6 ms·

Great ideas - all destined to wither and die on the vine of certification and regulatory approval. A certified Dynon autopilot for a Cessna 172 starts at $26k

Great ideas - all destined to wither and die on the vine of certification and regulatory approval. A certified Dynon autopilot for a Cessna 172 starts at $26k just for the components - you expect a similar amount for installation and then ongoing maintenance, calibration, and servicing. Designing and building the technology is the easy part - pushing that technology through testing and certification is the very hard (and very expensive) part. Even if certification is accomplished, all of the follow on risks of determining maintenance standards, component life cycle, and periodic inspection and replacement schedules has to be defined as well. Then a doped up former major league pitcher decides to hop in your plane and fly it into the ocean and everything you have done is called into question and you end up buried in lawsuits.

jay-barronville 2y ago
Have you considered that maybe Airhart and its founders have thought through those inevitable hurdles and decided to push forward anyway? Even if they don’t ultimately succeed, so what? This is how true innovation happens—someone decides to take a chance on an idea/concept everyone else thinks is impossible or unrealistic. There are innovators and then there are armchair critics who just tell the innovators all of the reasons why they’re going to fail.
- EncomLab 2y ago
  This "armchair critic" was an engineer at VisionAire Corp. in the late 90's and watched a truly innovative aircraft and company be consumed by the red tape and outright corporate protectionism of the regulatory bureaucracy. Not only have I considered it - I lived it. What relevant experience do you bring to this discussion?
  - jay-barronville 2y ago
    Good for you. Why didn’t you answer my question though? > Have you considered that maybe Airhart and its founders have thought through those inevitable hurdles and decided to push forward anyway? Do you genuinely think you’re the first person to tell them all of the reasons why they’re going to fail? Wouldn’t it be much more useful to try to understand, in good faith, why they’re pushing forward with this venture anyway despite all of the hurdles in their future?
    - EncomLab 2y ago
      Have you considered that a significant number of companies that are presented - in good faith - as revolutionary startups that will open aviation to the masses are just investment schemes? I understand that they are pushing forward with this venture and are actively seeking investments "despite the hurdles" - what is your play in this?
      - jay-barronville 2y ago
        > Have you considered that a significant number of companies that are presented - in good faith - as revolutionary startups that will open aviation to the masses are just investment schemes? So you’re suggesting that Airhart is just engaged in an investment scheme? Do you have any evidence to support that?
        EncomLab 2y ago
        Have you heard of occam's razor? Time will tell - in the meantime what you chose to believe and what I chose to believe are equally worthless opinions.
- Stevvo 2y ago
  Look at their staff; all engineers, nobody there who has ever got anything past the FAA.
  - jay-barronville 2y ago
    > Look at their staff; all engineers, nobody there who has ever got anything past the FAA. So what? When the Collison brothers founded Stripe, they (1) were young, (2) had no experience at all in the domain, (3) weren’t even U.S. citizens, (4) were entering a highly regulated space, and (5) were about to compete with some very powerful institutions that have existed forever worth billions and billions of dollars. In the eyes of folks who just look at all of the ways you can fail, they were extremely unattractive and Stripe’s fate was obvious failure. Today, most Americans can’t avoid using Stripe (both directly and indirectly) even if they tried. They’ve overcome all of those hurdles to the point of making it easy for the average engineer to build products without even having to think about the hurdles, dealing with regulators, etc. I vividly remember how awful the process of implementing payments was prior to Stripe (the process took a very long time)—they changed the game. Maybe Airhart fails or maybe they just manage to change the game.
    - EncomLab 2y ago
      Are you seriously comparing a payment processor to an airplane manufacturer? Are you aware that Stripe received VC funding from Musk, Thiel and Sequoia in order to keep it from competing with PayPal and to provide a second-source provider to protect PayPal from accusations of monopolization of online processing fees? Are you aware that the storyline you are promoting is in fact a specifically curated myth?
      - jay-barronville 2y ago
        > Are you seriously comparing a payment processor to an airplane manufacturer? Clearly, my comparison had more to do with the regulation aspect than actually comparing payments and airplanes. Did you read the comment I was responding to?
sansrealname 2y ago
Exactly. There's a reason an IFR GPS navigator costs upwards of $10K. It's incredibly expensive to make certified avionics. "(an aviation grade GPS can cost upwards of $10k, but it’s the same hardware as in a $20 consumer grade GPS)" No, it's absolutely not the same hardware as a consumer grade GPS. And this misses the entire point of why it costs so much.
baggachipz 2y ago
> Then a doped up former major league pitcher decides to hop in your plane and fly it into the ocean and everything you have done is called into question and you end up buried in lawsuits. Here's what I don't understand. If the same meathead pitcher gets in his Ferrari and drives it into a tree, nobody questions the car company or buries them in lawsuits. Driver crashes car, it's their fault. So wouldn't it stand to reason that aviation evolve into the 21st century by eliminating much of the red tape? Sure, cars are required to leverage new technology to enhance safety (e.g. mandating back-up cameras), and the same should apply to an aviation world which treats aircraft as they are: cars in three dimensions rather than two. All that red tape was necessary when flying was extremely dangerous with primitive technology. We now have the means, through continuous enhancement, to make a "safe enough" aircraft and offload some of the risk on the driver.
- EncomLab 2y ago
  You can't inject reason into a conversation that is largely defined by $$. GA is an incredibly tiny market - faa.gov has the current active non-student pilot population in the US as less than 500k. The survival of the companies that rely on that population is predicated on the tight regulatory environment - not in spite of it.
  - baggachipz 2y ago
    I'm sure you're right, but what if that population of people exploded due to a revamped system? Surely they'd benefit from a looser environment as well? I suppose it's a leap of faith they wouldn't be willing to take.
    - EncomLab 2y ago
      You know how fast drone legislation was passed? That's the power of the Commercial Aviation sector when it feels threatened. Now imagine how they would react if somehow an affordable aircraft that made flying "easy" hit the market. Icon came close...
- talldayo 2y ago

jay-barronville 2y ago

Have you considered that maybe Airhart and its founders have thought through those inevitable hurdles and decided to push forward anyway? Even if they don’t ultimately succeed, so what? This is how true innovation happens—someone decides to take a chance on an idea/concept everyone else thinks is impossible or unrealistic. There are innovators and then there are armchair critics who just tell the innovators all of the reasons why they’re going to fail.

EncomLab 2y ago
This "armchair critic" was an engineer at VisionAire Corp. in the late 90's and watched a truly innovative aircraft and company be consumed by the red tape and outright corporate protectionism of the regulatory bureaucracy. Not only have I considered it - I lived it. What relevant experience do you bring to this discussion?
- jay-barronville 2y ago
  Good for you. Why didn’t you answer my question though? > Have you considered that maybe Airhart and its founders have thought through those inevitable hurdles and decided to push forward anyway? Do you genuinely think you’re the first person to tell them all of the reasons why they’re going to fail? Wouldn’t it be much more useful to try to understand, in good faith, why they’re pushing forward with this venture anyway despite all of the hurdles in their future?
  - EncomLab 2y ago
    Have you considered that a significant number of companies that are presented - in good faith - as revolutionary startups that will open aviation to the masses are just investment schemes? I understand that they are pushing forward with this venture and are actively seeking investments "despite the hurdles" - what is your play in this?
    - jay-barronville 2y ago
      > Have you considered that a significant number of companies that are presented - in good faith - as revolutionary startups that will open aviation to the masses are just investment schemes? So you’re suggesting that Airhart is just engaged in an investment scheme? Do you have any evidence to support that?
      - EncomLab 2y ago
        Have you heard of occam's razor? Time will tell - in the meantime what you chose to believe and what I chose to believe are equally worthless opinions.
Stevvo 2y ago
Look at their staff; all engineers, nobody there who has ever got anything past the FAA.
- jay-barronville 2y ago
  > Look at their staff; all engineers, nobody there who has ever got anything past the FAA. So what? When the Collison brothers founded Stripe, they (1) were young, (2) had no experience at all in the domain, (3) weren’t even U.S. citizens, (4) were entering a highly regulated space, and (5) were about to compete with some very powerful institutions that have existed forever worth billions and billions of dollars. In the eyes of folks who just look at all of the ways you can fail, they were extremely unattractive and Stripe’s fate was obvious failure. Today, most Americans can’t avoid using Stripe (both directly and indirectly) even if they tried. They’ve overcome all of those hurdles to the point of making it easy for the average engineer to build products without even having to think about the hurdles, dealing with regulators, etc. I vividly remember how awful the process of implementing payments was prior to Stripe (the process took a very long time)—they changed the game. Maybe Airhart fails or maybe they just manage to change the game.
  - EncomLab 2y ago
    Are you seriously comparing a payment processor to an airplane manufacturer? Are you aware that Stripe received VC funding from Musk, Thiel and Sequoia in order to keep it from competing with PayPal and to provide a second-source provider to protect PayPal from accusations of monopolization of online processing fees? Are you aware that the storyline you are promoting is in fact a specifically curated myth?
    - jay-barronville 2y ago
      > Are you seriously comparing a payment processor to an airplane manufacturer? Clearly, my comparison had more to do with the regulation aspect than actually comparing payments and airplanes. Did you read the comment I was responding to?

sansrealname 2y ago

Exactly. There's a reason an IFR GPS navigator costs upwards of $10K. It's incredibly expensive to make certified avionics. "(an aviation grade GPS can cost upwards of $10k, but it’s the same hardware as in a $20 consumer grade GPS)" No, it's absolutely not the same hardware as a consumer grade GPS. And this misses the entire point of why it costs so much.

baggachipz 2y ago

> Then a doped up former major league pitcher decides to hop in your plane and fly it into the ocean and everything you have done is called into question and you end up buried in lawsuits. Here's what I don't understand. If the same meathead pitcher gets in his Ferrari and drives it into a tree, nobody questions the car company or buries them in lawsuits. Driver crashes car, it's their fault. So wouldn't it stand to reason that aviation evolve into the 21st century by eliminating much of the red tape? Sure, cars are required to leverage new technology to enhance safety (e.g. mandating back-up cameras), and the same should apply to an aviation world which treats aircraft as they are: cars in three dimensions rather than two. All that red tape was necessary when flying was extremely dangerous with primitive technology. We now have the means, through continuous enhancement, to make a "safe enough" aircraft and offload some of the risk on the driver.

EncomLab 2y ago
You can't inject reason into a conversation that is largely defined by $$. GA is an incredibly tiny market - faa.gov has the current active non-student pilot population in the US as less than 500k. The survival of the companies that rely on that population is predicated on the tight regulatory environment - not in spite of it.
- baggachipz 2y ago
  I'm sure you're right, but what if that population of people exploded due to a revamped system? Surely they'd benefit from a looser environment as well? I suppose it's a leap of faith they wouldn't be willing to take.
  - EncomLab 2y ago
    You know how fast drone legislation was passed? That's the power of the Commercial Aviation sector when it feels threatened. Now imagine how they would react if somehow an affordable aircraft that made flying "easy" hit the market. Icon came close...
talldayo 2y ago