Kudos on not going with a Garmin for the software and glass cockpit. Super ballsy.
Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
171–180 of 632 posts
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#172> In the US, trips that are 50-300 miles are almost all done by car because that distance is too short for commercial airlines and too far for public transportation.
About once a month, I make a 90 mile (180 round trip) drive to see family. The drive is usually 90-100 minutes.
Would GA really save time? It's half an hour for me to get to a GA airport, and then roughly half an hour to get to my family from the other GA airport. And then, we'd need to arrange ground transportation.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#173> There’s a plethora of other problems that make flying cumbersome
How about CO2 emissions?
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#174So basically a GA Airbus. I think this is a pretty cool project, and while it may not achieve the lofty goals you’ve set forth, any improvement in safety is worthwhile. As other commenters have point out though, where this stuff falls short is ultimately still the human. Ok, great… your aircraft won’t stall in Normal Law. However you’ve now lost a generator and a whole FCC and you’re in direct law. The 400 hr pilot h…
Thanks! you're totally correct that emergencies are where the real issues lie. That's why we've built in multiple layers of fault tolerance so that a generator failure or a flight computer failure doesn't immediately revert you to a direct law control scheme (I'm assuming you're familiar with Airbus control laws given that you're using those phrases) On top of everything, small GA aircraft have the luxury of being to…
What are you trying that other companies have not tried? Ballistic parachutes are available on several aircraft.
If you load up on redundancy - well, electronics redundancy it seems, since the rest of the aircraft seems to be a Sling TSi - you increase cost and weight, decrease speed and useable load, and so on, and now your aircraft costs $800k-1m and $100-150/hr to operate. How many new clients that would not otherwise have gone into GA will you attract? Dual navigation is already commonly available. So what are you doing different that YC was interested in paying for?
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#175As you probably know, there is actually a lot of innovation already going on in the Experimental category. Fuel Injection, FADEC systems, advanced engine computers, terrain avoidance, synthetic vision, electronic trim, and so on. I built a Van's two-seater, and the technology I have up with me is night and day different from where we were 20 years ago, let alone 40. Are you going the experimental / kit build route, o…
We are starting in experimental, working with Sling Aircraft for the airframe, factory build assist, etc to prove out the exact product that we want to take to certification in the future.
Thanks for the reply. This is a super interesting project and I wish you great success. As a builder/pilot I have so many little questions, mostly around how you're making all the trade-offs and decisions that pilots make based on the situation in the air (leaning for cruise / power, climb and descent rates, weather-related decisions, switching tanks, and so on). Do you anticipate equipping / certifying the airplane and systems for instrument flight? Is your entire avionics package custom, or do you use some off-the-shelf?
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#176> In the US, trips that are 50-300 miles are almost all done by car because that distance is too short for commercial airlines and too far for public transportation. About once a month, I make a 90 mile (180 round trip) drive to see family. The drive is usually 90-100 minutes. Would GA really save time? It's half an hour for me to get to a GA airport, and then roughly half an hour to get to my family from the other G…
In your case, you do start to approach the point where time-wise it's about equal. But, 30 minutes to your nearest GA airport is on the long side, most people (300M) live within 15 minutes of one (don't have a direct source for that--it's based on analysis we did of locations of airports and population densities)
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#177Instrument-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…
Agreed! Learning how to fly alone is the easy part. The hard part is all the rest. Also, this is inconsistent: > large commercial airplane technology has developed to the point that the planes practically fly themselves > We think stick and rudder skills are definitely a necessity for airline pilots flying hundreds of people on board for the extremely rare cases where emergencies do happen and many people's lives are…
There is no inconsistency.
The first quote is meant to highlight that commercial planes have autopilot while e.g. Cessnas do not.
The second quote emphasizes the importance of training despite autopilot.
There is no inconsistency in pointing out that commercial planes have auto pilot while acknowledging that it would be nice for non-commercial planes to also have auto pilot even though training is important.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#178Instrument-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…
> It may sound snobby - but I'm not super excited about the idea of lowering the barrier to entry for GA on a foundational skill basis. Like the 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. I'm not a pilot, but I've always wanted to go down the path. In theory - this should be rather e…
we won't want to lower the bar in terms of the pilot's ability to stay safe. But we do want to lower the barrier to entry so that more people can learn to do it, do it safely, and enjoy all it's benefits.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#179> We want people who don’t think about airplanes as a mode of transportation to start flying It really depresses me that in 2024 we have some of the smartest, most privileged people in the world deciding that this is what they’re going to dedicate their life to Shouldn’t we be doing exactly the opposite? Getting people to stop flying
Seeing the Earth from a bird’s eye view is a historically speaking very recent privilege only a tiniest fraction of humanity was able to enjoy. If you want to get society-wide shifts of perspective about the Earth, you want more people to experience flight (and even spaceflight), not fewer.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#180Earlier 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
> airplanes are not good for the environment.
> to fix it requires capital and public demand.
In my engineering career, one thing I've learned is that if you fix problems B, C, and D, often it becomes a lot easier to fix orthogonal problem A, because the other fixes have made new things possible.
I see what you are doing as fixing a lot of problems with flying, so then more attention can go into making planes quieter and more energy efficient.
Perhaps yours is one of the steps to making planes as peaceful in the environment as birds[0].