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> Engines are of stone-age complexity because the FAA says they must be, and the FAA says they must be because safety, and the stone-age engines are safe becaus
by throw0101a 5y ago
> Engines are of stone-age complexity because the FAA says they must be, and the FAA says they must be because safety, and the stone-age engines are safe because nobody takes risks and they remain in the stone-age.
The FAA says no such thing. There are modern FADEC piston engines:
* https://www.lycoming.com/engines https://www.lycoming.com/engines
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro_Engine_E4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro_Engine_E4
and you can new planes with them:
* https://www.flyingmag.com/we-fly-diamond-da40-ng/ https://www.flyingmag.com/we-fly-diamond-da40-ng/
It's just there are (over) 100K pre-FADEC planes out there with perfectly fine "stone-age" engines, and few people want to spend US$ 40K on a new engine when they can overhaul their current one for half the price when the time comes.