Building Avia — an AI Copilot for Safer, Smarter GA Flights (Would love feedback!)

Salty said:
I find it interesting that many here salivate over vtol and electric aircraft which have failed to materialize after decades of attempts, but this, which actually is a fast growing technology is scoffed at.

As I said, I think it’s difficult, but there is lots of room for amazing things in this space in the near future.
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Why not both?

It also depends on one's position in the feudal system. Just because there are no offerings targeted at us livestock doesn't mean there are no offerings upmarket.

Even a more humble crowdsourced approach a la savvy could be useful; record what a few thousand C172s sound like and build a detector that throws a "hey, something changed enough to sound different" alarm around it. Maybe it will save a lunched engine.

Heck, build the same thing so my roomba can hear when it picks up a piece of mail and drags it all over the house and I'll buy you a banana-broccoli shake.
 
In spite of the reception of this idea so far - I'm all for it.

I'm not a fan of the recent "AI everything" movement, but it's a tool that can be useful and has its place, when used correctly.

As someone who has flown a LOT of single pilot operations but also flown in a two crew environment, I know how valuable it can be to have a good FO with you, especially when you start getting behind.

I was *really* excited about Goose Copilot when that was brought out at OSH 2024, but it appears to have gone nowhere since then, with just a couple of small updates and little to no support/communication from the developer.

So, I do think there's some room for this, IF it's done right.

What does "done right" mean to me?
* NOT "AI first", that is, it shouldn't be trying to use AI to respond to every request. At the current time, "AI" means either shipping off processing to somewhere on the Internet which isn't reliable in flight, or doing things on-device and eating up your battery and heating up the device. Not good in any case. However, that's not to say that AI can't assist with the initial setup.
* Able to monitor the situation and actively help. Was a takeoff detected 3 minutes ago but the after takeoff checklist hasn't been run yet? Go ahead and offer it up.
* Actually reduces workload and increases safety. The last thing we need is another gimmick.
 
Will this be like Goose, the digital copilot?

Outside of trade shows and advertising, I don't see much of those solutions in the real world. Maybe they can add value in certain situations, but as a believer in the KISS principle, I do wonder if all that added complexity is really helpful in the end.

- Martin
 
I feel like something like this would get a similar response atc gave spirit... Get out of the iPad. Sure this could be useful in some situations. But proficiency would be moreso.
 
Martin Pauly said:
Will this be like Goose, the digital copilot?

Outside of trade shows and advertising, I don't see much of those solutions in the real world. Maybe they can add value in certain situations, but as a believer in the KISS principle, I do wonder if all that added complexity is really helpful in the end.

- Martin
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I was certain that this was a Top Gun reference. I'm gobsmacked that someone would name an aviation product Goose.
 
I would not use this product yet, need to see more.

Garmin already has voice commands.
 
EdFred said:
Unless you can get Garmin to break their agreement with Foreflight that they won't provide ADS-B information to anyone but Foreflight, then hats off to ya.
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ADS-B data is freely available via an API. Its hidden, and not easy to find, but there is nothing stopping anyone from getting an API key and looking up real time ADS-B data

ADS-B exchange is not the answer.
 
Martin Pauly said:
Will this be like Goose, the digital copilot?

Outside of trade shows and advertising, I don't see much of those solutions in the real world.
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Well, in the case of Goose, that's because they made a bing PR blitz at Oshkosh, probably got a bunch of new subscribers, and then promptly disappeared. I've never been able to get the voice recognition features even close to working, and that was a big part of the draw for me. ForeFlight has checklists too - And granted, they're not nearly as feature-rich as Goose or its predecessor product MiraChek but to me it's not worth trying to run a separate app if I can't get the voice features to work.

Racerx said:
I feel like something like this would get a similar response atc gave spirit... Get out of the iPad. Sure this could be useful in some situations. But proficiency would be moreso.
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"Proficiency" can't read you a checklist. Proficiency can't answer a quick question that you have without taking your eyes off the situation.

For example, if you're motoring along and you have an engine failure and you know you're going in, being able to say "Hey Goose what's the nearest Center frequency" or somesuch rather than looking at the iPad to look it up would be really nice.

4RNB said:
Garmin already has voice commands.
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And I have the full Telligence setup - GMA350c, GTN750, and PTC buttons on both yokes. But, it's limited. It can get you to any page on the GTN ("show traffic" is one of my more frequently used commands), change what's going on with the audio panel, tune a limited number of frequencies ("Tune nearest AWOS" or "Tune Destination Tower"). And it does have a few commands that can be used *if* you have enough Garmin gadgets in the panel ("Say winds").

But, it does NOT do checklists beyond "Show Checklists" and it does not do any sort of navigation like "Direct Nearest Airport". There's definitely an opportunity there for Garmin to take advantage of newer technology to vasty improve the Telligence voice command vocabulary, but they don't seem to care - There hasn't been a single update to it from what I can tell since I had it installed in 2017.

pfarber said:
ADS-B data is freely available via an API. Its hidden, and not easy to find, but there is nothing stopping anyone from getting an API key and looking up real time ADS-B data
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What are you referring to? @EdFred was talking about getting data from one of Garmin's GDL portables I believe, and in flight there isn't an API that will be reliable enough.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
For example, if you're motoring along and you have an engine failure and you know you're going in, being able to say "Hey Goose what's the nearest Center frequency" or somesuch rather than looking at the iPad to look it up would be really nice.
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I don't need AI to tell me that it's 121.5.
 
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