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Comment by strangattractor | Hacker News Reader

Imagine a simple scenario. Take your $260,000 Helix to the grocery store to pickup groceries. While you are in the store a mother fighting with her kids accidentally damages your Helix backing up the car. Are you going to hop into that thing even with what might be considered minor damage? Probably not because you would not know how to evaluate whether it is safe.

A car. You'd just hop in to determine if it is drivable.

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Not just after an incident, but what sort of maintenance requirements and burden will there be now? Can there be an equivalent to the beater for flying cars?

Flying vehicles are fundamentally a different beast. They need to be light and are therefore more fragile. Also my car engine quitting while driving is not necessarily a life threatening situation. When you're a thousand feet above the ground just about any failure can be life threatening.

So no I wouldn't think flying a beater around is a good idea. People generally get away with flying unsafe planes now because they fly over unpopulated areas. They only kill themselves. Start flying over populated areas and you can wipe out a kids soccer game.

No, there cannot (at least not legally). Aircraft are subject to strict maintenance and inspection requirements based on both calendar time and operating hours, and a certified mechanic must sign-off on the completed work. Out in rural areas there are a few private pilots who fly poorly maintained "beater" light airplanes and get away with it because authorities never show up at the local grass strip but this is never going to be tolerated in urban areas.

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