Comment by catchmeifyoucan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by catchmeifyoucan | Hacker News Reader

catchmeifyoucan

I got my PPL a while ago, and I'm super excited about this! Though, I'm mostly a renter, so I may not be of much support to purchase at $500,000.

This would be quite the upgrade from a 1980's Cessna.

I guess we'll have to wait for the new standards, but things like learning about the engine, stall recovery and crosswinds are a pretty major part of aviation training. Though the plane can do these things, I'm not sure how much training will be abstracted away (since it's a generic curriculum and we can fly most ASEL).

Few questions:

1. Does the flight controller have a back-up?

2. What does the override for controlling rudder and aileron look like. How about spin recovery or taxing with headwinds?

3. Would you sell your avionics set-up so I can retrofit and replace a Garmin System. I've always found Garmin's to be tricky and hard to read. Yours looks waay better

4. Love the Live ATC transcriptions

Best of luck! Hoping I get to fly one of these some day.

congrats on the PPL! we understand that 500k is a high price point for a lot of people (but still cheaper than a new SR20 and we have the same performance and better fuel economy), but our goal is to get to a scale where our 3rd model costs <$100k.

1. the flight controller is triply redundant, so it's basically 3 flight controllers and any 2 can fail and the system will still function (though with a greater risk posture as you now don't know if that 3rd one is giving correct information. There's also an emergency reversionary mode to fly the airplane directly without the flight controller in the loop

2. We don't think that a direct override is necessary or even recommended. We're relying on the fact that we have multiple sensors, flight computers, and servos to make sure that the probability of being wrong is < 1e-7. You can't force a spin in the system and the system will always leave enough buffer so that external factors can't initiate a spin. but if one happens, spin recovery is automatic.

3. We are exploring this possibility. If you are genuinely interested, fill out the contact form on our website and we'll talk.

4. Thanks! we are actively debating making this a standalone radio product for any airplane to replace an existing comm radio

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