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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

#81

Post by michaelmior »

chinathrow wrote: post #80
michaelmior wrote: post #60

This looks really cool! I'm curious if you're able to share any details on how you plan to manage autonomous landing. There are obviously a lot of moving parts there from communicating with ATC, finding a safe landing zone, actually bringing the plane down, and I'm sure many other things I haven't thought of as a non-pilot.

Autoland for higher range GA planes is nothing new, but still impressive. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/aviation/five-ways-garmin-...

Cool! Didn't know this was a thing that already exists.

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

#82

Post by atlex2 »

This is super great, glad to see you-all up'ing the ante for safety. As you say a good percent of accidents are pilot error based loss of control events (https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/data/Pages/GeneralAviationDashbo...). There's a lot be said for getting multiple safety technologies in one package, as you seem to be doing.

I'm interested in your approach to certification. I've heard the LSA limits are increasing dramatically, but how sure are you that MOSAIC is going to turn-out as you hope for fly-by-wire control? Are you prepared for the regulatory environment as it is today by going with an experimental platform like the Sling? Usually there's a mandate for a home-builder to build "51%" of the aircraft, so I'm also wondering how that works for a characteristics augmentation system such as yours. What percent of the control laws fit into the 51%?

On the certified side, Piper is shipping the Pilot 100i trainer aircraft with Electronic Stability and Protection (ESP), preventing students from doing some wild stuff while flying solo, using the Garmin G3X certified avionics. Garmin has also been working on auto-land. With a continued development of these certified platforms, combining a ballistic parachute, how much room is there for you with an experimental aircraft?

I looked at the prescribed spot at Oshkosh and sadly couldn't find your booth as I was excited to meet you-all.. Previously I enjoyed flying Joby's sim which is a great example of Simplified Vehicle Operations (SVO). While they're in the powered lift space, I'm curious how much overlap you two have in the control-law certification path of your SVO aircraft.

Finally, as an aviation startup founder myself (FlyShirley.com - Your AI Copilot from Sim to Sky), I'm approaching this from a different angle for a lot of the same reasons, including how task saturation, fatigue/distraction are contributing factors in many accidents.

Super excited to see more aviation startups on hn. Hope to chat at some point. Cheers!

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

#83

Post by sethkim »

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. Everything else - flight planning, comms, automation, navigation, weather, inspections, procedures, regs, and most importantly - working in the federal airspace system - are the "hard" parts of flying and where problems tend to occur. It's common belief that single-pilot IFR is the most challenging type of flying, because of how much you have to do all at once.

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.

To be clear - I think improving technology and lowering costs = good. Lowering early-skill requirements for pilots and pushing more people without all the other skills into federal airspace = very bad. In general, I'd frame this effort more as an effort to raise the bar for system technology, not lower the bar to become a pilot in the first place.

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

#84

Post by n_ermosh »

stetrain wrote: post #73
rglullis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even just analyzing it on a person-mile-efficiency basis, moving from personal cars to personal aircraft is the wrong direction. Trains obviously do well at that metric, but I'm not opposed to exploring other options on that side of the spectrum. Pitching a market move towards smaller, less-efficient vehicles is anti-sustainable. The better pitch for this kind of technology is probably on the order of modernizing fli…

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 ~1/3 the speed.

We want our airplanes to be more efficient than cars, but to get there we need to first scale the market.

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

#85

Post by j45 »

Wow, that flight sim demo is inspiring - almost looks obvious like it’s how it always should have been.

I never saw learning to fly enjoyably die to the immense respect I had for the work piloting takes to do well.

If this type of aircraft could also help organize fractional usage and ownership it would create even more beginners.

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

#86

Post by j45 »

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…

Some fair points. What if this tech made the individual flyer safer?

Obviously there’s the additional air traffic, but how much could be in the air at one time?

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

#87

Post by n_ermosh »

nurple wrote: post #77

Digitalization of aircraft is a really interesting space right now! Even local legislatures are talking to media about "vertiports" (ostensibly to justify the CEOs flying to the office, we promise it's coming to you), though I really wonder how they'll drop an R44/66/Bell505 sized aircraft into a business park because of the noise. I'm watching two companies in this space(I guess 3 now!): Hill Helicopters[0] is worki…

You're totally right the cost is the driver right now. Our goal is to get the market of people who don't fly planes right now into it so that with economies of scale, we can drive prices down. On our roadmap is an airplane that costs > Another area I'd really like to see more innovation in is aircraft design. Besides Mr Ruttan, everyone just builds tried and true designs and rarely explore the edges of what is possible.

Just wait till you see what we've been sketching up :) Having control systems like ours unlocks a whole new world of possibilities for aerodynamic design.

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

#88

Post by mattmaroon »

stetrain wrote: post #66
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Governments usually do try negotiating peacefully first. It’s better for everyone involved than the alternative.

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

#89

Post by n_ermosh »

j45 wrote: post #85

Wow, that flight sim demo is inspiring - almost looks obvious like it’s how it always should have been. I never saw learning to fly enjoyably die to the immense respect I had for the work piloting takes to do well. If this type of aircraft could also help organize fractional usage and ownership it would create even more beginners.

thanks!

We are creating a complete "managed ownership" experience, so that fractional ownership is super easy too

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

#90

Post by sethkim »

j45 wrote: post #86
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…

Some fair points. What if this tech made the individual flyer safer? Obviously there’s the additional air traffic, but how much could be in the air at one time?

> What if this tech made the individual flyer safer?

I'd hope that's the case! That's why I put it in the "good" category".

> how much could be in the air at one time?

Hard to say, but there's a ton of congestion around busy airspace as is. I'd think an order-of-magnitude increase in GA traffic would require a major rework of the whole airspace system.

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