With FAA certification of the Garmin GFC 600H helicopter flight control system in the Robinson R66, Torrance, California-based Robinson Helicopter is making the two-axis version of the autopilot a standard feature. R66 NxG helicopters with Garmin avionics and the autopilot will begin delivering early next year.
R66 buyers have long had the option of adding Moog’s two-axis Genesys HeliSAS to the R66, but the Garmin autopilot is available with an optional third (yaw) axis. Buyers of R66s with serial number 1510 or later can amend their order and switch to the GFC 600H, according to Robinson. The optional third axis is priced at $25,000.
To learn how to use the autopilot most effectively and in concert with the R66 NxG’s Garmin avionics suite, Robinson has developed a two-day avionics and autopilot class. The first will be held in September, appended to the end of the company's safety course.
In addition to the GFC 600H, the R66 NxG is equipped with Garmin’s touchscreen G500H display with engine data and optional synthetic vision and GTN 635Xi GPS/com (a GTN 750Xi is optional).
The GFC 600H autopilot can be operated with cyclic-mounted controls. In addition to hover assist (GPS-based position hold), airspeed stabilization, and heading hold, the autopilot’s modes include altitude capture and hold, vertical speed hold, airspeed hold, heading select, navigation, and approach. Unique Garmin features include helicopter electronic stability and protection with limit cueing that nudges the controls when the pilot pitches or banks beyond certain limits; LVL mode, which returns the helicopter to straight-and-level flight; low-g protection; and low-altitude protection, which alerts pilots and automatically engages a pitch mode change to help recover to a safe altitude.
Some of the autopilot features will be available full-time, and pilots won’t be able to turn these off without pulling circuit breakers. “It’s an incredibly valuable tool, and we make it difficult to turn off,” said Robinson president and CEO David Smith. “It’s intentionally a passive system. Even if you don’t have it in one of the modes, it’s protecting you from the low-g condition, as an example, and you could always engage it with LVL mode in an emergency situation.”
While Robinson is working on certifying the G600H autopilot in the R44, it won’t be immediately available as a retrofit for older R66s, according to Smith. “We’d expect that, in time, a factory overhaul will be available to add the Garmin [autopilot] to older ships that would be difficult for us to do in the field. We’re evaluating our options on how to offer this.”
Robinson dealers will be the first to participate in the two-day avionics and autopilot training so they can share information with R66 buyers, but any pilot will be able to take the course. “Now is the time where we’re going to start educating folks a lot more about the functions, the modes, and what we consider to be these passive safety features that are incredible,” he said. “That push button level, that’s the one that excites me the most. I’ve seen, unfortunately, in my time here, several cockpit videos of pilot disorientation captured in our 4K cockpit cameras that we put on the aircraft, and they’re very often fatal. This push button on the cyclic, push to level, will save lives. It’s incredible, and it is responsive.
“In the long term—let’s think 20 years out—these should be features we can offer to all products at all levels in the rotary-wing space,” Smith said. “Garmin has done a great job developing a combination of high-fidelity, highest-safety-standard software, and the weight package of it is smart. I feel like if ever we were going to go through this as an industry, we should do it now. We’ve got all the ingredients to make a huge step change in safety. The older aircraft…it will be difficult to do a modification for something like this, to install magnetometers and to do the HIRF-hardened wiring that’s required. Those examples will be difficult. And I know people sweat every little dollar they have to spend. But…we’ve got to get over it as an industry, we’ve got to go into the hard things like this.”
Later this year, Robinson plans to announce a partner for a new training program that will incorporate virtual-reality simulators and focused, scenario-based training modules tailored to the safety issue that a particular operation faces in its location. “I want something so that a pilot can sit down, don the right equipment, and select scenarios that [replicate actual problems],” Smith said. “We’ll develop scenarios and push those through to the network of simulation that will be extremely important for evolving safety. Accidents we see in the field can inform this.”
Part of this training and simulation program will include some gamification to incentivize pilots to participate and add to their skills.
Smith has worked in the flight simulator industry and doesn’t think the existing regulator-mandated commercial pilot training protocols are beneficial. “The tragedy of commercial aviation is we give them two shots every year to make them the best pilot in the world, and all we do is hold them to a maneuver threshold that they know the maneuver, they know the airports, they know the routes, they know the tests, they know the instructor, they know the story. It’s all the same, so you don’t really exercise them much. It’s just threshold-based thinking.”
Smith wants to motivate pilots to grow beyond those traditional training paradigms. “I want incentivized growth. I want them to be gamified, competitive, incentivized.” This could mean a kind of leaderboard, where top-performing pilots in the training program are ranked anonymously. If a pilot doesn’t make, say, the top 20%, they may want to get back in the simulators and try to improve. “We want to drive that in a way that exists in so many things out in the world,” he said. “It’s crazy to me that it has not existed in aviation, [and] it’s a big part of how I think we unlock this next level of safety that is getting pilots to compete with each other, to try to be the most proficient.”
The addition of the Garmin autopilot and avionics to the R66 will contribute to improving pilot training as well, Smith explained. “The thing I really love about the Garmin autopilot is that there’s a lot of digital data that it stores and gives us insight into control positions and use of the aircraft in all kinds of situations. Over time, I’d expect we’ll have the ability for data coming off NxG ships to offboard control positions to understand excursions, how active people are on the sticks. Those are where I think you get an indication of pilot proficiency and pilot risk that’s unmined and untapped today. All of that is useful science to be developed with lots of good data. I love that the Garmin autopilot is going to have a rich data trail to it, and we'll be able to better understand the use of the aircraft.
“Every accident, there’s a lot of things to learn about, and today we use cockpit video cameras as a significant aid. If I had control positions and the pilot’s activity in a more digital format, that’s going to be even better. And I can pipe that right into a simulation and use that as a scenario. Even if it’s not one that people actively fly, people can feel the conditions of that aircraft throughout its entire accident flight. And I think it’s great for educating people, just in an experiential way, rather than lecturing.”