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The GA industry is running up against the same problems. Go to your local flight school and 99% of the time you'll just see a row of 1970s Cessnas/Pipers. Rec
by pdelbarba 9y ago
The GA industry is running up against the same problems. Go to your local flight school and 99% of the time you'll just see a row of 1970s Cessnas/Pipers. Recently there has been some push back against the FAA's certification programs due to the fact that MEMS systems are inherently more reliable instruments than gyroscopes powered by engine driven vacuum pumps. This resulted in some legislative changes and now you can (IIRC) replace many gages in old aircraft with newer electronic variants and not need a Supplementary Type Certificate (basically like getting your car re-titled to replace the tape deck with a CD player).
tl;dr: It's basically become apparent that too much safety is killing people.
- Shivatron 9y ago> Go to your local flight school and 99% of the time you'll just see a row of 1970s Cessnas/Pipers. This neatly illustrates why: http://i.imgur.com/Un22IYK.png http://i.imgur.com/Un22IYK.png It's not just certification, either. Product liability accounts for a large part of this increase: "Average cost of manufacturer's liability insurance for each airplane manufactured in the U.S. had risen from approximately $50 per plane in 1962 to $100,000 per plane in 1988." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act#Product_Liability_Costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...)
- pdelbarba 9y agoYea, I'm really comparing two disparate issues here. The aircraft cost, for previously certified airframes, ie. the C172SP, as opposed to an SR22 or something, is almost entirely liability liability inflated while avionics are more heavily driven by certification. This is why the experimental market is doing so well right now. No need to pay for either :P