Garmin Wins FLYING Magazine’s 2021 Flying Innovation Award
Garmin Autoland brought home FLYING Magazine’s 2021 Flying Innovation Award for an “incredible leap forward in GA safety.”
Garmin Autoland won the 2020 Robert J. Collier Trophy in June, and now it’s added FLYING Magazine’s 2021 Flying Innovation Award to its résumé.
Certified in May 2020 on select general aviation aircraft, Garmin Autoland is the world’s first autonomous system designed to activate in an emergency to fly and land an aircraft with no human intervention. It can take over automatically after determining a pilot is unable to fly, or it can be engaged when the pilot or passengers press an activation button. It will then select an optimal destination to land, avoid known hazards, announce its intentions to air traffic control and passengers, and then proceed to land the airplane1.
“We honor the foresight and decade of effort invested by the team at Garmin Aviation, as well as those significant contributions of their OEM partners — Piper Aircraft, Daher and Cirrus Aircraft — to bring an automated landing within reach of general aviation pilots and passengers,” FLYING Magazine said in its announcement. “It’s a privilege to give the 2021 Flying Innovation Award for this incredible leap forward in GA safety to Garmin Aviation.”
Autoland is part of the Autonomí™ family, a suite of autonomous safety-enhancing technologies that are designed to make flying easier and safer for both pilot and passengers. Other Autonomí technologies include Electronic Stability and Protection (ESP™), emergency descent mode, Smart Rudder Bias and Smart Glide™.
“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized with the prestigious Flying Innovation Award for Garmin Autoland,” said Carl Wolf, Garmin vice president of aviation sales and marketing. “We are so proud of the forward-thinking mindset and dedication to safety of the Garmin team, our aircraft manufacturing collaborators and so many others that played a part in the more than a decade’s long mission of making this life-saving technology a reality.”
To learn more about the award, see FLYING Magazine’s article here.
¹See Garmin.com/ALuse for Autoland system requirements and limitations
