
The Auto-Pilot iPad App - chaostheory
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/the-auto-pilot-ipad-app
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spitfire
Austin is the author of x-plane, an FAA certified flight sim. It's the only
sim that actually calculates lift and drag available to consumers. MS flight
sim is just a joke relying on rubber-band type lookup tables. If there's
anyone who can do it, it's Austin.

However, relying on the ipads gps and gyros seems like a poor choice. I
wouldn't trust the ipad to have the necessary precision to pull off a landing.
If you could interface the ipad with onboard GPS/gyro's then I'm all for it.
The ipad has a plenty fast cpu for this sort of thing. But then so does a 286.
or a PCjr for that matter.

~~~
jrockway
I think the iPad's GPS is just to find a nearby waypoint as a starting point
for the automatic approach and landing. Once you have decided upon a route,
it's a simple matter of tuning the aircraft's nav radio to the VOR or ILS.
From there, you have the full precision that you would normally have on an
instrument approach/landing. The innovation is that the passenger doesn't have
to know what an instrument approach is.

(I wonder if the code on the iPad gets the audio stream from the radio so that
it knows it's tuned to the right channel.)

As an aside, I've read on the X-Plane forums that X-Plane doesn't actually do
a full simulation as you say it does. If you try to spin the default C172, for
example, you can't do it, because the aerodynamics near the boundary cases are
not calculated correctly. (Either that, or the spin recovery for a C172
consists of letting go of the controls and waiting, which is not what the
manual says. But I have not tried it.)

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sokoloff
A 172 will recover from an upright (non-inverted, non-flat) spin by simply
centering the flight controls and waiting.

Anti-spin inputs (power idle, center controls, opposite rudder, elevator down)
make the recovery much quicker, but I was taught (and shown) that if you don't
know which rudder to use to stop the spin, to just center the controls and the
172 will stop spinning on its own.

Disclaimer: I'm just a pilot and not a CFI; if you go spin one into a smoking
crater following procedures other than the book, don't blame me, etc.

~~~
jrockway
Interesting. Hopefully I will get to try this in the not too distant future :)

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cmelbye
From the App Store Review Guidelines,

    
    
      4.2   Apps that use location-based APIs for automatic or autonomous control of
            vehicles, aircraft, or other devices will be rejected
    

Hmm...

~~~
X-Istence
But if it connects to the aircraft, it could use the aircrafts instruments, at
which point it doesn't use the location based API's :P

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DanielBMarkham
Very neat idea, but good luck with getting FAA approval.

This will probably count for a whole new type of approach: an automated
mostly-hands-free 0-0 landing.

Even if it's just for an emergency, and even if you make all kinds of
disclaimers and have folks sign all kinds of documents, you'd have better luck
teaching monkeys to play in an orchestra than you'll have trying to use this
legally in an airplane.

Of course, you can always sell it and say it's for "demonstration purposes
only" or some kind of silly shit like that. But still, anything to do with
certificated airplanes has this crazy no-risk bar that makes it almost
impossible to implement.

There's a reason why planes work pretty much the same now as 50 years ago,
even though technology has vastly changed. The industry and government
regulators are almost (but not totally) impervious to change. Lots of lawyers
filing lots of lawsuits for doctors who bent their Bonanzas have seen fit to
that.

~~~
spitfire
You can legally test and use this on experimental-amateur built aircraft.
Which is what Austins Lancair evo is.

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maigret
If that product doesn't get certified, there's probably an opportunity to
integrate that feature in existing glass cockpits. I mean, why not a "Land
Safely" red button on the passenger board? The reliable autopilot/GPS/software
is already here and certified, + then you don't need an iPad for it!

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aaronsw
I prefer Otto:

<http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1290293/>

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bjtitus
Let's be honest here. How many times is this really a concern? Why would the
FAA approve use of something like this and why would I install it when the
chance of use is probably extremely rare?

Seems like too much trouble than it's worth.

~~~
spitfire
Have you seen the cirrus aircraft? Unskilled, but rich people are willing to
pay > $500K for a plane with a parachute and a button that auto-rights them.

The result is a 6x fatality rate compared with the average for general
aviation. That's including some horribly twitchy aircraft in that average.

~~~
aaroneous
The envelope that ballistic parachutes provide a life-saving emergency
resolution vs a well executed power-off glide is pretty narrow. The studies
show that far too often it is abused by providing a false sense of security,
encouraging pilots to take risks they otherwise wouldn't have.

~~~
spitfire
Yup. It doesn't help that they use the parachute to sell to nervous but status
conscious celebrities/generic-rich-guys.

The cirrus is a terrifying plane[1], whenever I see one coming I run for my
life. You should too.

1\. In the hands of a trained pilot, flown for the long range missions it's
designed for it's a fine plane. But 90% of the people buying these things
aren't well trained, don't have the experience and don't do the sort of flying
appropriate to the Cirrus.

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aberkowitz
I don't see why this software is written on an iPad when it could be
implemented more effectively in the plane's own control system.

~~~
spitfire
You don't get to run apps on the planes EFIS systems. They're sealed,
controlled units for /very/ good reason.

Aircraft aren't like hacking on some webapp, you don't move fast and break
things. You test, test, validate, prove, test then finally ground test. Then
test in parallel in the air. then expand envelope, only then do you get to
think about relying on it.

~~~
aberkowitz
> Aircraft aren't like hacking on some webapp

Exactly, so why do you want to have an iPad control an airplane? Wouldn't it
make sense to add this to the EFIS systems so that the code is held to the
same standards as any other flight system?

The fact that a device can link directly to the plane's control system will
lead to numerous, potentially deadly exploits.

~~~
Groxx
Seems like the fact that a device can link directly to the plane's control
system has lead to a potentially-very-useful development that wouldn't be
possible otherwise.

What danger is there in allowing things to connect? There's plenty of
advantages, from making your own specialized sensor displays to making
autopilot algorithms, but what's the disadvantage?

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gte910h
I think this is actually against the license of the iPad's OS

I predict it may get pulled from the store.

