> None of that is high-tech equipment Of course! No one wants high-tech equipment in aviation. > the software required to turn those sensor inputs in to usefu

> None of that is high-tech equipment Of course! No one wants high-tech equipment in aviation. > the software required to turn those sensor inputs in to useful displays particularly complicated Relative to what though? This software has to always work. 100% of the time. If it ever goes wrong you might die. Software developers who are used to shipping normal code aren't used to the testing and rigor required in the aircraft industry. > I don't see any obvious reason a group of motivated electronics hobbyists couldn't build a proof-of-concept that performs all the same core functions over a long weekend with a few hundred bucks worth of off the shelf parts and access to the relevant details of the ARINC 429 standard. For sure. And hobbyists can also make experimental engines and aircraft. There's a whole category for those. But most people would not trust their lives to them. I wouldn't. There are too many edge cases, too many one out of a billion coincidences that will kill you in aviation. Also, remember that they're not going to sell a lot of these E5s. These aren't phones. The entire GA fleet in the US is 200k aircraft. So they're going sell what, 20k of these over a decade worldwide? The low volume and the fact that you need to recoup your costs in a year or two at most, means that prices need to be very high.