If you’ve ever had reason to ride in a smaller, general aviation aircraft—anything form a single seater up to a six-to-eight seater—you might be surprised to learn that landing wasn’t necessarily a precise process for the pilot. That’s because many aircrafts in this category, such as the commonly used Cessna 172, are not equipped with technology that measures the distance to the ground.
The only equipment that is mandatory for altitude awareness in these planes is a barometric altimeter. Per FAA.gov, if the altitude read on one of these devices is “plus or minus 75 feet or greater,” its accuracy is in question. And according to engineer-turned-entrepreneur Sean Sherman, some of these altimeters only measure altitude to plus-or-minus a few hundred feet.
It’s for that simple reason that Sherman set out to design a better option for pilots. The resulting device, dubbed “Stadia,” became the foundation for his budding startup, Wilmington-based Skeeter Enterprises.
Designing Stadia
After joining ROTC and obtaining his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of North Dakota, Sherman was stationed at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. It was there that Sherman, who’d been interested in aviation since childhood (when his father worked as an Alaskan bush pilot), developed a Stadia prototype that was, as he put it, “pretty crude”—but effective enough to be of interest to pilots.
That first prototype was comprised of a lidar (which stands for Light Detection and Ranging and is sometimes denoted as “LiDAR”) unit programmed with an Arduino board, wired to a speaker, attached to a nine-volt battery, and packaged in an old pill bottle. “Crude” as it was, this prototype’s use of lidar enabled it to measure altitude to plus-or-minus two inches. From there, it was just a matter of fine-tuning the design.
“I bought a 3D printer to get a better case,” Sherman said, “and I hired an electrical engineer so I could get away from the Arduino stuff, and so now it’s 3D-printed and it looks more professional.”
Working with this improving design, Sherman officially founded Skeeter Enterprises in 2019. Today, the Stadia is a sleek, compact unit consisting of a rechargeable lithium ion battery, lidar, and a Bluetooth circuit board, all contained in a 3D-printed shell. The device attaches to airplanes via simple mounting apparatuses and communicates to pilots’ mobile phones.
Assisting pilots
Because of the aforementioned issues with built-in equipment on general aviation aircraft, Sherman said pilots typically “eyeball” their landings. He noted that it’s not uncommon for pilots to use GPS add-ons that measure altitude to 50-to-100 feet, but even these aren’t precise enough to be trusted blindly during landings.
“There has really, up until now, not been a major upgrade in terms of telling an aircraft’s height above the ground,” he said.
Furthermore, while the “eyeballing” tactic works for able pilots, it can become more perilous in tricky conditions—such as when it’s getting dark, when a runway light is out, or even if one is landing on an unfamiliar runway.
Said Sherman of dealing with these circumstances, “[Stadia is] an extra instrument that can really help in those situations where maybe the visuals aren’t quite as good.”
Along those same lines, Sherman has also developed a second product, dubbed “Stadia Neptune,” that is designed to assist water landings for seaplanes. According to Sherman, “glassy water landings”—which is to say those on water that is still and reflective, and tricky on pilots’ vision—are responsible for numerous pilot deaths each year. The Stadia Neptune uses radar instead of lidar to achieve a similar level of precise altitude measurement over water.
Flying forward with Skeeter Enterprises
Sherman sold his first Stadia unit in 2021 and went on to sell just over a dozen that year. Now, just a few years later—and completely bootstrapped—he’s approaching 200 units sold in total.
Sherman has also been working the aviation trade shows, and credits EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, where he’s had a booth several years running, with helping him get the word out about his technology.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Skeeter Enterprises
Founder: Sean Sherman
Founded: 2019
Team size: 1
Location: Wilmington
Website: www.skeeterenterprises.com/
Funding: Bootstrapped
To date, Skeeter Enterprises has operated with a direct-to-consumer model: Pilots learn about Stadia and buy individual units directly from Sherman. Moving forward, however, Sherman is beginning to explore the potential for larger contracts.
Specifically, he is speaking to avionics companies about how they might integrate the Stadia. He is also exploring possible air force contracts. Air force pilots train on smaller planes that often rely solely on barometric altimeters, and Sherman believes his technology could help to cut down on hard landings (not to mention accompanying damage) and help pilots get up to speed.
Not long after this article goes live, Sherman is headed off to the Alaska Air Show. In July, he’ll be back in Oshkosh for his annual stop at EAA AirVenture.
