The button sits under its clear guard, without drawing much attention to itself until you know what it does. All of the elements that went into Garmin’s Autoland had been similarly lying in wait, ready to come together as components of its Autonomi suite—going first into Piper’s M600/SLS Halo, then Daher’s TBM 940 HomeSafe and the Cirrus Vision Jet G2 with Safe Return.
The intelligence was there: in the form of electronic stability protection (ESP) to level the airplane, overspeed and underspeed protection, automated emergency-descent management, GPS navigational guidance and approaches that take you to the pavement, and weather, traffic and terrain input to analyze where to go and how best to get there. The brains only needed the “muscle” to make an autoland system happen—managing the throttle or power lever, extending the flaps and gear, executing a proper round-out, and braking to a safe stop on the runway.
