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LOGAN — Two Utah State University graduates were involved in a recently unveiled Garmin project that could allow small planes to land safely even without a pilot, the university announced this week.
Bailey Scheel and Eric Sargent are part of a Garmin International team that developed the Autoland system for general aviation aircraft, USU said in a news release. The system is designed for emergency situations, when a pilot is incapacitated, to safely land aircraft “at the nearest suitable airport with no human intervention.”
Garmin Aviation posted an online video about the system in late October.
Scheel, a 2014 Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering graduate, was the Autoland project manager and systems engineer, according to the release. It says she learned to fly a plane before she could drive a car.
Sargent graduated in 2009 from the Aviation program and was the Autoland test pilot for the Piper M600 aircraft. Sargent worked as a flight instructor at USU before joining Garmin.
“It was remarkable to see Autoland progress from a conceptual design, to a fully certifiable system capable of landing an airplane and stopping it on the runway without any pilot interaction,” Sargent said in the release.
“Getting to work on something that offers general aviation aircraft and pilots the ability to land without any pilot interaction during an emergency has been super exciting and rewarding,” Scheel said. “And working with a USU grad as our test pilot was definitely a highlight.”
Scheel also credited her senior design program with helping prepare her for the industry. USU College of Engineering spokesman Matt Jensen said the senior design program is a semester-long project where small teams develop solutions to real-world engineering problems.
“Every semester students come up with a new, exciting challenge,” Jensen said. “It’s pretty impressive to see the students’ results come to life at the end of the semester.”
FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said his agency is evaluating the Autoland system on two different models: the Cirrus SF50 single-engine jet and the Piper M600.
“Cirrus refers to its system as ‘Safe Return’ and Piper refers to its system as ‘HALO Safety System,’” Kenitzer said. “The FAA expects to approve the Piper aircraft this year and the Cirrus aircraft in 2020.”
Scheel said when she was a child, her grandfather taught her “the basics of flying just in case anything happened to him while we were in the air.” With FAA approval of the Autoland system, pilots like her grandfather will have one less thing to worry about every time they leave the ground.
