9 ms·

Personal aviation is about to get interesting

141 points by jseliger 3y ago

light_hue_1 3y ago
That's a huge improvement. Some existing aircraft will be able to convert to LSAs under MOSAIC, many existing manufacturers will switch to building LSAs, and we'll see many new developments as well. The current crop of planes in general aviation is deteriorating with nothing to replace them. The average age of a GA aircraft is over 50 years old. They were never designed for this lifetime. Many people are flying aircraft that are closer to the Wright brothers in time than to today. The most popular engine, the Lycoming O-320 was designed in 1953. 50 years ago planes were affordable, maintenance was not prohibitive, and an upper middle class person could easily fly for fun if they wanted to. These rules are hopefully going to make general aviation dramatically cheaper. The fact that electric engines are included, that you can install new experimental avionics, do some of your own maintenance, etc. while lifting the many restrictions on current LSAs is pretty amazing. Just getting past many of the certification requirements, which are overkill for GA applications, are going to make everything insanely cheaper. MOSAIC will also give new companies a path into the market, now they can start in the LSA category, develop their product and sell it, and then eventually go for certification. Otherwise you have a massive startup cost with no idea about product-market fit.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I am strongly in favor of MOSAIC's aims and almost all of their choices. I do think that SLSA not having a better safety record than TC/Personal is a problem for the current SLSA grouping. Weather and fuel accidents factor prominently as contributing or primary factors in fatal accidents and an airplane that can only go 120 knots and can only weigh 1320 pounds is far less prone to tangle with unexpected en route weather. (It's not impossible, but contrast that with a 200 knot airplane carrying 700 pounds of fuel in terms of ability to cross multiple weather systems.) I think it's great. I hope the losses remain low enough for the program to continue to be expanded. I'm not nearly as hopeful as you are that it's going to be transformational for the industry in the sense of returning to the 1960s heyday.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > The current crop of planes in general aviation is deteriorating with nothing to replace them. In the ultralight world, you got a ton of new airframe designs - including electric ones such as the Pipistrel Velis Electro. Agree on the engines though, there hasn't been much innovation there for decades, but IMHO that's also a factor of war planes switching over to jet engines and the GA market being too small to justify the investment into the development of piston engines and too poor to invest into jet engines.
jessriedel 3y ago
If you are arguing against overly stringent safety regulation by pointing out that they actually decrease safety, you have already lose the war against safetyism. We must reach the point where it is widely permissible to say "the safety benefits are not worth the costs".
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  And yet the FAA makes that argument explicitly in the article.
  - jessriedel 3y ago
    That's my point. The FAA makes the argument, and Eli Dourado should reject the framing (but doesn't). There are no flying cars in a future where the main arguments for reduced regulation is increasing safety. It doesn't take you remotely far enough.
    - ChuckMcM 3y ago
      Fair enough, but that argument was not "for all types of aircraft" right? Are you arguing for the FAA to remove all safety requirements that have a cost? How do you evaluate that cost? When I read it I saw the FAA describing a methodology and argument that counters the "safety at any cost" argument (is that what you call 'safetyism'?) I read the article to say, "Sometimes our rules do not increase safety, sometimes our rules result in people choosing a less safe option because there isn't safer choice, and sometimes a new thing we haven't seen can be safer than what existing practice would expect." And MOSAIC was a response to addressing those observations in order to foster a more innovative and safer overall aviation industry. When I read your original point I mistakenly thought you were criticizing the FAA for lowering the cost of safety regulation when doing so increased safety. So that is how I got confused by your comment.
      - jessriedel 3y ago
        (No worries about the miscommunication.) > Are you arguing for the FAA to remove all safety requirements that have a cost? No. > How do you evaluate that cost? Lots to say here, but let me lead with a general principle: If you can measure the benefits of a regulation but cannot measure the costs, you should err on the side of less regulation. The original sin of cost-benefit analysis is "I can't easily measure contribution Y, so let's assume it rounds to zero". Here's one possible mechanism: Instead of banning an activity, either (a) put a tax on it equal to (say) 50% of dollar value of the safety harm (using, e.g., statistical value of life) or (b) require the consumer to pay for insurance that pays out a similar amount in case of accident. Then, even if we think the consumer is completely ignorant of the safety costs, they get to weigh the benefits to them of the activity against the financial costs from the tax/insurance, as determined by the regulators. Remember, the general intellectual justification of safety regulation is "We, the expert regulators, know the safety risks, but the consumer doesn't have enough information. Also, by typical paternalism arguments, it would be insufficient to simply create a Would-have-banned label ( https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/wouldhavebanned.html https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/wouldhavebanned.html ). It's very hard for us to estimate the cost of the regulation to the consumer, but based on eyeballing it, it seems smaller than the safety benefits." By taxing the activity at the level the regulators think, in their expertise, reflects the safety cost of the activity, they can let the consumer (who knows the benefits of the activity better) to decide whether the costs outweigh the benefits. Now, maybe if you implement that mechanism in the real world it turns out to be good or it turns out to be bad. Complicated empirical question. But the over-arching point is that no one even brings things like that up as possibilities. Which is evidence that the alleged justifications for the rules are not the real motivations. (Needless to say, the above suggestion is not new or invented by me; the ideas are just lying out there.) > When I read it I saw the FAA describing a methodology and argument that counters the "safety at any cost" argument It doesn't! It accepts the "safety at any cost" argument and then argues that, counter-intuitively, increased regulation reduces safety in this particular case. It's of course true that if a safety regulation both has costs and reduces safety then it should be removed -- it has no redeeming features. But we should be cognizant that this is an unusually easy situation. > the "safety at any cost" argument (is that what you call 'safetyism'?) Yes, that's basically what I mean (although it's of course a complicated social and psychological phenomena that can't be fully summarized in sentence).
7e 3y ago
Too much regulation and safety enhancements don’t reach the fleet, is the thesis. Does the FDA believe this thesis for drugs? Clearly not. Or, more precisely, the benefits do not outweigh the harm. I don’t believe it applies to aircraft, either. “the explicit goal here is to make the new category so attractive that many recreational pilots switch from more dangerous experimental amateur-built aircraft to light-sport aircraft that are designed according to consensus standards.” Umm, that’s wishful thinking. It might work to some degree, but the real fix is to regulate the crackpots out of the experimental category. Flying a dangerous piece of shit through common airspace is not a right. It sounds like the FAA has their hands tied by some law, and, absent Congressional reform, is trying to do the best they can with the constrained authority they have.
- yipbub 3y ago
  > Too much regulation and safety enhancements don’t reach the fleet, is the thesis. Does the FDA believe this thesis for drugs? Clearly not. Or, more precisely, the benefits do not outweigh the harm. I don’t believe it applies to aircraft, either. What's the connection? Allowing drug use on planes does not increase technological innovation. Technological experimentation does. > Umm, that’s wishful thinking. It might work to some degree, but the real fix is to regulate the crackpots out of the experimental category. Source? The FAA seems to back their claims up with actual data. > Flying a dangerous piece of shit through common airspace is not a right. I did a little bit of googling, and the experimental aircraft are not allowed over densely populated areas or crowded airspace without the guidance of an ATC and sufficient altitude is there to glide away to safety. Even experimental aircraft must receive an airworthiness certificate.[0] From what I've seen, they're only loosening the restrictions that seem to make no contribution to safety and will make it easier for more aircraft to adopt the restrictions that do make it safer. They're incentivized to be safe because they fly the planes, and a higher rating means more privileges(haven't verified this), crackpots who don't care about safety won't make it through the trial period before their plane is allowed out of limited airspace. Why express strong opinions that are unresearched? Or if they are, provide some sources? Or provide some reasoning other than intuition? Especially in a world where we are increasingly not allowed to do things unless specifically allowed. (allowlist instead of denylist) [0] https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/intro-to-aircraft-building/frequently-asked-questions/densely-populated-areas https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/intro-to-aircraft-...
w10-1 3y ago
This is a great summary of a complex topic, but I wouldn't put safety or experimentation as the primary driver. As you suggested, MOSAIC is likely a way to migrate people off experimentals to discontinue that little idealistic free-for-all. The vast, vast majority of pilots are aging out. The vast majority of builders are retired. 30-50 years of experimentation has exhausted most people, who now just buy the tried-and-true design and kit from Van's. Many people wasted their lives on projects that never fly, and most deaths and injuries come in the first few flights. Old airplanes are cheap and mostly just as functional as new planes, making it really, really hard to sell a lot of new planes. And there aren't enough numbers to justify selling avionics or engines, etc. unless you already have certificated products and want to reach the Van's customers. So not really enough market, notwithstanding the breathtaking improvements in electronics and composites. The major costs in flying are gas, hangar, insurance, and maintenance, which is not going to change with these rules, particularly since they don't resolve the uncertainty around leaded aviation fuel. Those costs prohibit flying except for the wealthy or the super-motivated upper-middle class. LSA's are safer because they're new and mostly Van's, and don't really invite scud-running or stupid fuel decisions. The push to MOSAIC is mostly the FAA trying to stay relevant, and eventually to kill experimental aviation. I could see a new business model, where a company like Van's offers an all-in-one packages of long-term lease + insurance + maintenance, particularly to buyer's groups. Sharing a plane gets it flown more, and group members can come and go. The company gets the benefit of its own engineering effort in low maintenance and insurance costs. Rotax, Continental, or some new electric consortium et al could make deals with such companies guaranteeing enough new engines to justify new product lines. If there's a behind-the-scenes driver for MOSAIC, it might be some deal-making contingent on more sympathetic and predictable FAA regulation. Private and experimental aviation is not stymied by product fit as much as market fit and transaction cost risks. If MOSAIC helps with that, it could be a game-changer.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Dumb question: how does insurance work? Like, I get it would be a good idea if a bunch of randoms collectively buy a plane or (can you do this:) want to rent it out to randoms. Or required if you get a secured loan for it. But if you own your own (or a close group does), is insurance required? Or do airfields require it and good luck if you don't have a private strip? FAA requirement? Every hanger requires it? Mechanics will refuse work if it's uninsured? Or is it cheap enough there's no point in foregoing it even if it's not required?
happyjack 3y ago
I'm a pilot, own aircraft and maintain them. Everything the faa does boils down to limiting liability, and liability is asses occupying seats in aircraft. Want to fly without a medical? Great, you can do basic med but can't fly over 6 people. You want to import a foreign war bird? Awesome, you're going to have to register that restricted and or experimental and you can't do aerial tours or turn a profit. You own a vintage aircraft and are the owner / operator? You legally can fabricate your own parts if you follow certain guidelines. I hate to burst the "hope" and optimism bubble, but we won't be seeing flying cars or anything crazy from the MOSAIC rules. While I think there will be a lot of positives that come from it, the faa more or less is laying out a set of rules and guidelines for new aircraft and tightening up definitions. LSA was a major failure, and the Feds are realizing that they can actually limit liability and increase safety by making a set of standards and guidelines for small aircraft. Also, I don't see any "emerging markets" coming out of GA. Flying is expensive, takes a lot of time, and is hard. Real wages also haven't risen since the 80s, and the younger folks have other interests.
- defrost 3y ago
  Well, at least there's always backyard ground effect builds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37964608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37964608
  - happyjack 3y ago
    Pretty sure if you stay under 6 feet AGL you're considered a boat!
    - defrost 3y ago
      There's a vlog on his channel on "Is it a boat or a plane?". I threw that in more as it's a fun build (that sadly had a bit of a mishap this last weekend). My background's more in modified STOL for geophysics | heli mustering .. which was all rather seat of the pants back in the day.
rob74 3y ago
> After all, pilots and passengers generally want, other things equal, to be safe, so an unfettered free market will deliver cost-effective safety-improving innovations over time. Ah, such optimistic belief in the "unfettered free market"! That might be true, but aircraft operators mostly want to make as much money as possible, so if the choice is between a cost-effective safety-improving innovation and an even more cost-effective non-innovation (i.e. not doing anything), they will choose the latter.
- bongoman37 3y ago
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- parineum 3y ago
  Cars are significantly safer than they are required to be.
  - atmavatar 3y ago
    That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, given there are tens of thousands of auto fatalities every year. In fact, as I understand it, you are far more likely to die while driving to the airport than flying for any given trip you take.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      The commercial aircraft vs. private equivalent of a car is probably a train.
      - samtho 3y ago
        Or perhaps a (non air) bus
    - LanceH 3y ago
      Different kinds of miles. You would be far more likely to die landing that 737 at my grocery store.
ramesh31 3y ago
I think what really killed "personal aviation" was the interstate highway system and the advent of extremely fast efficient cheap cars. In the 1950s, there was a dream that millions of average people would have their own personal planes for commutes and vacation because a 500 mile road trip was an epic days long journey to be made on unreliable roads with manual transmissions at 45 mph. But the equation just doesn't make sense anymore, even ignoring cost. A 500 mile trip in a private plane would take about 4 hours, or 7 on the highway today, with all the logistical savings of avoiding airports and having ground transportation at your destination.
- test6554 3y ago
  When I look at my own goals in aviation, why I am pursuing my PPL. I want to avoid those 15 to 20 hour drives. I want to fly planes with 1200nm+ range and cruising speeds above 200 knots. And not have to avoid foggy/overcast weather. I also want to be able to social distance a bit while traveling post-covid.
cagenut 3y ago
this is excellent for the emerging evtol players. their economics get much better at 6+ passengers and 200+mph.
ehnto 3y ago
Supersonic falling out of fashion is just economics, it's not a forgone conclusion that better technology and higher performance will always be more popular. There really is a "peak comfort" or "good enough" for most people, the metrics of cost and convenience can trump objective quality and performance. Moving the amount of people we want to move, for the cost at which people are willing to endure, shook out the way it did and supersonic lost out. For general aviation you just have many more challenges to overcome than say driving. It takes really special circumstances before it makes sense. We won't have flying cars for the same reason we don't all have planes. They aren't required, few need them and they would be more inconvenient to operate than a simple car.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > really is a "peak comfort" or "good enough" for most people Most people are irrelevant for commercial aviation. And there are entire sections of the market for which most rich Americans are irrelevant.
- throw3823423 3y ago
  An unsung part of the economic disadvantages of supersonic is how often the value of speed in the connection of two cities is not anywhere near even in both directions. Say we are looking at London-NY. The flight takes 3 hours, and the time difference is 5 hours. If you are leaving London, this means you can leave at a reasonable time, and have plenty of useful business meetings in New York: Much better the subsonic flight. But what happens when you fly in the other direction? In practice, it's 8 hours. So leave NYC at 8 am in the morning, and by the time you are at an office in London, the workday is over: Far less valuable for an executive than the other direction. Thus, the price differential over the regular flight in one direction is very different than in the other. A supersonic jet with concorde-like economics in supersonic routes would be usable if it could fly subsonic at a competitive price on the way back, but that's not how physics works.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    If they could get the cost differential down a lot, then paying a little extra for supersonic would be worth it to some people just so they don't have to sit in an airplane as long. Across the Atlantic it's not such a big deal, but routes across the Pacific take a really long time.
napierzaza 3y ago
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namdnay 3y ago
Great I guess, but isn’t “personal aviation” (and 90% of general aviation) exactly the type of activity we should be discouraging? It’s incredibly carbon inefficient. (I feel like the person who says the party is too loud and has to stop, but come on - given the list of things many people are going to have to sacrifice to survive the climate disaster, is asking the world’s 1% to give up their cessnas really too much?
- S201 3y ago
  > is asking the world’s 1% to give up their cessnas really too much I wish this "only the 1% fly planes" crap would stop already. Yes, GA isn't exactly cheap, but there are many upper middle class families with RVs, boats, trucks, and vacation homes that are more expensive than a shitbox 1970's Cessna is and no one whines about how it's only the 1% that enjoy those pursuits. Not to mention the many more people in partnerships and flying clubs to split the fixed costs across multiple people. The short of it is that GA is an expensive hobby just as many other upper middle class hobbies are, but an accessible one for many more than the 1%. The people that proclaim how it's only the ultra rich who enjoy aviation are admitting that they know absolutely nothing about the actual general aviation community.
  - abricq 3y ago
    "only the 1% fly" is not true, but "only the 11% fly" is a fact [1]. About the 1%: "1% of the population emits 50% of the commercial aviation's emission". You can keep going like that to show that it is indeed reserved to an upper-part of the society. Maybe the ultra-rich are not the only one flying, but they are responsible for a bigger part of the problem than the upper middle class. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that we're looking at the global population. Global warming being a global problem, looking only at the population of your region is not a sufficient reasoning. I live in Switzerland, I guaranty that it's a lot more than 11% of the population that flies. At the end of the day, it's a question of moral and of fairness: do we want to live a life-style which can't be generated to the entire global population and which will ultimately lead to extreme conditions for future-generations and poorer social-classes than ours ? Is it fair that 1 person out of 10 gets to fly while the 9 others will have to pay the same consequences ? My personal answer is that it should not be a personal decision, but that politicians should keep these numbers to start making laws such as taxing kerosene to the same level as cars' fuel. [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307779 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...
littlestymaar 3y ago
> This lack of space for experimentation, as I discussed with Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass recently, is one reason for stagnation in the nuclear industry. And this is why nuclear innovation is thriving in third-world countries with little to no nuclear regulation, right?
- hnav 3y ago
  it’s thriving in China seemingly, in third world countries you can’t get U233 so easily
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    You mean U235 I guess, but you don't even need enriched Uranium to have a nuclear reactor (natural uranium reactors are a thing). Also, you're not really praising China for being a land of free enterprise fostering innovation are you? Nuclear (but not necessarily nuclear innovation) works in China because there's strong political will (exactly like it was in France in the 70s and 80s btw).
isaiahg 3y ago
> The explicit safety target that FAA and other regulators have settled on is that catastrophic events should be “extremely improbable,” meaning one per billion flight-hours. The regulation of this kind of aviation is nothing short of maniacal. Maniacal really? Is the author living in reality?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  He is, airlines have been complaining about the paperwork involving anything that flies for decades - however given incidents like [1] with fake parts being spliced into legitimate supply chain, or how that paperwork enables accident investigation boards to quickly determine root causes often in a matter of weeks to months, the regulations do have merit. On the other hand, you got a ton of Global South countries, particularly in Africa, with very lax enforcement of any kind of standards, and they don't end up with hundreds-of-pax-dead catastrophes every year, so either the regulations could be relaxed legitimately across the board or the lack of catastrophes is mostly because almost all planes flying out there are Western-built with considerable amounts of safety margins, redundancies and fail-safes built-in. [1] https://fortune.com/2023/10/03/delta-fourth-major-us-airline-fake-jet-aircraft-engine-parts-forged-airworthiness-documents-uk-company-aog/ https://fortune.com/2023/10/03/delta-fourth-major-us-airline...
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Some companies in a regulated industry want less regulation. Big surprise. But no, less regulation is not what we need in aviation, cars, food or medcine. Those regulations have litteraly been written in blood. And guess how many of those lax airlines are allowed to land in e.g. the EU. Not that many, and those airlines from those regions that are allowed in European airpsace are adhering to EASA requirements, and thus are the opposite of lax. No matter how you design an aircraft, and safety margins there are lower than for e.g. cars, with bad and lacking maintennace it becomes a safety hazard rather quickly.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > But no, less regulation is not what we need in aviation, cars, food or medcine. Those regulations have litteraly been written in blood. For the record: I fully agree with you, I just wanted to provide some context.
mschuster91 3y ago
An interesting article, but I'd question a few things: > This heavy regulation means that few new reactors are being built, which in turn means that if you are starting a new nuclear company, you’re going to have mostly engineers who have never built a nuclear reactor of any kind before. This lack of space for experimentation, as I discussed with Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass recently, is one reason for stagnation in the nuclear industry. That is a problem, but on the other hand, the more people work in nuclear, the higher the likelihood is that someone ends up diverting nuclear material. It's already a huge issue with nuclear material in medical devices that ends up creating (sometimes fatal) dangers to the public ("orphan sources") [1]. > Under today’s light-sport rules, LSAs are limited to a single reciprocating (piston) engine. What this has meant in practice is that turboprops are not allowed. Which is a good thing IMHO. Jet engines are orders of magnitude more complex to maintain with high requirements on precision (a must, given that these things spin at 100k RPM) than a piston engine is - effectively, maintenance on these can be done by any car mechanic specializing in oldtimer cars, as they're dating back to 1950s designs. > Without the need for type certification, manufacturers can iterate on their designs more rapidly without going through the costly supplemental type certification process. They can include cheaper uncertified avionics. They can do over-the-air software updates. It's one thing to allow certified legitimate manufacturers faster iteration speeds in design. But allowing people to use uncertified avionics? That's just asking for incidents to happen, be it because sun glare causes a pilot to not recognize something critical, or because Android's OOM killer crashing at the wrong time. When even the big names such as Samsung can't be arsed to put something out that doesn't crash the UI twice a week, I don't want to see that stuff on a vital plane system. > If we can get LSAs into mass manufacturing, production costs of the airframe could go down further. For that, there would need to be a market for these. But as urbanization is happening rapidly across the world, I'd question that - who wants to drive hours out in the country, just for a few flight hours? Even with you Americans not being required to use actual airfields (unlike us Germans), you can't sustain a large GA market... that's the problem IMHO. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incide...
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
I'm gonna sound like a huge downer, but I actually like MOSAIC. Couple observations though: Overall thought: UAS BVR flight is now officially MORE regulated than light sport. Interesting. The aviation consumer doesn't "pay for safety". They pay for the experience of safety, because they can't possibly make informed decisions about almost anything they're buying. Can they look up the maintenance inspection history of their aircraft? Can they google the bio of their pilot? Of course not. It's why regulations exist, Ayn. We can't all be Russian Superwomen with completely perfect comprehension and knowledge of the world around us, and we don't want to be executed if we're not. The big, enormous, really huge contribution of distributed propulsion is not redundancy or noise but in lift assist. A fan in front of the airframe is not the optimal place to stick thrust for winged flight. You can do insane stuff putting thrust in weird places, and tiny little fans make that easy. § 22.180 is bananas without something like a SDER (software designated engineering rep) or SOMETHING to quantify what the FMU's electronic brain thinks is good control input. I guess that's part of the cert path. § 22.185 oh boy more government specs that send you to another spec you have to pay some rando third party to look at. YAAAAAAAAYYYYY

141 points by jseliger 3y ago

That's a huge improvement. Some existing aircraft will be able to convert to LSAs under MOSAIC, many existing manufacturers will switch to building LSAs, and we'll see many new developments as well. The current crop of planes in general aviation is deteriorating with nothing to replace them. The average age of a GA aircraft is over 50 years old. They were never designed for this lifetime. Many people are flying aircraft that are closer to the Wright brothers in time than to today. The most popular engine, the Lycoming O-320 was designed in 1953. 50 years ago planes were affordable, maintenance was not prohibitive, and an upper middle class person could easily fly for fun if they wanted to. These rules are hopefully going to make general aviation dramatically cheaper. The fact that electric engines are included, that you can install new experimental avionics, do some of your own maintenance, etc. while lifting the many restrictions on current LSAs is pretty amazing. Just getting past many of the certification requirements, which are overkill for GA applications, are going to make everything insanely cheaper. MOSAIC will also give new companies a path into the market, now they can start in the LSA category, develop their product and sell it, and then eventually go for certification. Otherwise you have a massive startup cost with no idea about product-market fit.

sokoloff 3y ago
I am strongly in favor of MOSAIC's aims and almost all of their choices. I do think that SLSA not having a better safety record than TC/Personal is a problem for the current SLSA grouping. Weather and fuel accidents factor prominently as contributing or primary factors in fatal accidents and an airplane that can only go 120 knots and can only weigh 1320 pounds is far less prone to tangle with unexpected en route weather. (It's not impossible, but contrast that with a 200 knot airplane carrying 700 pounds of fuel in terms of ability to cross multiple weather systems.) I think it's great. I hope the losses remain low enough for the program to continue to be expanded. I'm not nearly as hopeful as you are that it's going to be transformational for the industry in the sense of returning to the 1960s heyday.
mschuster91 3y ago
> The current crop of planes in general aviation is deteriorating with nothing to replace them. In the ultralight world, you got a ton of new airframe designs - including electric ones such as the Pipistrel Velis Electro. Agree on the engines though, there hasn't been much innovation there for decades, but IMHO that's also a factor of war planes switching over to jet engines and the GA market being too small to justify the investment into the development of piston engines and too poor to invest into jet engines.

jessriedel 3y ago

If you are arguing against overly stringent safety regulation by pointing out that they actually decrease safety, you have already lose the war against safetyism. We must reach the point where it is widely permissible to say "the safety benefits are not worth the costs".

ChuckMcM 3y ago
And yet the FAA makes that argument explicitly in the article.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  That's my point. The FAA makes the argument, and Eli Dourado should reject the framing (but doesn't). There are no flying cars in a future where the main arguments for reduced regulation is increasing safety. It doesn't take you remotely far enough.
  - ChuckMcM 3y ago
    Fair enough, but that argument was not "for all types of aircraft" right? Are you arguing for the FAA to remove all safety requirements that have a cost? How do you evaluate that cost? When I read it I saw the FAA describing a methodology and argument that counters the "safety at any cost" argument (is that what you call 'safetyism'?) I read the article to say, "Sometimes our rules do not increase safety, sometimes our rules result in people choosing a less safe option because there isn't safer choice, and sometimes a new thing we haven't seen can be safer than what existing practice would expect." And MOSAIC was a response to addressing those observations in order to foster a more innovative and safer overall aviation industry. When I read your original point I mistakenly thought you were criticizing the FAA for lowering the cost of safety regulation when doing so increased safety. So that is how I got confused by your comment.
    - jessriedel 3y ago
      (No worries about the miscommunication.) > Are you arguing for the FAA to remove all safety requirements that have a cost? No. > How do you evaluate that cost? Lots to say here, but let me lead with a general principle: If you can measure the benefits of a regulation but cannot measure the costs, you should err on the side of less regulation. The original sin of cost-benefit analysis is "I can't easily measure contribution Y, so let's assume it rounds to zero". Here's one possible mechanism: Instead of banning an activity, either (a) put a tax on it equal to (say) 50% of dollar value of the safety harm (using, e.g., statistical value of life) or (b) require the consumer to pay for insurance that pays out a similar amount in case of accident. Then, even if we think the consumer is completely ignorant of the safety costs, they get to weigh the benefits to them of the activity against the financial costs from the tax/insurance, as determined by the regulators. Remember, the general intellectual justification of safety regulation is "We, the expert regulators, know the safety risks, but the consumer doesn't have enough information. Also, by typical paternalism arguments, it would be insufficient to simply create a Would-have-banned label ( https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/wouldhavebanned.html https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/wouldhavebanned.html ). It's very hard for us to estimate the cost of the regulation to the consumer, but based on eyeballing it, it seems smaller than the safety benefits." By taxing the activity at the level the regulators think, in their expertise, reflects the safety cost of the activity, they can let the consumer (who knows the benefits of the activity better) to decide whether the costs outweigh the benefits. Now, maybe if you implement that mechanism in the real world it turns out to be good or it turns out to be bad. Complicated empirical question. But the over-arching point is that no one even brings things like that up as possibilities. Which is evidence that the alleged justifications for the rules are not the real motivations. (Needless to say, the above suggestion is not new or invented by me; the ideas are just lying out there.) > When I read it I saw the FAA describing a methodology and argument that counters the "safety at any cost" argument It doesn't! It accepts the "safety at any cost" argument and then argues that, counter-intuitively, increased regulation reduces safety in this particular case. It's of course true that if a safety regulation both has costs and reduces safety then it should be removed -- it has no redeeming features. But we should be cognizant that this is an unusually easy situation. > the "safety at any cost" argument (is that what you call 'safetyism'?) Yes, that's basically what I mean (although it's of course a complicated social and psychological phenomena that can't be fully summarized in sentence).

7e 3y ago

Too much regulation and safety enhancements don’t reach the fleet, is the thesis. Does the FDA believe this thesis for drugs? Clearly not. Or, more precisely, the benefits do not outweigh the harm. I don’t believe it applies to aircraft, either. “the explicit goal here is to make the new category so attractive that many recreational pilots switch from more dangerous experimental amateur-built aircraft to light-sport aircraft that are designed according to consensus standards.” Umm, that’s wishful thinking. It might work to some degree, but the real fix is to regulate the crackpots out of the experimental category. Flying a dangerous piece of shit through common airspace is not a right. It sounds like the FAA has their hands tied by some law, and, absent Congressional reform, is trying to do the best they can with the constrained authority they have.

yipbub 3y ago
> Too much regulation and safety enhancements don’t reach the fleet, is the thesis. Does the FDA believe this thesis for drugs? Clearly not. Or, more precisely, the benefits do not outweigh the harm. I don’t believe it applies to aircraft, either. What's the connection? Allowing drug use on planes does not increase technological innovation. Technological experimentation does. > Umm, that’s wishful thinking. It might work to some degree, but the real fix is to regulate the crackpots out of the experimental category. Source? The FAA seems to back their claims up with actual data. > Flying a dangerous piece of shit through common airspace is not a right. I did a little bit of googling, and the experimental aircraft are not allowed over densely populated areas or crowded airspace without the guidance of an ATC and sufficient altitude is there to glide away to safety. Even experimental aircraft must receive an airworthiness certificate.[0] From what I've seen, they're only loosening the restrictions that seem to make no contribution to safety and will make it easier for more aircraft to adopt the restrictions that do make it safer. They're incentivized to be safe because they fly the planes, and a higher rating means more privileges(haven't verified this), crackpots who don't care about safety won't make it through the trial period before their plane is allowed out of limited airspace. Why express strong opinions that are unresearched? Or if they are, provide some sources? Or provide some reasoning other than intuition? Especially in a world where we are increasingly not allowed to do things unless specifically allowed. (allowlist instead of denylist) [0] https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/intro-to-aircraft-building/frequently-asked-questions/densely-populated-areas https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/intro-to-aircraft-...

w10-1 3y ago

This is a great summary of a complex topic, but I wouldn't put safety or experimentation as the primary driver. As you suggested, MOSAIC is likely a way to migrate people off experimentals to discontinue that little idealistic free-for-all. The vast, vast majority of pilots are aging out. The vast majority of builders are retired. 30-50 years of experimentation has exhausted most people, who now just buy the tried-and-true design and kit from Van's. Many people wasted their lives on projects that never fly, and most deaths and injuries come in the first few flights. Old airplanes are cheap and mostly just as functional as new planes, making it really, really hard to sell a lot of new planes. And there aren't enough numbers to justify selling avionics or engines, etc. unless you already have certificated products and want to reach the Van's customers. So not really enough market, notwithstanding the breathtaking improvements in electronics and composites. The major costs in flying are gas, hangar, insurance, and maintenance, which is not going to change with these rules, particularly since they don't resolve the uncertainty around leaded aviation fuel. Those costs prohibit flying except for the wealthy or the super-motivated upper-middle class. LSA's are safer because they're new and mostly Van's, and don't really invite scud-running or stupid fuel decisions. The push to MOSAIC is mostly the FAA trying to stay relevant, and eventually to kill experimental aviation. I could see a new business model, where a company like Van's offers an all-in-one packages of long-term lease + insurance + maintenance, particularly to buyer's groups. Sharing a plane gets it flown more, and group members can come and go. The company gets the benefit of its own engineering effort in low maintenance and insurance costs. Rotax, Continental, or some new electric consortium et al could make deals with such companies guaranteeing enough new engines to justify new product lines. If there's a behind-the-scenes driver for MOSAIC, it might be some deal-making contingent on more sympathetic and predictable FAA regulation. Private and experimental aviation is not stymied by product fit as much as market fit and transaction cost risks. If MOSAIC helps with that, it could be a game-changer.

Scoundreller 3y ago
Dumb question: how does insurance work? Like, I get it would be a good idea if a bunch of randoms collectively buy a plane or (can you do this:) want to rent it out to randoms. Or required if you get a secured loan for it. But if you own your own (or a close group does), is insurance required? Or do airfields require it and good luck if you don't have a private strip? FAA requirement? Every hanger requires it? Mechanics will refuse work if it's uninsured? Or is it cheap enough there's no point in foregoing it even if it's not required?

happyjack 3y ago

I'm a pilot, own aircraft and maintain them. Everything the faa does boils down to limiting liability, and liability is asses occupying seats in aircraft. Want to fly without a medical? Great, you can do basic med but can't fly over 6 people. You want to import a foreign war bird? Awesome, you're going to have to register that restricted and or experimental and you can't do aerial tours or turn a profit. You own a vintage aircraft and are the owner / operator? You legally can fabricate your own parts if you follow certain guidelines. I hate to burst the "hope" and optimism bubble, but we won't be seeing flying cars or anything crazy from the MOSAIC rules. While I think there will be a lot of positives that come from it, the faa more or less is laying out a set of rules and guidelines for new aircraft and tightening up definitions. LSA was a major failure, and the Feds are realizing that they can actually limit liability and increase safety by making a set of standards and guidelines for small aircraft. Also, I don't see any "emerging markets" coming out of GA. Flying is expensive, takes a lot of time, and is hard. Real wages also haven't risen since the 80s, and the younger folks have other interests.

defrost 3y ago
Well, at least there's always backyard ground effect builds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37964608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37964608
- happyjack 3y ago
  Pretty sure if you stay under 6 feet AGL you're considered a boat!
  - defrost 3y ago
    There's a vlog on his channel on "Is it a boat or a plane?". I threw that in more as it's a fun build (that sadly had a bit of a mishap this last weekend). My background's more in modified STOL for geophysics | heli mustering .. which was all rather seat of the pants back in the day.

rob74 3y ago

> After all, pilots and passengers generally want, other things equal, to be safe, so an unfettered free market will deliver cost-effective safety-improving innovations over time. Ah, such optimistic belief in the "unfettered free market"! That might be true, but aircraft operators mostly want to make as much money as possible, so if the choice is between a cost-effective safety-improving innovation and an even more cost-effective non-innovation (i.e. not doing anything), they will choose the latter.

bongoman37 3y ago
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parineum 3y ago
Cars are significantly safer than they are required to be.
- atmavatar 3y ago
  That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, given there are tens of thousands of auto fatalities every year. In fact, as I understand it, you are far more likely to die while driving to the airport than flying for any given trip you take.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    The commercial aircraft vs. private equivalent of a car is probably a train.
    - samtho 3y ago
      Or perhaps a (non air) bus
  - LanceH 3y ago
    Different kinds of miles. You would be far more likely to die landing that 737 at my grocery store.

ramesh31 3y ago

I think what really killed "personal aviation" was the interstate highway system and the advent of extremely fast efficient cheap cars. In the 1950s, there was a dream that millions of average people would have their own personal planes for commutes and vacation because a 500 mile road trip was an epic days long journey to be made on unreliable roads with manual transmissions at 45 mph. But the equation just doesn't make sense anymore, even ignoring cost. A 500 mile trip in a private plane would take about 4 hours, or 7 on the highway today, with all the logistical savings of avoiding airports and having ground transportation at your destination.

test6554 3y ago
When I look at my own goals in aviation, why I am pursuing my PPL. I want to avoid those 15 to 20 hour drives. I want to fly planes with 1200nm+ range and cruising speeds above 200 knots. And not have to avoid foggy/overcast weather. I also want to be able to social distance a bit while traveling post-covid.

cagenut 3y ago

this is excellent for the emerging evtol players. their economics get much better at 6+ passengers and 200+mph.

ehnto 3y ago

Supersonic falling out of fashion is just economics, it's not a forgone conclusion that better technology and higher performance will always be more popular. There really is a "peak comfort" or "good enough" for most people, the metrics of cost and convenience can trump objective quality and performance. Moving the amount of people we want to move, for the cost at which people are willing to endure, shook out the way it did and supersonic lost out. For general aviation you just have many more challenges to overcome than say driving. It takes really special circumstances before it makes sense. We won't have flying cars for the same reason we don't all have planes. They aren't required, few need them and they would be more inconvenient to operate than a simple car.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> really is a "peak comfort" or "good enough" for most people Most people are irrelevant for commercial aviation. And there are entire sections of the market for which most rich Americans are irrelevant.
throw3823423 3y ago
An unsung part of the economic disadvantages of supersonic is how often the value of speed in the connection of two cities is not anywhere near even in both directions. Say we are looking at London-NY. The flight takes 3 hours, and the time difference is 5 hours. If you are leaving London, this means you can leave at a reasonable time, and have plenty of useful business meetings in New York: Much better the subsonic flight. But what happens when you fly in the other direction? In practice, it's 8 hours. So leave NYC at 8 am in the morning, and by the time you are at an office in London, the workday is over: Far less valuable for an executive than the other direction. Thus, the price differential over the regular flight in one direction is very different than in the other. A supersonic jet with concorde-like economics in supersonic routes would be usable if it could fly subsonic at a competitive price on the way back, but that's not how physics works.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  If they could get the cost differential down a lot, then paying a little extra for supersonic would be worth it to some people just so they don't have to sit in an airplane as long. Across the Atlantic it's not such a big deal, but routes across the Pacific take a really long time.

napierzaza 3y ago

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namdnay 3y ago

Great I guess, but isn’t “personal aviation” (and 90% of general aviation) exactly the type of activity we should be discouraging? It’s incredibly carbon inefficient. (I feel like the person who says the party is too loud and has to stop, but come on - given the list of things many people are going to have to sacrifice to survive the climate disaster, is asking the world’s 1% to give up their cessnas really too much?

S201 3y ago
> is asking the world’s 1% to give up their cessnas really too much I wish this "only the 1% fly planes" crap would stop already. Yes, GA isn't exactly cheap, but there are many upper middle class families with RVs, boats, trucks, and vacation homes that are more expensive than a shitbox 1970's Cessna is and no one whines about how it's only the 1% that enjoy those pursuits. Not to mention the many more people in partnerships and flying clubs to split the fixed costs across multiple people. The short of it is that GA is an expensive hobby just as many other upper middle class hobbies are, but an accessible one for many more than the 1%. The people that proclaim how it's only the ultra rich who enjoy aviation are admitting that they know absolutely nothing about the actual general aviation community.
- abricq 3y ago
  "only the 1% fly" is not true, but "only the 11% fly" is a fact [1]. About the 1%: "1% of the population emits 50% of the commercial aviation's emission". You can keep going like that to show that it is indeed reserved to an upper-part of the society. Maybe the ultra-rich are not the only one flying, but they are responsible for a bigger part of the problem than the upper middle class. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that we're looking at the global population. Global warming being a global problem, looking only at the population of your region is not a sufficient reasoning. I live in Switzerland, I guaranty that it's a lot more than 11% of the population that flies. At the end of the day, it's a question of moral and of fairness: do we want to live a life-style which can't be generated to the entire global population and which will ultimately lead to extreme conditions for future-generations and poorer social-classes than ours ? Is it fair that 1 person out of 10 gets to fly while the 9 others will have to pay the same consequences ? My personal answer is that it should not be a personal decision, but that politicians should keep these numbers to start making laws such as taxing kerosene to the same level as cars' fuel. [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307779 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...

littlestymaar 3y ago

> This lack of space for experimentation, as I discussed with Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass recently, is one reason for stagnation in the nuclear industry. And this is why nuclear innovation is thriving in third-world countries with little to no nuclear regulation, right?

hnav 3y ago
it’s thriving in China seemingly, in third world countries you can’t get U233 so easily
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  You mean U235 I guess, but you don't even need enriched Uranium to have a nuclear reactor (natural uranium reactors are a thing). Also, you're not really praising China for being a land of free enterprise fostering innovation are you? Nuclear (but not necessarily nuclear innovation) works in China because there's strong political will (exactly like it was in France in the 70s and 80s btw).

isaiahg 3y ago

> The explicit safety target that FAA and other regulators have settled on is that catastrophic events should be “extremely improbable,” meaning one per billion flight-hours. The regulation of this kind of aviation is nothing short of maniacal. Maniacal really? Is the author living in reality?

mschuster91 3y ago
He is, airlines have been complaining about the paperwork involving anything that flies for decades - however given incidents like [1] with fake parts being spliced into legitimate supply chain, or how that paperwork enables accident investigation boards to quickly determine root causes often in a matter of weeks to months, the regulations do have merit. On the other hand, you got a ton of Global South countries, particularly in Africa, with very lax enforcement of any kind of standards, and they don't end up with hundreds-of-pax-dead catastrophes every year, so either the regulations could be relaxed legitimately across the board or the lack of catastrophes is mostly because almost all planes flying out there are Western-built with considerable amounts of safety margins, redundancies and fail-safes built-in. [1] https://fortune.com/2023/10/03/delta-fourth-major-us-airline-fake-jet-aircraft-engine-parts-forged-airworthiness-documents-uk-company-aog/ https://fortune.com/2023/10/03/delta-fourth-major-us-airline...
- hef19898 3y ago
  Some companies in a regulated industry want less regulation. Big surprise. But no, less regulation is not what we need in aviation, cars, food or medcine. Those regulations have litteraly been written in blood. And guess how many of those lax airlines are allowed to land in e.g. the EU. Not that many, and those airlines from those regions that are allowed in European airpsace are adhering to EASA requirements, and thus are the opposite of lax. No matter how you design an aircraft, and safety margins there are lower than for e.g. cars, with bad and lacking maintennace it becomes a safety hazard rather quickly.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > But no, less regulation is not what we need in aviation, cars, food or medcine. Those regulations have litteraly been written in blood. For the record: I fully agree with you, I just wanted to provide some context.

mschuster91 3y ago

An interesting article, but I'd question a few things: > This heavy regulation means that few new reactors are being built, which in turn means that if you are starting a new nuclear company, you’re going to have mostly engineers who have never built a nuclear reactor of any kind before. This lack of space for experimentation, as I discussed with Last Energy CEO Bret Kugelmass recently, is one reason for stagnation in the nuclear industry. That is a problem, but on the other hand, the more people work in nuclear, the higher the likelihood is that someone ends up diverting nuclear material. It's already a huge issue with nuclear material in medical devices that ends up creating (sometimes fatal) dangers to the public ("orphan sources") [1]. > Under today’s light-sport rules, LSAs are limited to a single reciprocating (piston) engine. What this has meant in practice is that turboprops are not allowed. Which is a good thing IMHO. Jet engines are orders of magnitude more complex to maintain with high requirements on precision (a must, given that these things spin at 100k RPM) than a piston engine is - effectively, maintenance on these can be done by any car mechanic specializing in oldtimer cars, as they're dating back to 1950s designs. > Without the need for type certification, manufacturers can iterate on their designs more rapidly without going through the costly supplemental type certification process. They can include cheaper uncertified avionics. They can do over-the-air software updates. It's one thing to allow certified legitimate manufacturers faster iteration speeds in design. But allowing people to use uncertified avionics? That's just asking for incidents to happen, be it because sun glare causes a pilot to not recognize something critical, or because Android's OOM killer crashing at the wrong time. When even the big names such as Samsung can't be arsed to put something out that doesn't crash the UI twice a week, I don't want to see that stuff on a vital plane system. > If we can get LSAs into mass manufacturing, production costs of the airframe could go down further. For that, there would need to be a market for these. But as urbanization is happening rapidly across the world, I'd question that - who wants to drive hours out in the country, just for a few flight hours? Even with you Americans not being required to use actual airfields (unlike us Germans), you can't sustain a large GA market... that's the problem IMHO. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incide...

MilStdJunkie 3y ago

I'm gonna sound like a huge downer, but I actually like MOSAIC. Couple observations though: Overall thought: UAS BVR flight is now officially MORE regulated than light sport. Interesting. The aviation consumer doesn't "pay for safety". They pay for the experience of safety, because they can't possibly make informed decisions about almost anything they're buying. Can they look up the maintenance inspection history of their aircraft? Can they google the bio of their pilot? Of course not. It's why regulations exist, Ayn. We can't all be Russian Superwomen with completely perfect comprehension and knowledge of the world around us, and we don't want to be executed if we're not. The big, enormous, really huge contribution of distributed propulsion is not redundancy or noise but in lift assist. A fan in front of the airframe is not the optimal place to stick thrust for winged flight. You can do insane stuff putting thrust in weird places, and tiny little fans make that easy. § 22.180 is bananas without something like a SDER (software designated engineering rep) or SOMETHING to quantify what the FMU's electronic brain thinks is good control input. I guess that's part of the cert path. § 22.185 oh boy more government specs that send you to another spec you have to pay some rando third party to look at. YAAAAAAAAYYYYY