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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

#61

Post by jeffreyrogers »

s1k3s wrote: post #56
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can't the US govt buy back any land they want for infrastructure? I mean forcibly buy back.

Yes, it's called eminent domain. But if the government attempts to do so you can file a lawsuit and argue that they don't have a right to purchase your property from you. These lawsuits are expensive and take a lot of time/effort, which makes building a railway impractical by this method. To "solve" this politically would require a constitutional amendment, which is obviously not going to happen for this issue.

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

#62

Post by Carrok »

As someone who lives very near to a small airport with many small planes taking off and landing every day, and also has a young child, I have grown increasingly concerned with the use of lead in the fuel of these planes.

Do these planes you are building burn fuel containing lead? If so, how can you justify a 10x increase in small plane traffic, as you have stated is the goal or at least the potential capacity elsewhere in this thread?

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

#63

Post by dotancohen » 

  > 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. Mercedes does with their vehicular auto-driving system?

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

#64

Post by stetrain »

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.

Eminent domain means property rights issues for public infrastructure are also political issues.

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

#65

Post by n_ermosh »

Majestic121 wrote: post #59

While I think the project is pretty cool, I can't shake the pollution side of things out of my mind. Air transport is one of the most polluting ways to travel, and I would expect a single person airplane is even worse than a full A380. Is there anything you're doing to alleviate this issue ?

Our early model you see here will use unleaded fuel rather than traditional low-lead fuel used in aviation today. The master plan is to use the scale we will create in this new market and invest it into green propulsion tech for our future aircraft. A lot is going to change in that space over the next 5 years so I'm very interested to see where things go, but I suspect hybrid-electric will be the move for the first generation of green aircraft.

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

#66

Post by stetrain »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #61
s1k3s wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the US govt buy back any land they want for infrastructure? I mean forcibly buy back.

Yes, it's called eminent domain. But if the government attempts to do so you can file a lawsuit and argue that they don't have a right to purchase your property from you. These lawsuits are expensive and take a lot of time/effort, which makes building a railway impractical by this method. To "solve" this politically would require a constitutional amendment, which is obviously not going to happen for this issue.

You can also try negotiating peacefully first: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/virginia-a...

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

#67

Post by n_ermosh »

Carrok wrote: post #62

As someone who lives very near to a small airport with many small planes taking off and landing every day, and also has a young child, I have grown increasingly concerned with the use of lead in the fuel of these planes. Do these planes you are building burn fuel containing lead? If so, how can you justify a 10x increase in small plane traffic, as you have stated is the goal or at least the potential capacity elsewhe…

We are concerned about that too. Our first airplane, the Airhart Sling uses unleaded fuel. In future models, we will be investing into greener propulsion tech.

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

#69

Post by purplerhino »

What are the environmental implications of transitioning people traveling by car/train to small planes? In addition to being louder and dispersing pollutants over a wider area, don't small planes generate significantly more GHG emissions than cars over the same number of miles?

Also, given that planes are not nearly as easy to electrify as cars and trains (energy density is significantly lower in batteries than liquid fuel), it seems unlikely the planet will ever be able to support significant volumes of personal air transit. What are your thoughts on that?

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

#70

Post by n_ermosh »

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.…

Our goal is to get to the same level of safety as (if not safer than) automotive. There are some issues that we don't immediately address including engine failures, but at the same time, most of the stats are based on engines that were designed 50 years ago, while we are using a much more modern engine with better monitoring and data collection.

However, a large number of accidents are just "unknown"--we have no idea what happened. With the level of connectivity in our airplane we'll at least always have data to understand what went wrong if an accident does occur, regardless of if it's caused by our system or not. From there, we can refine to solve the issues that we currently have little insight into.

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