GARMIN AUTOLAND FOR THE REST OF US
Almost a year and half after Garmin’s Autoland announcement, the industry is still buzzing over this magic automation that lands the aircraft when the pilot can’t. Initially type certified in Piper’s M600 turboprop, Cirrus earned approval for the system (called Safe Return) in its Vision Jet, as did Daher (calling it HomeSafe) for the TBM940. Garmin’s emergency Autoland is helping to sell airplanes. Go for a demo ride in any of these machines and you’ll likely be convinced, too. But buyers are now asking when the system will be available for retrofit, or at least a player in new piston airplanes. Paired with an autothrottle, the system has to this point only been an application for turbines. But to branch into the piston market, I think Cirrus SR22 models seem to be a logical starting point. What are buyers willing to pay for it? This got me thinking about the future of avionics tech, and whether we have reached saturation—or at least the threshold of what buyers are willing to pay. I reached out to Bill Stone, Garmin’s head of business development, to backstop my thinking in that we already reached the threshold.
Stone has his finger firmly on the market’s pulse and while he eventually sees Autoland as a trickle-down system for the masses (Garmin believes it should be widely available to OEMS and end users), he’s we’ll aware of cost sensitivity. Not surprisingly, Garmin is closely watching the trends in parallel markets, including automotive. You know, vehicles that drive themselves. A solution looking for a problem, perhaps, but there have also been huge leaps in manufacturing and automation solutions that can also benefit our small industry.