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Instrument-rated pilot (and engineer) here. First - congrats on the launch! I think you're working on an interesting set of components that will prove useful t

Instrument-rated pilot (and engineer) here. First - congrats on the launch! I think you're working on an interesting set of components that will prove useful to GA aircraft technology. Bringing fly-by-wire, and lowering the cost of maintenance/manufacturing are both great efforts. That being said, my personal view is that stick-and-rudder control is one of the less critical components to improving GA safety. Everything else - flight planning, comms, automation, navigation, weather, inspections, procedures, regs, and most importantly - working in the federal airspace system - are the "hard" parts of flying and where problems tend to occur. It's common belief that single-pilot IFR is the most challenging type of flying, because of how much you have to do all at once. It may sound snobby - but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there. To be clear - I think improving technology and lowering costs = good. Lowering early-skill requirements for pilots and pushing more people without all the other skills into federal airspace = very bad. In general, I'd frame this effort more as an effort to raise the bar for system technology, not lower the bar to become a pilot in the first place.

j45 2y ago
Some fair points. What if this tech made the individual flyer safer? Obviously there’s the additional air traffic, but how much could be in the air at one time?
- sethkim 2y ago
  > What if this tech made the individual flyer safer? I'd hope that's the case! That's why I put it in the "good" category". > how much could be in the air at one time? Hard to say, but there's a ton of congestion around busy airspace as is. I'd think an order-of-magnitude increase in GA traffic would require a major rework of the whole airspace system.
n_ermosh 2y ago
thanks! Yes, it's that entire helmet-fire that makes flying hard and often dangerous. But what the accident data shows is that these kinds of problems that you mention occur, and then the pilot loses control of the plane. If we give them the ability to relax, think through their situation, and make a good decision because at least the airplane will continue to descend safely towards the runway, we make safer pilots.
- Onavo 2y ago
  I just want to say I love what you are doing, you are solving a problem close to my heart. This is the sort of hard tech company that YC (and SV) should invest more in, not silly SaaS and ChatGPT wrappers. That being said, after fly by wire, would you be interested in tackling the GA engine economics problem? They are closely linked. If you solve that, the TAM for your product expands massively, and your exit opportunities are no longer limited to just being acquihired by Garmin. https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-experiment-update/ https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-e... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34728405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34728405
  - n_ermosh 2y ago
    Yes, lowering all operating expenses by moving to more efficient engines and greener propulsion systems is on our roadmap as "the next problem"
    - nullindividual 2y ago
      Will those that purchase your highly polluting engine get a free on-the-house upgrade to this nebulous green future that likely won't happen? How are you planning to offset the enormous amount of pollution you want to create in the mean time? Are you purchasing carbon credits? Planting trees?
    - Onavo 2y ago
      Do you plan to increase your plane's range by the way? The current range is lower than most Skyhawks and DA-40s. Also you should offer radio altimeters and ring laser gyros as an upgrade.
moffkalast 2y ago
The current systems seem to be all designed around there only being minimal air traffic, as it was in the past. People talking one on one with ATC, everything being done on a plane by plane basis. Can that really continue to function if traffic increases a few orders of magnitude? I mean hell, imagine everyone having to ask the city car controller for permission to back their car out of their driveway, state their route and get for approval to drive all over the place without any regard for traffic and let the controller make sure there's nobody in your way.
- n_ermosh 2y ago
  In the 70s when a lot of this system was designed, the industry was selling 10x the number of GA planes it does today, so I imagine 10x more were flying as well. So we have the capability for an order of magnitude increase. We'll need more controllers, sure. But, you are totally right, we need to move away from voice based ATC to more digital systems that allow a management of more aircraft, and allow the GA aircraft to manage themselves through a "peer to peer" type ATC system, but like we have with our cars.
  - FabHK 2y ago
    > the industry was selling 10x the number of GA planes it does today, so I imagine 10x more were flying as well. I'm pretty sure most of these planes from the 1970s are still merrily flying around! The wikipedia article on the 1994 General Aviation Revitalization Act has a graph showing the astonishing drop in shipped aircraft (and the rise in unit cost!) since around 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...
    - n_ermosh 2y ago
      yep--we want to reverse that trend. And you are probably right, a lot of those 70s planes still fly today. hopefully we can replace them with better alternatives
- drpixie 2y ago
bambax 2y ago
Agreed! Learning how to fly alone is the easy part. The hard part is all the rest. Also, this is inconsistent: > large commercial airplane technology has developed to the point that the planes practically fly themselves > We think stick and rudder skills are definitely a necessity for airline pilots flying hundreds of people on board for the extremely rare cases where emergencies do happen and many people's lives are at risk So which is it? Do modern airplanes fly themselves or not? Pilots need to be able to fly. All pilots. Otherwise everyone's at risk. Some of the worst recent accidents happenend when under-trained (AF 447) or misinformed (737 MAX) pilots didn't have a clear mental picture of what the airplane was doing. It would seem this is solving for the wrong problem. And the whole paragraph about "sexyness", aluding to sports cars and iPhones, seems very wrong to me. What makes flying sexy is the nerdiness, the skills involved, not shiny control surfaces.
- bozhark 2y ago
  The airline design industry seriously needs some sexy He ain’t wrong there
  - calmbonsai 2y ago
    Take a look at older designs from the '60s and all the Experimental aircraft. It's not that the industry doesn't know or can't do "sexy" (e.g. Cirrus custom leather and carbon fiber interiors and paint colors such Mykonos Blue), but that anything related to the airframe, avionics, or powerplant MUST be FAA certified so that exponentially (I'm not kidding) adds to its cost and time-to-market. With such high fixed costs and high liability, manufacturers are forced be very conservative to earn very slim margins.
- bigyikes 2y ago
  There is no inconsistency. The first quote is meant to highlight that commercial planes have autopilot while e.g. Cessnas do not. The second quote emphasizes the importance of training despite autopilot. There is no inconsistency in pointing out that commercial planes have auto pilot while acknowledging that it would be nice for non-commercial planes to also have auto pilot even though training is important.
windexh8er 2y ago
> It may sound snobby - but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there. I'm not a pilot, but I've always wanted to go down the path. In theory - this should be rather exciting to a person like myself so as to lower the barrier to entry and allow me to just start. In fact I don't really like the idea of this and my first thought was: "this seems like the plane that other pilots hate" simply because of a lowered barrier to entry and new breed of "lazy" pilots. I could be 100% wrong. The thing that turns me off from this is that when I do chart the path I want to learn and be able to do - the traditional way. And in fact I don't want to rely on software or inconsistent controls vs the norm. I'm all for the idea of making the cockpit easier to navigate and have situational awareness, but I'm not a fan of abstractions as much as I used to be. So as a non-pilot who aspires to become one in the next decade I agree with the parent comment in that I do really hope the goal is not to lower the bar to become a pilot.
- n_ermosh 2y ago
  we won't want to lower the bar in terms of the pilot's ability to stay safe. But we do want to lower the barrier to entry so that more people can learn to do it, do it safely, and enjoy all it's benefits.
  - AdrianB1 2y ago
    The barrier to entry is not learning how to fly. That is the easiest thing for most people.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      One of the biggest barriers at this point is probably getting a medical. There are tons of perverse incentives there - getting one if you've ever been prescribed mental health meds, for instance, can be at best a ton of red tape.
aeternum 2y ago
Excellent points, it's really these other aspects that get pilots into trouble. For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff performance. I think you could save more general aviation lives with a fairly minimal system. A gas gauge sensor that calculates whether you have enough fuel to get to your destination + reserve. Avionics where you input your personal minimums like crosswinds and weather and it warns you if you're about to accept a landing or flight-plan that violates those. Encode that data and send it to ATC via transponder so valuable comm bandwidth is not lost asking for fuel status when emergencies occur. A gear down warning. It's ridiculous that we still have so many belly landings and consider it a "good" to rely on training and human memory to prevent them. How much cheaper would complex airplanes be if we didn't have the crazy insurance rates due to this? Angle-of-attack and spin warnings. It's ridiculous that even $1mil+ Cirrus planes can't detect when you're too slow in a base to final turn and sound a warning before you spin. We have the technology, it's foolish to depend on a decades old stall horn! A system that parses all the hundreds of notams and filters out the important ones.
- iamtheworstdev 2y ago
  > For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff performance. We're taught that so we know what we're doing. Then we open our iPhone app (EFB or electronic flightbag) and do it there. In fact, part of the reason we do it there is because most of them phone home to their maker and log that we did it. So if there's an accident people can know "well they did their W&B" > the rest of the things Regulations have made aviation so expensive that it's ridiculous. A lot of airplanes flying today are flying with their same avionics from 60 years ago because upgrading is expensive. To get the gas calculation you mention would require a certified GPS (on the low end from Garmin that's $6,000) and an engine monitor ($5,500 from Garmin), plus installation costs of another few thousand dollars. Most planes have a gear down warning (ie, 3 indicator lights) but their original "bitching betty" is hard to hear because we now wear ear protection when we fly and have noise cancelling headphones. You probably can't even integrate that with a new Garmin system because they've gone full encrypted CANBUS to lock out integrations. re: spin warnings - not sure what to tell you there. Stall speed is based on weight and configuration (flaps) and 99% of GA planes have no idea what they weigh or if their flaps are deployed. But again, it's not that we can't do those things, it's just that they're completely cost prohibitive. Getting anything certified today is a flippin' nightmare and at too high of a cost to ever break even.
blantonl 2y ago
light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there. LSA pilot here. I'm curious to know what skills or experience I haven't gained which allow me to be in the airspace system? I passed the exact same checkride a private pilot would, minus flying at night and VORs. I also have class B,C,D airspace endorsements, and I fly in the DFW Bravo all the time.
- sethkim 2y ago
  I figured this comment would get me in trouble :) I recommend doing some instrument lessons if you haven't already. When I got my instrument rating I questioned whether the private requirements are actually enough. The skills that the instrument rating teaches in terms of preparation, workload management, and emergency weather scenarios make me question whether I was really ready to fly before I had it. With the private or sport license you'll be fine in the majority of cases. I think my comment comes more from the edge and corner cases that more skills and experience help with, not your ability to work in the system at all.
  - wezdog1 2y ago
    ATPL here, couldn't agree more with both of your comments. It's not to say recreational/LS pilots are necessarily inexperienced or hazardous but the odds are certainly higher than someone trained to an IFR standard. Like you said, raising the systems standards and improving affordability is fantastic. Lowering the barrier to entry in the complex world of aviation would require fundamental changes on so many levels I don't see this project completely achieving it but good luck to them, I think theres more to gain than lose.
  - blantonl 2y ago
    There is a decent argument to be made that LSA pilots are kept to a safer regime. I only fly in excellent weather and during the day, which eliminates a large majority of the risk profile in aviation. The LSA that I fly, while not IFR certified, has an autopilot, ADSB in, 2 radios, and a Garmin 430 which can be slaved to the autopilot. The plane will essentially VNAV fly itself to the numbers if I load the approach. For all intents and purposes, LSA pilots really only fly in 10SM vis and excellent weather. Nothing less. A lot of people look at the 20 hour minimum training for LSA pilots and scoff at that, but I've never met a LSA pilot that didn't follow the exact same training trajectory as a PPL. It took me about 65 hours to get my ticket, and I trained out of the 6th busiest airport in Texas which is nestled under DFW's Bravo.
randomnumber314 2y ago
I live in a suburb near a county airport. I cannot fathom a life with Tesla owners flying over where my kids and I bbq. This idea is great, but people should still be licensed for the real safety protocols e.g. radio and not crashing into others.
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  A CIWS maybe be the next standard feature on premium grills, ammo not included.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    A CIWS probably doesn’t have enough stopping power for a GA aircraft so the burning wreckage will still crash into you. Need to go full AA gun, 12 DD stamps included with your purchase.
    - edm0nd 2y ago
      A DShK mounted in the bed of a Toyota truck and call it a day.
      - gorlilla 2y ago
        That sounds rather technical.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  I cannot fathom a life with Tesla owners flying over where my kids and I bbq. The same kinds of people who speed, watch videos, and do dangerous stunts while they drive are going to speed, watch videos, and do dangerous stunts while they fly. Uber made everyone an amateur taxi driver. AirBnb made everyone an amateur innkeeper. Now the "tech" industry wants to make everyone an amateur pilot? No thanks.
  - apantel 2y ago
    The better of the amateurs are as good as professionals. I’ve been very well-taken care of in AirBnb’s, and I’ve been driven around well in Ubers.
clamstar 2y ago
Whilst I entirely agree with your overearching argument here, perhaps you are being a little bit snobby when it comes to SPLs. Can you please be more specific with regards to the necessary skills that sport pilots haven't gained that you believe makes them a liability in the skies? Lets be real: plenty of VFR private pilots are threats in the air & garbage on the radio - especially at untowered fields. You should be judging pilots on an individual basis, rather than broadly assuming a lack of knowledge based on their certificate type, given that the syallabus (61.105 & 61.309 + 61.325) is more-or-less identical. edit 2 min later: I see your response to another user now.
Aeolun 2y ago
I find it really hard to understand how we have solved this problem on the ground (e.g. roads), when in the sky we have nearly 100x more space (assuming 100m altitude bands), but we manage to have so many issues.
- rtpg 2y ago
  There's a lot less space when you consider how many airstrips there are in the world. Imagine if everyone on the highway in a city had to get on and off on the same exit ramp.
- oblio 2y ago
  We haven't solved this on the ground. We just accept that 1 million people die in car crashes each year and something like 10 million sustain serious injuries that leave them scarred for life. Also many that die and are injured are NOT the culprits, they're just innocent bystanders. We also destroy property constantly with cars and suffer from horrible congestion everywhere.
serial_dev 2y ago
> but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there By that logic, shouldn't we make driving cars as dangerous, complicated, inaccesible, and confusing as possible?
- kbar13 2y ago
  its pretty easy to drive a car. press pedal car go vroom turn wheel car go right not the same for flying a plane
  - Dyac 2y ago
    But presumably you're talking about a modern automatic car? What about a manual car, where you need more understanding of the mechanics, and will stall or roll back on a hill if you don't? Or a manual car without synchromesh, where you have to double de-clutch to match the input and output shaft RPMs? Or a car without antilock brakes? Or without tire pressure sensors? Or automatic headlights? Or automatic wipers? Or lane assist? Or auto braking? Or cruise control? Or indicator blinkers that auto cancel? Or auto dimming headlights? Or warning messages that tell you about everything from seat belts to service warnings or blown bulbs? All these are driver safety and convenience innovations that people take for granted so it is as simple as "press pedal car go vroom"... Also, think about drones and model planes. With computer aided support they now have full autopilot, return to base, auto land etc. and can be operated by a kid! Why can't some of these types of support, safety and convenience make it over to light aircraft?
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Most of the time none of those are doing anything. Shifting a manual is a minority of time, non-synchromesh makes shifting harder but it doesn't add much time. Most of the time when you stop the anti-lock brakes don't kick in and so again you lose nothing. TMPS makes your care safer if you have a lot tire - but tires these days are good enough that they rarely go flat. Same with the others - they are rarely used - not useless but only small factors taken all together - I've driven without each from time to time.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there The entire history of aviation has shown that increasing redundancy and reducing pilot load increases safety.
1oooqooq 2y ago
as someone trained in usability design, it was a nightmare learning to use those maps and learning the minefield thats is to talk to a tower about approach and such. indeed you are extremely correct. i never broke a sweat with stick and rudder (i did read THE book before classes!) even on first touch and go landings! but everything else that involved towers, weather, other planes, radio, and those damn maps! so much room for improvement just ignored for the past 30 years with everyone blind digital technology. Heck a freaking lame gps with waypoints is lauded as the greates invention in avionics in the last half century!
- wkat4242 2y ago
  For me it was the opposite. Learning the stick & rudder stuff was much harder for me. All the VOR navigation and patterns not so much. Probably because I've been using flightsims since I was very young and knew what it was all about, all the while learning bad flying habits (chasing the instruments etc) :P
Wurdan 2y ago
Out of curiosity, do you think those things are intrinsically hard, or is there a mutual escalation at play in some of these? Like I can imagine inspections are as hard as they are because you need to be prepared if weather becomes difficult to manage (for example). And then I imagine comms is hard/demanding because you can't assume that planning and inspections were done correctly. Etc. I do wonder if reducing human error in some parts of this challenge stack would make it possible to lighten some of the other imposed burdens.

j45 2y ago

Some fair points. What if this tech made the individual flyer safer? Obviously there’s the additional air traffic, but how much could be in the air at one time?

sethkim 2y ago
> What if this tech made the individual flyer safer? I'd hope that's the case! That's why I put it in the "good" category". > how much could be in the air at one time? Hard to say, but there's a ton of congestion around busy airspace as is. I'd think an order-of-magnitude increase in GA traffic would require a major rework of the whole airspace system.

n_ermosh 2y ago

thanks! Yes, it's that entire helmet-fire that makes flying hard and often dangerous. But what the accident data shows is that these kinds of problems that you mention occur, and then the pilot loses control of the plane. If we give them the ability to relax, think through their situation, and make a good decision because at least the airplane will continue to descend safely towards the runway, we make safer pilots.

Onavo 2y ago
I just want to say I love what you are doing, you are solving a problem close to my heart. This is the sort of hard tech company that YC (and SV) should invest more in, not silly SaaS and ChatGPT wrappers. That being said, after fly by wire, would you be interested in tackling the GA engine economics problem? They are closely linked. If you solve that, the TAM for your product expands massively, and your exit opportunities are no longer limited to just being acquihired by Garmin. https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-experiment-update/ https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-cessna-172-e... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34728405 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34728405
- n_ermosh 2y ago
  Yes, lowering all operating expenses by moving to more efficient engines and greener propulsion systems is on our roadmap as "the next problem"
  - nullindividual 2y ago
    Will those that purchase your highly polluting engine get a free on-the-house upgrade to this nebulous green future that likely won't happen? How are you planning to offset the enormous amount of pollution you want to create in the mean time? Are you purchasing carbon credits? Planting trees?
  - Onavo 2y ago
    Do you plan to increase your plane's range by the way? The current range is lower than most Skyhawks and DA-40s. Also you should offer radio altimeters and ring laser gyros as an upgrade.

moffkalast 2y ago

The current systems seem to be all designed around there only being minimal air traffic, as it was in the past. People talking one on one with ATC, everything being done on a plane by plane basis. Can that really continue to function if traffic increases a few orders of magnitude? I mean hell, imagine everyone having to ask the city car controller for permission to back their car out of their driveway, state their route and get for approval to drive all over the place without any regard for traffic and let the controller make sure there's nobody in your way.

n_ermosh 2y ago
In the 70s when a lot of this system was designed, the industry was selling 10x the number of GA planes it does today, so I imagine 10x more were flying as well. So we have the capability for an order of magnitude increase. We'll need more controllers, sure. But, you are totally right, we need to move away from voice based ATC to more digital systems that allow a management of more aircraft, and allow the GA aircraft to manage themselves through a "peer to peer" type ATC system, but like we have with our cars.
- FabHK 2y ago
  > the industry was selling 10x the number of GA planes it does today, so I imagine 10x more were flying as well. I'm pretty sure most of these planes from the 1970s are still merrily flying around! The wikipedia article on the 1994 General Aviation Revitalization Act has a graph showing the astonishing drop in shipped aircraft (and the rise in unit cost!) since around 1980: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalizatio...
  - n_ermosh 2y ago
    yep--we want to reverse that trend. And you are probably right, a lot of those 70s planes still fly today. hopefully we can replace them with better alternatives
drpixie 2y ago

bambax 2y ago

Agreed! Learning how to fly alone is the easy part. The hard part is all the rest. Also, this is inconsistent: > large commercial airplane technology has developed to the point that the planes practically fly themselves > We think stick and rudder skills are definitely a necessity for airline pilots flying hundreds of people on board for the extremely rare cases where emergencies do happen and many people's lives are at risk So which is it? Do modern airplanes fly themselves or not? Pilots need to be able to fly. All pilots. Otherwise everyone's at risk. Some of the worst recent accidents happenend when under-trained (AF 447) or misinformed (737 MAX) pilots didn't have a clear mental picture of what the airplane was doing. It would seem this is solving for the wrong problem. And the whole paragraph about "sexyness", aluding to sports cars and iPhones, seems very wrong to me. What makes flying sexy is the nerdiness, the skills involved, not shiny control surfaces.

bozhark 2y ago
The airline design industry seriously needs some sexy He ain’t wrong there
- calmbonsai 2y ago
  Take a look at older designs from the '60s and all the Experimental aircraft. It's not that the industry doesn't know or can't do "sexy" (e.g. Cirrus custom leather and carbon fiber interiors and paint colors such Mykonos Blue), but that anything related to the airframe, avionics, or powerplant MUST be FAA certified so that exponentially (I'm not kidding) adds to its cost and time-to-market. With such high fixed costs and high liability, manufacturers are forced be very conservative to earn very slim margins.
bigyikes 2y ago
There is no inconsistency. The first quote is meant to highlight that commercial planes have autopilot while e.g. Cessnas do not. The second quote emphasizes the importance of training despite autopilot. There is no inconsistency in pointing out that commercial planes have auto pilot while acknowledging that it would be nice for non-commercial planes to also have auto pilot even though training is important.

windexh8er 2y ago

> It may sound snobby - but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there. I'm not a pilot, but I've always wanted to go down the path. In theory - this should be rather exciting to a person like myself so as to lower the barrier to entry and allow me to just start. In fact I don't really like the idea of this and my first thought was: "this seems like the plane that other pilots hate" simply because of a lowered barrier to entry and new breed of "lazy" pilots. I could be 100% wrong. The thing that turns me off from this is that when I do chart the path I want to learn and be able to do - the traditional way. And in fact I don't want to rely on software or inconsistent controls vs the norm. I'm all for the idea of making the cockpit easier to navigate and have situational awareness, but I'm not a fan of abstractions as much as I used to be. So as a non-pilot who aspires to become one in the next decade I agree with the parent comment in that I do really hope the goal is not to lower the bar to become a pilot.

n_ermosh 2y ago
we won't want to lower the bar in terms of the pilot's ability to stay safe. But we do want to lower the barrier to entry so that more people can learn to do it, do it safely, and enjoy all it's benefits.
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  The barrier to entry is not learning how to fly. That is the easiest thing for most people.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    One of the biggest barriers at this point is probably getting a medical. There are tons of perverse incentives there - getting one if you've ever been prescribed mental health meds, for instance, can be at best a ton of red tape.

aeternum 2y ago

Excellent points, it's really these other aspects that get pilots into trouble. For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff performance. I think you could save more general aviation lives with a fairly minimal system. A gas gauge sensor that calculates whether you have enough fuel to get to your destination + reserve. Avionics where you input your personal minimums like crosswinds and weather and it warns you if you're about to accept a landing or flight-plan that violates those. Encode that data and send it to ATC via transponder so valuable comm bandwidth is not lost asking for fuel status when emergencies occur. A gear down warning. It's ridiculous that we still have so many belly landings and consider it a "good" to rely on training and human memory to prevent them. How much cheaper would complex airplanes be if we didn't have the crazy insurance rates due to this? Angle-of-attack and spin warnings. It's ridiculous that even $1mil+ Cirrus planes can't detect when you're too slow in a base to final turn and sound a warning before you spin. We have the technology, it's foolish to depend on a decades old stall horn! A system that parses all the hundreds of notams and filters out the important ones.

iamtheworstdev 2y ago
> For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff performance. We're taught that so we know what we're doing. Then we open our iPhone app (EFB or electronic flightbag) and do it there. In fact, part of the reason we do it there is because most of them phone home to their maker and log that we did it. So if there's an accident people can know "well they did their W&B" > the rest of the things Regulations have made aviation so expensive that it's ridiculous. A lot of airplanes flying today are flying with their same avionics from 60 years ago because upgrading is expensive. To get the gas calculation you mention would require a certified GPS (on the low end from Garmin that's $6,000) and an engine monitor ($5,500 from Garmin), plus installation costs of another few thousand dollars. Most planes have a gear down warning (ie, 3 indicator lights) but their original "bitching betty" is hard to hear because we now wear ear protection when we fly and have noise cancelling headphones. You probably can't even integrate that with a new Garmin system because they've gone full encrypted CANBUS to lock out integrations. re: spin warnings - not sure what to tell you there. Stall speed is based on weight and configuration (flaps) and 99% of GA planes have no idea what they weigh or if their flaps are deployed. But again, it's not that we can't do those things, it's just that they're completely cost prohibitive. Getting anything certified today is a flippin' nightmare and at too high of a cost to ever break even.

blantonl 2y ago

light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there. LSA pilot here. I'm curious to know what skills or experience I haven't gained which allow me to be in the airspace system? I passed the exact same checkride a private pilot would, minus flying at night and VORs. I also have class B,C,D airspace endorsements, and I fly in the DFW Bravo all the time.

sethkim 2y ago
I figured this comment would get me in trouble :) I recommend doing some instrument lessons if you haven't already. When I got my instrument rating I questioned whether the private requirements are actually enough. The skills that the instrument rating teaches in terms of preparation, workload management, and emergency weather scenarios make me question whether I was really ready to fly before I had it. With the private or sport license you'll be fine in the majority of cases. I think my comment comes more from the edge and corner cases that more skills and experience help with, not your ability to work in the system at all.
- wezdog1 2y ago
  ATPL here, couldn't agree more with both of your comments. It's not to say recreational/LS pilots are necessarily inexperienced or hazardous but the odds are certainly higher than someone trained to an IFR standard. Like you said, raising the systems standards and improving affordability is fantastic. Lowering the barrier to entry in the complex world of aviation would require fundamental changes on so many levels I don't see this project completely achieving it but good luck to them, I think theres more to gain than lose.
- blantonl 2y ago
  There is a decent argument to be made that LSA pilots are kept to a safer regime. I only fly in excellent weather and during the day, which eliminates a large majority of the risk profile in aviation. The LSA that I fly, while not IFR certified, has an autopilot, ADSB in, 2 radios, and a Garmin 430 which can be slaved to the autopilot. The plane will essentially VNAV fly itself to the numbers if I load the approach. For all intents and purposes, LSA pilots really only fly in 10SM vis and excellent weather. Nothing less. A lot of people look at the 20 hour minimum training for LSA pilots and scoff at that, but I've never met a LSA pilot that didn't follow the exact same training trajectory as a PPL. It took me about 65 hours to get my ticket, and I trained out of the 6th busiest airport in Texas which is nestled under DFW's Bravo.

randomnumber314 2y ago

I live in a suburb near a county airport. I cannot fathom a life with Tesla owners flying over where my kids and I bbq. This idea is great, but people should still be licensed for the real safety protocols e.g. radio and not crashing into others.

AdrianB1 2y ago
A CIWS maybe be the next standard feature on premium grills, ammo not included.
- throwup238 2y ago
  A CIWS probably doesn’t have enough stopping power for a GA aircraft so the burning wreckage will still crash into you. Need to go full AA gun, 12 DD stamps included with your purchase.
  - edm0nd 2y ago
    A DShK mounted in the bed of a Toyota truck and call it a day.
    - gorlilla 2y ago
      That sounds rather technical.
reaperducer 2y ago
I cannot fathom a life with Tesla owners flying over where my kids and I bbq. The same kinds of people who speed, watch videos, and do dangerous stunts while they drive are going to speed, watch videos, and do dangerous stunts while they fly. Uber made everyone an amateur taxi driver. AirBnb made everyone an amateur innkeeper. Now the "tech" industry wants to make everyone an amateur pilot? No thanks.
- apantel 2y ago
  The better of the amateurs are as good as professionals. I’ve been very well-taken care of in AirBnb’s, and I’ve been driven around well in Ubers.

clamstar 2y ago

Whilst I entirely agree with your overearching argument here, perhaps you are being a little bit snobby when it comes to SPLs. Can you please be more specific with regards to the necessary skills that sport pilots haven't gained that you believe makes them a liability in the skies? Lets be real: plenty of VFR private pilots are threats in the air & garbage on the radio - especially at untowered fields. You should be judging pilots on an individual basis, rather than broadly assuming a lack of knowledge based on their certificate type, given that the syallabus (61.105 & 61.309 + 61.325) is more-or-less identical. edit 2 min later: I see your response to another user now.

Aeolun 2y ago

I find it really hard to understand how we have solved this problem on the ground (e.g. roads), when in the sky we have nearly 100x more space (assuming 100m altitude bands), but we manage to have so many issues.

rtpg 2y ago
There's a lot less space when you consider how many airstrips there are in the world. Imagine if everyone on the highway in a city had to get on and off on the same exit ramp.
oblio 2y ago
We haven't solved this on the ground. We just accept that 1 million people die in car crashes each year and something like 10 million sustain serious injuries that leave them scarred for life. Also many that die and are injured are NOT the culprits, they're just innocent bystanders. We also destroy property constantly with cars and suffer from horrible congestion everywhere.

serial_dev 2y ago

> but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there By that logic, shouldn't we make driving cars as dangerous, complicated, inaccesible, and confusing as possible?

kbar13 2y ago
its pretty easy to drive a car. press pedal car go vroom turn wheel car go right not the same for flying a plane
- Dyac 2y ago
  But presumably you're talking about a modern automatic car? What about a manual car, where you need more understanding of the mechanics, and will stall or roll back on a hill if you don't? Or a manual car without synchromesh, where you have to double de-clutch to match the input and output shaft RPMs? Or a car without antilock brakes? Or without tire pressure sensors? Or automatic headlights? Or automatic wipers? Or lane assist? Or auto braking? Or cruise control? Or indicator blinkers that auto cancel? Or auto dimming headlights? Or warning messages that tell you about everything from seat belts to service warnings or blown bulbs? All these are driver safety and convenience innovations that people take for granted so it is as simple as "press pedal car go vroom"... Also, think about drones and model planes. With computer aided support they now have full autopilot, return to base, auto land etc. and can be operated by a kid! Why can't some of these types of support, safety and convenience make it over to light aircraft?
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Most of the time none of those are doing anything. Shifting a manual is a minority of time, non-synchromesh makes shifting harder but it doesn't add much time. Most of the time when you stop the anti-lock brakes don't kick in and so again you lose nothing. TMPS makes your care safer if you have a lot tire - but tires these days are good enough that they rarely go flat. Same with the others - they are rarely used - not useless but only small factors taken all together - I've driven without each from time to time.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the light-sport rating, it encourages more people to be in the (already congested) airspace system who haven't really gained all the other skills necessary or experience to be there The entire history of aviation has shown that increasing redundancy and reducing pilot load increases safety.

1oooqooq 2y ago

as someone trained in usability design, it was a nightmare learning to use those maps and learning the minefield thats is to talk to a tower about approach and such. indeed you are extremely correct. i never broke a sweat with stick and rudder (i did read THE book before classes!) even on first touch and go landings! but everything else that involved towers, weather, other planes, radio, and those damn maps! so much room for improvement just ignored for the past 30 years with everyone blind digital technology. Heck a freaking lame gps with waypoints is lauded as the greates invention in avionics in the last half century!

wkat4242 2y ago
For me it was the opposite. Learning the stick & rudder stuff was much harder for me. All the VOR navigation and patterns not so much. Probably because I've been using flightsims since I was very young and knew what it was all about, all the while learning bad flying habits (chasing the instruments etc) :P

Wurdan 2y ago

Out of curiosity, do you think those things are intrinsically hard, or is there a mutual escalation at play in some of these? Like I can imagine inspections are as hard as they are because you need to be prepared if weather becomes difficult to manage (for example). And then I imagine comms is hard/demanding because you can't assume that planning and inspections were done correctly. Etc. I do wonder if reducing human error in some parts of this challenge stack would make it possible to lighten some of the other imposed burdens.