasonable landing at the most appropriate airport determined by the program. Eric Tran has been the primary senior software engineer, with the responsibility to develop the algorithm that constitutes Autoland “brains.” Ben Patel is team leader of aviation systems, heading up the cadre that has solved for solutions on the mechanical side. Both are listed on the original Garmin patent.

First, Autoland ensures envelope protection. The aircraft uses ESP to return to straight and level if needed.

Second, the system provides terrain protection. The team gave the example: What if Autoland engaged while the airplane flew below the ridgeline at Crater Lake in Oregon, where terrain on all sides creates an immediate hazard? The system would recognize that and enter a circling climb until clear of the terrain.

Third, Autoland moves to weather avoidance. “When you select the button, Autoland is going to take into account a lot of information, and it’s going to happen immediately,” Koss says. “It’s going to consider weather en route, weather at the destination—Autoland even has the capability to forecast weather” up to 15 minutes into the future. XM Nexrad data is updated every 2.5 minutes, and Autoland can use all of the sources, including Iridium and Flight Information Services–Broadcast, to request fresh data when able. If the system finds it necessary, Autoland can reroute to a more optimal airport.

Fourth, the system executes a route selection to the nearest appropriate airport. These calculations take place within 8 milliseconds, according to Tran. It also considers fuel on board, so it will select a destination within your fuel range. “Runway surface, length, width, type—all of that is taken into consideration. For the M600, the ideal runway length is 5,000 feet. We’ll accept 4,000 feet if that’s all that’s within range for us,” Koss says.

Choosing the airport: “We take apart the decision a pilot would make, and we narrow it down into these discrete buckets, [which include] attributes for a destination,” Tran says. “We can give each of these a score, and we can weight those, [in a configurable fashion] and for the [manufacturer’s] preference; it’s the preference for the airframe. If they tune it in a particular way, [the algorithm] can pick a longer runway and pick one that isn’t affected by crosswinds as much—but however they tune it, it’s going to be a safe selection.”

The Landing

“We collected the data, and it turns out that pilots don’t fly a glidepath perfectly down until they’re on the runway,” Patel says. “At some point, they decide, ‘That’s OK, close enough,’ and they actually dip below [the glidepath], typically, and flare up a little bit. So we had to look at some data and try to understand what makes sense and when we need to deviate from that geometry that we’d provided. We actually turned the problem into a little bit of a transition from a glidepath tracking to where we go into a mode where we’re simply trying to convert to vertical speed.”

Touchdown needs to be a bit firm. “The goal is not to feather it down but to be as comfortable as possible,” Patel says. “Once we get it down, [we want to] keep it on the ground.” That’s a steady vertical descent, as much nose-up as aerodynamically optimal, until the system is “confident” it’s on the ground. “Probably one of the hardest parts of the problem is knowing when you’re actually on the ground. We spent a lot of time just in the flight-test area really dialing in what is the right angle of attack, what is the right vertical speed target to get us on the ground.” The system also has to compensate for a wide variety of runway conditions, such as rain, ice or snow. On larger aircraft, these factors can be mitigated by a robust braking system, but on a light aircraft, it might not be cost-efficient or technically feasible.

But the truth is in the flying, so I took up Garmin’s invitation to come out and fly one of the M600 test aircraft in August 2019, before it returned to flight-test status and out of reach of aviation journalists vying for a preview. We took off from New Century AirCenter outside of Olathe, Kansas, and climbed up over the plains. Garmin flight-test pilot and engineer Eric Sargent sat in the right seat and walked through the activation. The control tower supervisor at New Century was somewhat in the know about what we were doing—but the automated calls to ATC were not part of the demo because they would instantly raise awareness of what the company had on the burner.

All was straightforward following activation—and we deactivated the system on our first attempt because of traffic vectored into the runway ahead of us. With a fully operational system, the airport normally would be cleared of conflicting traffic following the sequence of emergency radio calls triggered via Autoland. If a traffic conflict occurred, that’s a similar scenario to an encroachment made following a pilot’s own emergency call.

“I can tell you’re an instructor.” Sargent referred to the involuntary position of my hands below the yoke as we descended into the round out over the runway. True—I have grown accustomed over the years to restraining myself from smoothing out a student’s efforts in managing the touchdown, and I’ve learned to accept variations in technique (and contact with the runway) in order to allow for learning to take place. In this regard, Autoland looks to be a consistent performer. Our touchdown felt firm but secure, the kind of landing you would want on a slick runway to break any surface tension rain may have left behind. Sargent related that they had made more than 800 test landings at that point in the program.

We came to a stop on the runway, with the braking and steering mechanisms adjusting our rollout in a fairly smooth fashion. The engine did not shut down, but it would in the real activation. If we followed the instructions on the screens, we would exit the airplane on the runway and ostensibly be met by emergency personnel—shaken but not stirred.

Safe Return for Cirrus

Cirrus had the architecture for Garmin’s Autonomi system in mind for the Vision Jet from its inception and installed components of it on the airplane as they became available. The key to the final system capability was the addition of the autothrottle to the jet—without that, Autoland cannot perform its duties.

The Autoland program fits in neatly with Cirrus’ overall philosophy of taking what were unrecoverable accident chains in light aircraft, such as a midair collision or spatial disorientation, and crafting out-of-the-box ways to break those chains. The CAPS, for example, and the original primary flight display with a horizon-spoofing baseline. In the Vision Jet, the activation button is placed in the main cabin, well within reach of anyone in the passenger seats. This is key to the customizations made for Cirrus’ version of Autoland, which it has branded Safe Return.

Ben Kowalski, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Cirrus, has Garmin Aviation roots; he was its director of sales and marketing prior to arriving at the aircraft manufacturer. He envisions Autoland as a natural extension of the capabilities of both companies. “We see it being a pretty big deal because, in a passenger aircraft, this Autoland system can be activated [by someone] sitting anywhere in the aircraft…[it] turns it into an autonomous vehicle, and it’s making decisions to return to an airport like a pilot would. In the Vision Jet, you get to see the pilot [work], but now you get this enabling tool…I can press a button and bring it back to landing.”

Kowalski continues by making the direct link to the Cirrus philosophy. “If you have an airframe issue: CAPS. If you have a pilot incapacitation issue: Safe Return. We wanted to make sure that, if there’s a pilot incapacitation, the passengers can have access to the safety feature—Cirrus is trying to grow aviation.”

Todd Simmons, president of customer experience at Cirrus, explains further. “It all began with Garmin Perspective” and the inclusion of ESP and EDM—and the “smart” autopilot servos that drive those functions. “All of that integration…but it’s bigger than the technology. Collectively, we can harness them. We imagined [that would happen] when all the technology came together—autothrottle, autobraking and the key enabling technologies within the G3000.”

Standard on the Cirrus too? Yes, it will be a system on board in every single Vision Jet for now. And this is purposeful. “It changes the way single-engine pilot operations can happen. The stereotypical [worst-case] scenarios—it gives us a story to dispel those fears,” Simmons says.

On Final Final

Each aviation generation sees a handful of revolutionary concepts, those leading-edge technologies that, once introduced to the airplane, undergo a transition period—because they are so game-changing—before we fully understand the increase in safety they can provide. As certification progresses on the M600 and Vision Jet, training must take place—for both pilots and passengers—in order to maintain the level of safety that Garmin, Piper and Cirrus envision.

The first true activation of Autoland will come at some point in the future—just like the first deployment of CAPS following its introduction on the SR20 in late 1999. That incident didn’t occur until 2002, when a lone pilot who had departed Addison Airport in Texas aboard his SR22 deployed the chute following a loss of control, prompted by the separation of the left aileron from the airframe. It took three years, essentially, for the first use of the innovative system in an emergency. One person’s life—inarguably—was saved. Nearly 20 years later, we look for a similar outcome with Autoland.

This story appeared in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of Flying Magazine

The post Garmin’s Autoland Gets Flight Tested appeared first on FLYING Magazine.