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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

#531

Post by Wurdan »

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…

Out of curiosity, do you think those things are intrinsically hard, or is there a mutual escalation at play in some of these? Like I can imagine inspections are as hard as they are because you need to be prepared if weather becomes difficult to manage (for example). And then I imagine comms is hard/demanding because you can't assume that planning and inspections were done correctly. Etc.

I do wonder if reducing human error in some parts of this challenge stack would make it possible to lighten some of the other imposed burdens.

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

#532

Post by baggachipz »

talldayo wrote: post #503
baggachipz wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Here's what I don't understand. If the same meathead pitcher gets in his Ferrari and drives it into a tree, nobody questions the car company or buries them in lawsuits. Driver crashes car, it's their fault. So wouldn't it stand to…

> the same should apply to an aviation world which treats aircraft as they are: cars in three dimensions rather than two. If you think an aircraft is a car with extra dimensions of travel then you've trivialized flight. Airplanes have gotten more complex over the past 50 years, and you're not going to get away abstracting any of it comfortably. The red tape exists because flying is hard, expensive and extraordinarily…

I'm trivializing small aircraft flight, because it's a personal transport like a car. And the reason I'm doing so is that it seems very technically possible to safely control and simplify the amateur/small craft experience. So, my question would be, with modern technology, why should flying be hard?

I'm not suggesting this for a 747. Let's compare it to a private driver's license versus a CDL. Of course we shouldn't let any schlub to pilot a plane, just like we (ostensibly) require a person to take driver's training and pass a test prior to getting behind the wheel.

In my admittedly ignorant mind, we could automate and make safe the entire process. The OP prevents a device with redundant and safety systems making it nearly impossible to execute dangerous maneuvers, and balance weight and weather concerns. Current computing could automate air traffic control at small airfields where these small planes would fly. The airspace carved out for these craft could be enforced by the fly-by-wire system on the plane. And so on.

My point is, with modern tech, it would possibly be feasible to trivialize personal flying.

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

#533

Post by blantonl »

sethkim wrote: post #225
blantonl wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 airs…

I figured this comment would get me in trouble :) I recommend doing some instrument lessons if you haven't already. When I got my instrument rating I questioned whether the private requirements are actually enough. The skills that the instrument rating teaches in terms of preparation, workload management, and emergency weather scenarios make me question whether I was really ready to fly before I had it. With the priv…

There is a decent argument to be made that LSA pilots are kept to a safer regime. I only fly in excellent weather and during the day, which eliminates a large majority of the risk profile in aviation. The LSA that I fly, while not IFR certified, has an autopilot, ADSB in, 2 radios, and a Garmin 430 which can be slaved to the autopilot. The plane will essentially VNAV fly itself to the numbers if I load the approach.

For all intents and purposes, LSA pilots really only fly in 10SM vis and excellent weather. Nothing less.

A lot of people look at the 20 hour minimum training for LSA pilots and scoff at that, but I've never met a LSA pilot that didn't follow the exact same training trajectory as a PPL. It took me about 65 hours to get my ticket, and I trained out of the 6th busiest airport in Texas which is nestled under DFW's Bravo.

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

#534

Post by asynchronous13 »

Have you engaged with the FAA yet? Even if you're going the experimental route, it's useful to have an active and ongoing dialog with them. And they are tremendously more receptive to working with companies on new technologies than they were 10 years ago. It's a different regulatory environment than you would have been dealing with at SpaceX.

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

#535

Post by ggreer »

bluGill wrote: post #522
ggreer wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have prototype electric aircraft. As battery costs decrease and battery performance improves, it makes perfect sense that aircraft will electrify. The reason for this is economical, not environmental. Electricity is cheaper than fuel, and maintenance for electric vehicles tends to be less than their combustion equivalents. Both of these factors mean that once the batteries become cheap enough, cost per pas…

The laws of chemistry that govern batteries and fossil fuels are known very well. We will never get batteries anywhere near as light weight as a liquid fuel. Sure the battery/motor is much more efficient, but not anywhere close to enough to make up for the massive energy/weight advantage liquid fuels.

It's not about weight or efficiency. If operating costs are lower, it will win out eventually. Current electric aircraft can carry 5 passengers and have a range of 250 miles. They cost half as much to operate per hour, because electricity is so much cheaper than fuel. The main reason why they're not popular is because batteries are expensive. As battery costs decrease, we'll see more of the market adopt them.

Will electric aircraft cross oceans? Probably not. But the batteries are already good enough for useful flights. And you have advantages such as VTOL, quieter operation (allowing you to use urban airports at times when other aircraft are banned due to noise restrictions), and less maintenance.

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

#536

Post by limitedfrom »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #428
creshal wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you had to make the auto trip 400 km because roads aren't as direct, this comes to 51 kg CO2. What if there's a sogging great mountain range in the middle and I literally do need to drive 2-3x as far, because (rail) tunnels take something between 2 and 3 decades to build and won't be finished before 2040, if any are even planned to begin with?

That's exactly the case. Driving from Bucharest to Vatra Dornei, Romania. No highway yet, the one in construction (A7) is still going around the Carpathian mountains for 370km, it will make the drive faster but not shorter. Also driving highway speed takes more gas.

Then argue for convenience/speed/fun as I write here[1], not in the conversation about fuel usage. Even your example, driving from Bucharest to Vatra Dornei, RO is 490 km (DN12; 1.41x) or 520 km (DN2; 1.5x) vs 347 km, hardly 2-3x the parent comment you're responding to, again keeping in mind that the airport won't be in the middle of the city.

As for highway speeds, cars are calibrated to have the highest efficiency at highway speeds[2][3], so per distance, most cars will do best at reasonable highway speeds.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41166749 [2] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Speed-fuel-consumption-c... [3] https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2ddbd8f31c84cefba540d...

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

#537

Post by rangestransform »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #50
stetrain wrote: post #27

> 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. A bit off-topic but this is a political problem, not a technical one. Trips of 50-300 miles are certainly within the operating range of fast and efficient rail travel as demonstrated in multiple places around the world outside of the US.

It's not just a political problem. It's also a legal one due to the property rights involved.

i don't understand why the government doesn't do stealth land acquisition more, with shell companies like denver airport

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

#538

Post by n_ermosh »

spyckie2 wrote: post #506
n_ermosh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't necessarily have to learn in an old school plane. In fact, our early adopters who aren't pilots will be getting their flight training through us in an Airhart airplane (included in the purchase of the airplane) In the near future, a new set of regulations is coming out called MOSAIC, which will allow pilots to learn how to fly purely in simplified control aircraft. This is expected to come roughly at the s…

From a marketing and pitch perspective, I’m imagining the “shake up” potential of your plane being much more ala iPhone or Tesla. Hard to describe but once you experience it you get a diehard fan that won’t go back to whatever else is on the market. Is your first plane more of a roadster or a model 3, and what does your path look like to getting to a plane that has a cult following?

this is definitely more of the "roadster". we will be building a limited number to get it into peoples hands as quickly as possible, with future models being lower cost, more efficient, and hopefully even better in terms of control systems, avionics, and autonomy

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

#539

Post by n_ermosh »

cfiggers wrote: post #488
n_ermosh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> proficiency is a fundamental issue Have y'all considered that a fully digitized, fly-by-wire aircraft, of the type that you're proposing to build, would also essentially be a ridiculously high-fidelity flight simulator whenever and wherever it is sitting still with the engine off? This could be part of your pitch—the pilot could program in a flight plan and then fly it in simulation, practice all the radio work etc…

we've definitely thought about that! the force-feedback fly by wire makes it really easy to replicate the feel of flying the real thing very well. What you see outside though will be fixed, so maybe for instrument training it would be good, though I'm not sure about using the actual plane vs recreating the cockpit in an indoor simulator

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

#540

Post by n_ermosh »

bloggie wrote: post #174
n_ermosh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 other…

The core innovation here is the fly-by-wire/simplified control scheme. This doesn't exist in any GA aircraft.

As our system has been developed so far, it has negligible impact on the speed and usable load of a base TSi, costing $500k for everything.

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