flying is worse for the environment, as few people should fly as possible, not more
Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
451–460 of 632 posts
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
I take it from your attitude that you don't drive, fly commercially, buy resource-intensive consumer goods, use electricity produced from nonrenewable sources, or eat food produced from large-scale agriculture then, and agree we should make those so expensive for the average consumer that it's uneconomical to do these bad things at all? Because otherwise your comment sounds more like hypocrisy.
Perfect is the enemy of good. I fly on rare occasions and I'm against flying unnecessarily. I drive a vehicle (shared with partner) because I don't want to be a hermit, yet I'm against driving in general (of course there'll need to be exceptions for when you're moving or too old to walk to/from public transport) and rather in favor of building out the more sustainable alternatives we have already today. That's not th…
Perfect is indeed the enemy of the good. So we should realize that not everyone values the same things and not single out something as deserving extinguishing just because it's something we personally don't value.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you get seven times? Takeoff constitutes a negligible part of the total fuel consumption. Climb to altitude uses more, but you get that back when landing since you're then using your stored potential energy. Small-aircraft GA is a vanishingly small fraction of total fossil fuel use, and it will be quite easy to replace that with some renewable fuel solution (compared with the huge amounts of fuel consumed by t…
> Small-aircraft GA is a vanishingly small fraction of total fossil fuel use OP wrote: "We want people who don’t think about airplanes as a mode of transportation to start flying" They're meaning for this to become a larger fraction, besides that the relevant measure is pollution per benefit or per capita or something rather than absolute amount of pollution
So you're concluding that there is no benefit to general aviation because, presumably, you don't fly?
I think we should absolutely keep airplanes as a mode of transportation, because the alternative is that all small airports go away and then it won't matter when renewable fuels become a reality because there will be no longer be anywhere to land and take off. Those airports would not come back.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#454I was shocked when learning to fly how much GA tech was stuck in some weird pre-World War II era state. Everything seems so needlessly complicated. Even small aircraft cost so much that I couldn’t imagine a computer controlled system and fly by wire would be cost prohibitive. Even a new C172 is close to $400k at the low end, and anything you’d actually want to fly is much more. A few grand in electronics seems worth…
> I was shocked when learning to fly how much GA tech was stuck in some weird pre-World War II era state.
This is accurate. Between regulations and insurability, pilots have the choice of newer, less expensive, and more innovative experimental aircraft that are expensive to insure, or FAA-approved aircraft that were not even state of the art in 1952. It's so bad that most people are flying refurbished 1970s model planes because the new ones are identical except for the electronics and upholstery.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but there are shockingly few companies that build planes. Because the ones who try go bankrupt twice before they manage to certify their planes? If ever.
Or because of mergers and acquisitions like every other industry.
Not really. Many companies simply can't stay on the field for 20-odd years to get an airframe approved.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#456Great ideas - all destined to wither and die on the vine of certification and regulatory approval. A certified Dynon autopilot for a Cessna 172 starts at $26k just for the components - you expect a similar amount for installation and then ongoing maintenance, calibration, and servicing.
Designing and building the technology is the easy part - pushing that technology through testing and certification is the very hard (and very expensive) part. Even if certification is accomplished, all of the follow on risks of determining maintenance standards, component life cycle, and periodic inspection and replacement schedules has to be defined as well.
Then a doped up former major league pitcher decides to hop in your plane and fly it into the ocean and everything you have done is called into question and you end up buried in lawsuits.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever heard about helicopters? There are hospitals that have them. Why do we need _personal_ airplanes for this to happen? Why you think doctors will have money or space for their own airplane when they have no helicopters yet? In this scenario of yours where would this doctor have their "airplane" at home? In a airfield?
No, he would have a car of his own. That he can drive himself to the hospital. I'm not sure why you jumped to helicopters.
If he can drive and that’s not an emergency why wouldn’t take the train ? Less stress and more safe if he’s impaired.
For an emergency I would suggest a professional-driven ambulance with flashing light, or an helicopter if it’s remote if your wallet or country medicare afford it.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#458It's insane the length we go as humans (in the US at least) to not invest in the easiest, most cost-effective and environmentally friendly mode of transportation: trains. Hyperloops, wider and wider highways, now personal airplanes. Anything but goddamn trains. It's mental to me. Wish the best to the startup, after all they are filling a void someone else would, but still, not happy with the direction transport is go…
The downfall of trains is that they require track, which require rights of way. Trains are cost-effective if a lot of people make the same trip, and that's after a massive investment cost.
No one in their right mind would fly their small airplane between two cities that were connected by high-speed rail. But if you're going from somewhere small to somewhere else small, trains will never be a cost-effective (or efficient) mode of transportation.
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#459Instrument-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…
as someone trained in usability design, it was a nightmare learning to use those maps and learning the minefield thats is to talk to a tower about approach and such.
indeed you are extremely correct. i never broke a sweat with stick and rudder (i did read THE book before classes!) even on first touch and go landings! but everything else that involved towers, weather, other planes, radio, and those damn maps!
so much room for improvement just ignored for the past 30 years with everyone blind digital technology. Heck a freaking lame gps with waypoints is lauded as the greates invention in avionics in the last half century!
Re: Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern personal airplane
#460Super ambitious project that you are attempting - kudos to that! What do you think of 1. Licenses 2. Air traffic control & routing for personal crafts 3. Landing / Takeoff / Turbulence (weather) - where typically most of the human skill today is used in for commercial flights. 4. and probably the one for interface design and overall autonomous systems - human decision making + autonomous systems really have a difficu…
all things we've thought about! 1. today, you need a PPL to fly this plane. However, a new set of regulations, called MOSAIC, is coming down the pipeline that have support for aircraft with simplified control systems and getting licensed in such aircraft, specifically when they are small, light airplanes. Basically, you'll be able to get a license in such a plane, skip the parts of tests that don't apply, and be rest…
On no. 4, it's when things hit the fan and people get overloaded that they revert to basics and don't take in complex information well. Particularly if they don't have regular relevant training/experience. Having the controls move as per system / AP input with the ability to override manually is good, but then how does the envelope control work, does it start ignoring input, or lock up the ability to override the controls, ... ?
What about the scenario where you are in climb out, 50' AGL, and wind rotor off some trees gives you an immediate 90 degree roll (happened to me in a PA38), does the system auto recover that, does the pilot, what happens if the panicking pilot attempts incorrect controls, ...
Not saying all this isn't solvable, but it's complicated and I'm struggling to see how you are going to get a large enough market to deliver all this tech at an affordable price. Force feedback controllers, flying and engine controls all with redundant sensors and actuators, mechanically robust ...