Comment by _s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _s | Hacker News Reader

Sounds a lot like the Airbus's "normal law" flying!

My $0.02 - I'm a CPL ME/IR who gets wet a lot, and is upside down half the time. Background is Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, been in software since 2007.

Want to shake up GA?

  - 150kt Cruise, 4h endurance  
  - 400kg "useful" load for pax/luggage @ 4h endurance / batteries  
  - 3-axis AP that'll do coupled approaches + autoland  
  - BRS, FIKI, Oxy/Pressurized  
  - $100k fly away

The Cirrus SR20 is the closest we have to this, at 6-7x the cost. You can kit build a Sling or RV10, which will get you what you want at 3-4x the cost plus 2-3 years of time.

Garmin, Rotax, Vans etc ... the avionics, materials, plans and tech already exists. It's needing a few hundred million dollars to set it up to be produced at scale so the $100k avionics package can be had for $10k. The $100k equivalent Rotax or Lycoming can be had for $10k. Maybe it's electric vs avgas.

Foreflight, Garmin Pilot etc do so much of the planning - and integrate well with the "Connext" or Dynon etc already. They've like racked up millions of hours now, I know I've thrown in a few hundred hours worth of feedback to them.

Your closest competitor is Cirrus who are already very successful using off the shelf components customized (eg Perspective+ vs 1000Nxi) to their liking, and are running a pretty substantial wait list for their planes. Their training is top notch, customer service is excellent and have thousands of airframes now flying over the past 20+ years.

I'm glad you guys trying to shake up this space, and I'd like more than anything to be proven wrong - I genuinely hope there's enough runway and capital to setup manufacturing to bring these component prices down and actually deliver a plane at a comparable cost to a car.

> 150kt Cruise, 4h endurance - 400kg "useful" load for pax/luggage @ 4h endurance / batteries - 3-axis AP that'll do coupled approaches + autoland - BRS, FIKI, Oxy/Pressurized - $100k fly away

Totally agreed. Our long term roadmap has basically this exact product on it. However, anyone who doesn't know about GA will have no clue what this even means. We want more people to get into GA so that there's enough of a market that building such a plane becomes a sustainable business.

I don't think the GA market will ever grow that large though - not without substantial effort to make compliance with all the regulations effortless.

You need more pilots, so making it easier to navigate and comply with Parts 61/141/142, with 67/68.

You need more aerodromes; Part 139.

You need more aircraft, that's Parts 21, 23, 33, 35, 45 and maybe 34, 36 and 39 too.

You need more mechanics; Part 66 / 147.

You need more maintenance facilities, Part 21, 39, 43, 145.

There's maybe 50,000 active GA pilots (PPL or LSA) doing it for pleasure regularly? The rest are time building for the airlines, and same for mechanics.

To get that 50k to 500k to 5M actual people ... I think an affordable aircraft is probably the easiest part. Maybe it'll get people interested? Though you can already buy factory-built LSA's for $300k that'll do 150kts (see Risen); Europe already has a booming LSA scene ... but it hasn't really resulted in more people flying, not as far as I can tell.

I don't think an aircraft is the missing link, but I can't express how much I'd love to be proven wrong!

I haven’t done any piloting. If I could convert a 250 mile trip from a 5 hour drive to a 90 minute flight, I would take my family of 4 to many more places. I’d be willing to invest several months in the requisite training.

Currently I won’t do that at all because (1) way too dangerous, (2) way too expensive, (3) not obvious how to start.

Honestly, I’d love a subscription model for this. I’d pay an initial fee for training. Certify me when I’m safe. Then let me pay to get the airplane and fuel for a specific journey. Handle all the maintenance for me. Check my work on planning. Have a real expert available on integrated speed dial to talk me through anything complicated.

If this winds up being fun and fast, I’m willing to pay more for it. The specific trip I’m looking at would cost $800 to fly with a standard airline. I’d pay double that to self-fly. The premium gets me convenience (I control the exact departure time, less airport hassle) and adventure (flying!).

we should talk!

We are exploring how to make a subscription model work. It's not possible in an experimental category airplane, but our future models where they can be rented (legally due to FAA requirements) will make that possible.

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