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A 95°F Los Angeles is much more palatable at 4,500 feeta 20-minute flight in a sleek new Cirrus Aircraft piston engine four-seater, from the Burbank to Camarillo airports, above a smog-laden urban sprawl that would otherwise take us an hour to drive. Cozy bucket seats, large windows, and large touchscreen control monitors give a modern vibe. Its a beautiful day to flyuntil calamity strikes and the pilot can no longer function. She turns to me, Okay, when you’re ready . . . I half-twist from the front passenger seat and push a large red button in the cabin ceiling in front of the two back seats. Immediately, a recorded female voice calmly announces: “Emergency Autoland activated.” Theres a barely perceptible shift in the plane, which is now stabilized and flying on its own, figuring out where to land. In truth, my pilot, Ivy McIver (call name: Poison, for Poison Ivy), is very much alert and demonstrating Safe Return Emergency Autoland by Garmin, an emergency system that takes control of the plane in the event of pilotor pilot and passengerincapacitation. Developed by Kansas avionics firm Garmin with considerable input from Cirrus to customize it for its planes, Safe Return is the star feature of Cirruss new SR series G7+ aircraft, which rolled out in May to an enthusiastic response. Ivy McIver [Photo: Susan Karlin] The Safe Return system already exists on Cirruss single-engine jet and turbine turboprop models, and competitors use their own configured versions of Garmins Emergency Autoland. But this is the first time any brand has integrated it into a single-engine piston aircraftthe type used by student pilots. Cirruss SR series is the worlds best-selling piston engine plane, with over 10,000 sold since 1999. The goal is to open personal aviation to a broader audience. We’ve had a lot of people, not in aviation now, say, this gives me the peace of mind to explore getting into aviation, because of this additional safety technology, says McIver, who is also executive director of the SR product line. So, we’re keeping more people in and growing aviation at the same time. [Photo: Cirrus] Though it won’t mention specific numbers, Cirrus has already noted a dramatic rise in its SR series order rate, both in the U.S. and abroad, where the craft is licensed to fly. Even budget-conscious flight schools are ready to meet the $674,000 to $1.3 million price tag, depending on model and add-ons. The flight schools have been like, `This is the reason why I want to get this aircraft, because it gives us peace of mind that our students, if they go up on a solo flight and panic or the weather turns and it’s beyond their capabilities, have a way to bring themselves and the plane back, she adds. When activated, Safe Return immediately levels the wings and stabilizes the aircraft at the altitude and direction it had been flying. Even with no one able to press the button, the softwarewhich tracks pilot interactions with the controlswill notice unresponsive flight deck sensors or erratic flying and take over. Conversely, if a passenger mistakenly thinks the pilot is in trouble and hits the button, the pilot can disconnect it. [Photo: Cirrus] Pilot incapacitation is mostly caused by medical issues, disorientation due to dangerous weather or visibility, and cabin pressure loss leading to hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) and unconsciousness. Such accidents are considered a subset of pilot error statistics and therefore difficult to tease out, though some estimates have noted three accidents per thousand and .045 and .23 times per 100,000 hours for pilots in their 40s and 60s, respectively. But Cirrus safety design has as much to do with psychological ease as stats. Cirrus has always tried to figure out how to get more people into aviation and make people more comfortable with the idea of flying in a small plane, says McIver. It was driven by our overall pursuit to make aviation safer and more approachable and comfortable, to grow the number of people participating in personal aviation. Our plane is now scouting for the nearest suitable mnicipal airport to land. (Were this an actual emergency, it would have communicated directly with nearby air traffic control. But as this is a demo flight, McIver is the one talking to ATC.) While the recorded human voice reminds us that the Safe Return system is on, text messages on the seat monitors announce upcoming airplane maneuvers and the time to landing. Passengers are also able to talk directly to ATC. If passengers are aware of what’s happening, it gives them a sense of control and comfort, says McIver. Its a point driven home in our flight. We are going to bank left, says one text message, moments before the craft tilts left into a full circle that slowly decreases our altitude. Had I not been alerted ahead of time, my heart would have leapt into my throat. Coming out of the loop, the text alerts: Five minutes to landing while the throttle handle moves on its own. The wing flaps deploy to slow the plane as it gradually descends into the Camarillo Airport airspace and gently touches down on its runway before coming to a full stop and instructing how to open the doors and exit the craft. I havent touched the controls this whole time, says McIver, holding up her hands. The piston problem Cirrus introduced Safety Return first to its Vision Jet in 2020, followed by its other digital engine aircraft. But it would take another five years to solve the engineering challenges of integrating it into a piston engine. Safe Return software more easily communicates with computerized engines. Incorporating it into a mechanized piston engine requires an interim layer of technology to translate digital signals into analog movements. The software now interfaces with servos (motion-controlling devices) attached to valve motors and engine linkages that move the engine throttles. As a result, the system must be built into the airplane from the ground upit cant be retrofitted. The system flies the plane, not with AI, but a preprogrammed algorithm that coordinates cloud-updated onboard map databases with the real-time flight datai.e., altitude, location, fuel, speed, weather, terrain, and nearby runway configurationsto determine the nearest airports with the safest approaches for landing. It will route a course around heavy rain and thunderstorms, and, in cold-enough temperatures, deploy an anti-icing system. In case the plane is unable to fly due to mechanical failure or an empty fuel tank, the system will tell passengers to pull a red lever on the roof and deploy the parachutea longstanding safety feature on all Cirrus aircraft thats saved over 265 lives. [Image: Cirrus] After landing, the system gauges runway length to determine how much brake pressure to apply and when to idle the power. One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to program the software to control these mechanical features to elegantly control the airplane, says McIver. Landing involves a fair amount of pilot finesse, and we’re trying to basically computerize this pilot finesse. But dont expect it to land just anywhere. It’ll avoid Camp David, adds McIver. And Area 51.
Category:
E-Commerce
Wingstop calls itself the wing experts. But Michael Skipworth, CEO of the 2,800-location fast casual chicken chain, likes to highlight a different distinction hes proud of, having nothing to do with food. People dont think about a chicken wing restaurant being a digital powerhouse, Skipworth tells me. Today, after spending years taking cues from outside the restaurant industryairlines, beauty brandshe has built exactly that: a thriving e-commerce business that just happens to sell Americas favorite protein. In the second quarter of 2025, diners spent more than $1 billion at the 31-year-old chain, ordering wingsboneless and bone-inand chicken tenders in custom combinations of 12 flavors ranging from Original Hot to Spicy Korean Q to Mango Habanero. (Popeyes, for comparison, reported $1.5 billion in sales in Q2.) They placed nearly three-quarters of those orders through digital channels including Wingstops app, MyWingstop. Over the past several years, Skipworth, who has been CEO since 2022, has invested $50 million in rebuilding the companys tech stack from scratch. The decision to rely on proprietary technology helped the company assemble a database of nearly 60 million customers it can target (and retarget) with timely, personalized ads and promotions that encourage repeat visits and larger orders. Thats exactly what happened when Wingstop reintroduced its crispy chicken tenders earlier this year. A record number of new customers showed up to try them, while others found a reason to come back. During Wingstops July earnings call, Skipworth said that the revamped menu item drove reactivation of lapsed customers at a level we haven’t seen from any menu innovation in the past two years. Although the company saw a rare drop in same-store sales last quarter, its first in three years (Skipworth attributed the 1.9% drop to temporary consumer anxiety), overall sales are up 14% and revenue is up 12%. Already this year, Wingstop has opened as many stores as it did in all of 2023; its on pace to surpass 2024s net new openings, too. Recently, Skipworth talked to Fast Company about Wingstops tech wins, including AI-enhanced kitchen revamps that cut order wait times in half, and its first-ever loyalty program, launching next year. Years ago, Wingstop decided to stop using third-party companies for online orders, opting to build its own system, MyWingstop, from scratch. Hows it going? We went live a little over a year ago, and since then weve seen our digital customer database grow by 30% to almost 60 million strong and growing. Today, digital sales are over 70% of our sales mix. Youve publicly credited this customer database with boosting the successful relaunch of chicken tenders earlier this year. How did that happen? During the relaunch of tenders, we leveraged MyWingstop to target specific consumers who we thought, based on experience or look-alike profiles, would be chicken tender users. We acquired a record amount of new guests during this relaunch; those new guests, as you might expect, over-index younger, most [ordering for one]. We also reactivated lapsed users at a record pace. These lapsed users looked very different from the new guests; theyre a little bit older and placing larger orders, likely for a family. This all speaks to the long-term opportunity we have for tenders. There are 1.6 billion chicken tenders served annually in the U.S., and we feel like were just scratching the surface. How many of the 1.6 billion are yours? Not enough! Not nearly enough. As a parent of young children, I can confirm that my household consumes its fair share of chicken tenders. How do you find these lapsed and potential diners, like me? Our customer database is more than email, phone number, name, and order history. We invest and enrich that data to have over 300 data points on every single guest. It has a lot to do with what else our guests are interested in, what other brands they engage with, what platforms theyre on. We can get really targeted on social and in paid search. Some Wingstop locations are using AI in the kitchen now, to help cooks and other back-of-house employees. What do these smart kitchens do? Were roughly a 30-year-old brand and really havent invested much of anything, up until this point, in back-of-house technology. We built an AI-enabled machine learning model customized to every restaurant, telling employees what to anticipate in 15-minute increments so they can get in front of demand. We built a kitchen display system that uses imagery and gamification and swiping, all things our young workforce is used to doing with their phones. It also includes a consumer-facing order-ready screen that shows where their order is in the process of being made and when its ready. In a traditional Wingstop kitchen, theyre running paper kitchen tickets and relying on voice commands across the kitchen. Its pretty remarkable to think with that level ofIll call it an unsophisticated back-of-houseto be delivering an average unit volume of $2.1 million. But in this traditional model, our standard quote time is 20 minutes. When restaurants get busy, like on a Friday night, it can get up to 45 minutes. With this new kitchen operating platform, weve been able to cut that time down significantly, delivering an average speed of service of 10 minutes. During your last earnings report, you referenced general consumer uncertainty and anxiety. How is that affecting the way you are leading the company into 2026? Were in a unique position. We dont play in those $3, $5 value wars. Thats just not our model, and its not how consumers engage with our brand. We lean into qualityevery order at Wingstop is cooked to order, hand-sauced, and tossed. Our ranch and blue cheese are made from scratch in the restaurant every day. So we lean into ways to showcase quality and abundance, and consumers see value there. Were also building a loyalty program right now, the first for Wingstop. What should Wingstop fans expect from your loyalty program? Its not going to look like others in the restaurant space. Most brands that launch loyalty are doing it to acquire data about their customer. We already have that data, so its about more than driving sign-ups and having to discount and give away. Were going to lean into making customers feel special, making them feel unique, all through personalization. Our program is going to be about status and what that unlocks for you: early access to flavors, for example. Were taking most of our inspiration from outside of restaurants, like the airline industry and brands like Sephora and Ulta and the programs theyve designed that drive personalized engagement. In the spirit of personalization, whats your Wingstop order? Im an all-flats, bone-in lemon pepper, and then tenders with original hot. And ranch, no question.
Category:
E-Commerce
Imagine climbing a five-story ladder, putting you 54 feet off the ground. How careful would you be at the tippy top? How aware of your hands and feet and surroundings would you be? If you fell off at that height, youd hit the ground at 40 MPH. Now think about how many times youve driven 40 MPH in a residential or commercial district. People who are walking across the street and get hit at 40 MPH are almost guaranteed to die, but hit at 20 MPH, theyre almost guaranteed to survive. Were super careful on normal household ladders that only put us five or six feet off the ground, let alone the 54-foot ladder (i.e. the 40 MPH ladder). But driving 40 MPH on a city street? Meh, no big deal. Last month, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles installed a bright yellow, giant ladder in front of Richmonds minor league baseball stadium. They used visual markers that equated 10, 20, 30, and 40 MPH with corresponding fall heights, making the physics of speed brutally tangible. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Think about that the next time youre driving along a street that has sidewalks and crosswalks. People who tell cops and reporters the pedestrian came out of nowhere are people who were driving too fast. Speed is deadly, but nobody seems to be slowing down. Speed kills Every day in America, more than a hundred people are killed in traffic crashes. Thousands more suffer life-changing injuries. Every day, for decades. Speed is a fundamental factor in those brutal crashes. We all know fast driving is the norm, so let it sink in that the vast majority of traffic fatalities and severe injuries are preventable. In a radical departure from traditional punishments, Virginia judges can now mandate speed-limiting devices on the cars of habitual speeders as early as July 2026. These units, known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), physically prevent a vehicle from exceeding posted speed limits by using GPS or sign recognition to control acceleration. In Washington State, a horrifying crash killed a mother and three children when someone barreled down the street at 112 MPH. That tragedy led to ISA legislation called the BEAM Act, named after the first initials of the four victims. Judges can offer ISA as an alternative to suspending a license, delivering a tangible, always-on safety measure rather than relying on human choice alone. This type of consequence for dangerous, antisocial behavior isnt new. For decades, vehicle-mounted breathalyzers have been installed to prevent intoxicated offenders from starting their cars. Some include cameras, GPS, Wi-Fi reporting, and driver-recognition tech, offering real-time logs of attempts and noncompliance. An attack on freedom According to Centers for Disease Control reports, breathalyzers slash repeat drunk-driving incidents by roughly 70%. Mothers Against Drunk Driving credits these devices with stopping millions of drunk-driving attempts. Dealing with drunk drivers is hardly controversial, but capping speed is seen in America as a direct attack on freedom. Still, weve reached a point where grieving family members have become effective safety advocates, helping their elected officials realize that tens of thousands of traffic fatalities and life-altering injuries could be prevented. New York lawmakers are proposing provisions forcing repeat traffic offenders to install ISA systems that cap speed to just 5 MPH over the limit. The New York City Department of Transportation tested ISA on 500 fleet vehicles, and recorded an 82% reduction in speeding on high-speed roads and a 64% overall drop. Thats reason to celebrate, because its a reminder that fleet managers can opt-in to these safety features without waiting for a court-mandated, behavioral-override technology. Just as seatbelts and airbags have become nonnegotiable safety layers, ISAand eventually impairment-aware ISAcould become layers of a systems approach to safety. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
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