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Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

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Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#161

Post by imoverclocked »

t0mas88 wrote: post #97
dotancohen wrote: post #63

> Flying a small airplane is complicated, mentally taxing, and dangerous—about 28x more dangerous than driving a car. > Our system makes it impossible to lose control of the airplane, potentially solving 80% of today’s fatal accidents in general aviation. So this system is still at least five times as dangerous as driving a car? Is that considered safe enough for you to take liability in case of an accident, as e.g.…

The general opinion in professional flying is that the pilot and operator (for something like Airhart the owner would be both I guess?) decision making has an immense impact on safety. You don't typically have a two sided crash where some other party is at fault like in a car. The vast majority of general aviation accidents happen because of bad deciding making. So it's much more in your control. While the stats may…

> You don't typically have a two sided crash where some other party is at fault like in a car

However, increasing the number of things in the air will likely shift that, at least a little bit. Things at uncontrolled fields can get busy with just a handful of aircraft in the pattern. Add a hot-head and the safety factor drops significantly.

> So it's much more in your control.

WX is never in your control. Just like anything in life, you can make all the right decisions and still die. It's just that aviation is less forgiving than the rest of our lives so (inevitable) mistakes matter more.

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#163

Post by mightyham »

namdnay wrote: post #94
n_ermosh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, airplanes are not great when it comes to their environmental impacts. If we are successful in our bet that we can grow the GA market, we'll have the resources to invest into greener propulsion technology. That space is currently evolving quickly, with hybrid-electric, hydrogen, full electric and others all being explored. So it's in our plans to address that as well.

So your plan to reduce aircraft pollution is to… have more aircraft in the sky? Come on…

Innovation doesn't come from nowhere, and demand for air travel is not going away. So if there is a small, personal, innovative platform that makes it easier to test new propulsion technology at scale (in contrast to large commercial airliners that are less innovative), it seems entirely possible that could help with aircraft pollution in the long run

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#164

Post by burkaman »

n_ermosh wrote: post #110
shafyy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't try to weasel your way out of this. Just be honest and say you like working on cool plane tech stuff and admit it's not great for the environment when more people will fly. No shame in that. Or maybe there is shame, but that's up to you.

maybe I wasn't clear but I completely agree that airplanes are not good for the environment. That absolutely needs to be fixed. But to fix it requires capital and public demand. We are hoping to generate both by getting more people flying so that it's not just a niche people who fly planes and care about the environment working asking for it and spending money in the industry

This is like saying that you know gas power plants are not good for the environment, so you're hoping to get gas generators into more homes to generate capital and demand to fix the problem.

If your company is successful enough for you to invest significant resources into "greener propulsion technology", what is going to happen to all the planes you already sold to get there? Are you going to send an email blast out to all your customers telling them to stop flying now because it's time to pivot to hydrogen planes?

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#165

Post by aeternum »

sethkim wrote: post #83

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. Everythi…

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.

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#166

Post by blantonl »

sethkim wrote: post #83

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. Everythi…

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.

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#167

Post by gwbas1c »

> A lot of people will likely wonder: “isn’t removing stick and rudder skills going to make worse pilots”? Short answer: no. The core of what makes a good pilot isn’t stick and rudder skills; it’s good decision making and risk management.

I find it's easiest to just ignore this mindset. These are the people who claim that a manual transmission is "real" driving. (Unlike the people who enjoy driving stick and aren't snobs about it.) The market will favor you and everyone else will see those people as snobs.

Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane

#169

Post by ToucanLoucan »

rglullis wrote: post #156
n_ermosh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing GA should also create a pipeline for commercial pilots which we desperately need. But let's be honest, flying commercial is a pretty poor experience. Getting to a major airport, getting through security, waiting to board, and then deplaning and waiting for bags at your destination adds hours to travel time. Door to door, I can get from LA to SF in the small plane faster than commercial even though I fly at ~1…

> We want our airplanes to be more efficient than cars, but to get there we need to first scale the market. Why is it that you think it's feasible to put all this effort to "scale the market", but getting to something like "building efficient passenger rail" or even "offer a comfortable, fast intercity bus" is out of your reach? The US doesn't "need" flying. It needs a more efficient way to move passengers. To sugges…

> Why is it that you think it's feasible to put all this effort to "scale the market", but getting to something like "building efficient passenger rail" or even "offer a comfortable, fast intercity bus" is out of your reach?

Because personal planes will get them the attention and support (and more importantly, money) of wealthy customers and investors, and building rail gets you none of that because you're just suggesting using known technology and resources to solve problems, and that's boooooooring.

Why solve the actual transportation needs of a populace that cannot move efficiently when you can build yet another stupid toy for the rich?

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