[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) - A modern p...
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Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) - A modern personal
airplane
Hey Hacker News! I'm Nikita, founder of Airhart Aeronautics
(https://www.airhartaero.com/). We are building an airplane for
people who don't fly airplanes. The goal is to make flying as easy
as driving a car--while maintaining a high bar for safety. Here's a
video that shows a bit of our hardware and quite a bit of our
software: https://youtu.be/PGJUGUceu8A 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. Thanks to the Wright Brothers we've had aerial
transport for over 100 years. The US has over 19,000 airports, and
large commercial airplane technology has developed to the point
that the planes practically fly themselves. If we already have the
infrastructure and the technology, why isn't everyone flying
planes? The problem is that small airplane technology hasn't
innovated and is stuck in the past. Flying a small airplane is
complicated, mentally taxing, and dangerous--about 28x more
dangerous than driving a car. Outdated airplanes, coupled with
outdated flight controls, lead to regular accidents, often due to
some form of loss of control. The planes are expensive and margins
are small. There is no incentive to innovate within the current
market, so we are looking at the new, untapped market of those who
don't think about flying as an option today and making it an
option. I first came across this when I learned to fly in 2020. I
was learning in a "modern" GA airplane but was immediately struck
by the fact that an airplane built in 2018 did not have an engine
computer and there was a manual level to control the fuel/air
mixture ratio. Starting it on a hot day was like starting a
stubborn lawn mower. On top of that, my instructor was telling me
all the various ways I could kill myself if I'm not running at 100%
concentration for hours on end. This just didn't sit right with me.
At the time I was working at SpaceX as an avionics engineer,
leading the development of the avionics for the fairing recovery
program. I also built autonomous aircraft when I was a student at
Cornell, where I got a degree in electrical and computer
engineering. It was clear to me that the core problem is that
airplanes are too unsafe and too complicated to operate which is
keeping too many people out of aviation. So, I decided to leave
SpaceX and was joined by my long-time friend Brendan (he was a
software engineer at Apple at the time; we built autonomous
aircraft together at Cornell) to start Airhart to tackle this
problem and make flying safer and more accessible. We are
developing a full hardware and software package to change how
people fly airplanes. It's a fly-by-wire control system, meaning
instead of mechanical linkages between the pilot's control stick
and the control surfaces, it's a joystick that sends digital
commands to a computer that then moves the control surfaces
accordingly with servo actuators. We're developing all of the
hardware ourselves: the computers, the sensors, the actuators-and
all of the software that actually does the control. But it's not
just fly-by-wire. On top of it, we are implementing a simplified
control scheme that reduces flying the airplane to just one action
to perform one maneuver. For readers who aren't pilots: all flying
is basically coordinating the aircraft pitch, roll, yaw, and
throttle to coordinate actions. Something as simple as a level turn
to the right means you have to 1) roll the airplane, 2) use your
feet on the rudder pedals to keep the turn coordinated, 3) pull
back to increase your lift since you are now losing lift in a bank,
4) monitor your airspeed (especially if at slow speeds when coming
in to land), 5) monitor your altitude as you're adjusting your lift
in (3), 6) monitor your turn coordination as you adjust it in (2).
You are now established in a turn. To return to flying straight and
level do those in reverse. And while doing all this, you need to be
navigating through complex airpaces and talking to air traffic
control over 1940s radio technology. All this together makes it
very hard to fly and very easy for a pilot (especially a new pilot)
to lose control of the airplane, which is still the leading cause
of fatalities in general aviation. With Airhart Assist (that's
what we call our system), you just push a control stick to the
right and the flight computers do all those steps to put you into a
coordinated level turn. So, how does this actually work? The
force-feedback joystick in the plane sends its position to a flight
controller (actually 3 that work in parallel for safety and
redundancy, more on that later). The flight controller interprets
the position as a turn rate or climb rate command (for left/right
or forward/back). The flight controller also reads a bunch of
sensors (gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, air pressure, GPS,
etc) to develop an accurate estimate of the airplane's state: roll,
pitch, yaw, velocity, position, etc. Using the current state from
the sensor fusion algorithms and the desired state from the
joystick, the controller does a bunch of aerodynamics and control
theory math to compute the control surface position necessary to
bring the aircraft to the desired state. Mixed into this is error
checking, envelope protection, and other various safety measures to
make sure the aircraft never enters an unsafe state. Unlike a
traditional airplane, it becomes impossible to command the airplane
into a stall, a spin, unsafe attitudes, or other bad states. This
is the key to the safety of the system: it prevents the common
mistakes that pilots make that lead to disastrous consequences. To
make sure that this system is always functioning, everything is
single-fault tolerant. That means that there are no single points
of failure. Any fault that might occur-a broken wire, a fried
resistor, a bitflip in a processor, a random hang in a kernel-does
not affect the functionality of the system. This is achieved by
having three flight controllers that take in information from two
different sets of sensors (we call them "strings"), independently
compute the desired actions to take, and vote on what to do. Each
string has its own power source, backup battery, networking
hardware, and set of critical sensors. The only real single point
of failure is the engine. We only have one, though the engine
itself has redundant ignition systems, fuel pumps, controllers,
etc. If the engine were to die, the batteries would keep the system
running for ~30 minutes, giving you time to make an emergency
landing. If the pilot somehow becomes incapacitated, any passenger
can initiate an autonomous emergency landing. And if many things go
wrong and the system does fail, there's a full airframe parachute
that can be activated to bring the airplane safely to the ground.
A lot of people will likely wonder: "isn't removing stick and
rudder skills going to make worse pilots"? Short answer: no. The
core of what makes a good pilot isn't stick and rudder skills; it's
good decision making and risk management. For single pilots in GA,
it's even more important. So we are building a system that will
give our pilots the tools to focus entirely on decision making and
risk management and remove the distraction of stick and rudder that
creates so many problems today. 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 at risk, but not for an average
person flying a four seat airplane to go on a weekend trip to the
mountains. Our system makes it impossible to lose control of the
airplane, potentially solving 80% of today's fatal accidents in
general aviation. Fly-by-wire systems typically cost millions of
dollars. We intend to build it for much less. How? By leveraging
automotive grade components, clever sensor fusion math so that we
can use MEMS gyroscopes that cost <$100 instead of laser-ring gyros
that cost $1000 if not $10k, and by a first principles approach to
the design of our system. This requires that we build a lot of our
own hardware. We've developed our own control surface actuators,
our own display assemblies, we're developing our own radios and GPS
hardware (an aviation grade GPS can cost upwards of $10k, but it's
the same hardware as in a $20 consumer grade GPS). To take
advantage of this automotive style approach requires scale. Enter
the final third of the problem: flying isn't sexy. Modern airplanes
look like they are from the 90s. With our first airplane, the
Airhart Sling, we are redesigning the entire UI/UX of the flight
deck to make it as easy as possible to use, redesigning the cabin
to feel much more like a luxury car than an airplane today, and
integrating Airhart Assist to make flying much more accessible and
much more inviting. You can see previews of the Airhart Sling on
our website, https://www.airhartaero.com/. The sexiness of design
is extremely important for the economies of scale of an automotive-
style approach to work. There's a plethora of other problems that
make flying cumbersome: weight and balance worksheets, complicated
route planning, talking to ATC, lengthy preflight checks, a
fractured system of FBOs, difficult access to instruction, the list
goes on. We are working on all of these too, but no amount of extra
UI features can solve the fundamental problem that aviating itself
is hard. So that's what we're solving first. We want people who
don't think about airplanes as a mode of transportation to start
flying and are hoping that Airhart will pave the way. Whether you
fly planes today or not, I'd love to hear your thoughts. This is a
very exciting topic with lots to discuss so I'm very much looking
forward to the conversation!
Author : n_ermosh
Score : 258 points
Date : 2024-08-05 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
| mercurialsolo wrote:
| Super 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 difficult time working in tandem
| - fully autonomous is less risky at an aggregate level but puts
| onus and more of the blame on the company / maker versus human-
| in-the-loop.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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 restricted to only flying that type of airplane
| (This is my interpretation, I obviously don't speak for the
| FAA)
|
| 2. The current ATC system handles personal aircraft quite well.
| this is especially true in busy airspaces like LA. Our hope is
| to create a more automated routing system where you just enter
| the destination you want to fly to, the system generates the
| route taking into account, terrain, weather, winds, standard
| routes, airways, etc, files it with ATC for you, and you just
| confirm that it's a good path and be on your way.
|
| 3. This is the core of our system. In the demo video, the
| landing I'm doing has a cross wind with some gusts and you can
| see the system handles it super easily and makes it
| significantly easier to takeoff and land, even in turbulence.
| you can barely tell there was any kind of weather at all.
|
| 4. This is a tough one for sure. One core thing we are doing is
| having our joystick be active and have force feedback. So when
| flying, you can "feel" what the system is trying to do and you
| can push back on it if you don't like what it's doing. You as
| the pilot are still in charge of what happens, we just making
| it easier for you to execute on it. Additionally, there's lots
| of UI elements that will provide hints to what you are asking
| the plane to do + what it can do + what it's actually doing.
| This should help close that loop so that the pilot is still in
| control, while letting the system handle the aviating elements
| of flying.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Super ambitious project that you are attempting - kudos to
| that!
|
| The GPS and gyroscope reimplementation would appear to be a
| business opportunity in themselves - presumably there is a
| reason someone hasn't undercut those parts already. Small
| market?
| user_7832 wrote:
| > presumably there is a reason someone hasn't undercut those
| parts already. Small market?
|
| I suspect the answer is simply regulations. Far too many
| modern things in aviation have been held back by the FAA.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| As a paraglider pilot (unpowered), I will say that the technical
| aspects of flying the aircraft are only a small part of what's
| involved in a flight - as you point out.
|
| It's a bad idea to get pilots in the air with less training.
| People can't safely pilot cars in two dimensions.
|
| Making the avionics easier to use and more affordable sounds like
| the actual winning product.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| The way we see it isn't less training, but training focused on
| the most important parts of flying: decision making and risk
| management. Given the current track record for accidents, they
| almost always culminate in the pilot failing to control the
| airplane, whether due to directly stalling or being distracted
| by another issue and then stalling. By eliminating loss of
| control as a failure mode, pilots can spend more of their
| minimum 40 hours on decision making and risk management
| training, rather than on stick and rudder training. Then when
| in the air, they put more of their mental load on ADM. We are
| just breaking down the barrier that stops people from even
| getting there in the first place.
| talldayo wrote:
| > By eliminating loss of control as a failure mode
|
| I think this is a flawed view of the problem, even with an
| industry-grade FCS to work with. If you're in the air, you
| _should_ know how to break out of a stall, belly-land in an
| emergency, or route around turbulence as it crops up. These
| things _happen_ , and preventing someone from doing a loop-
| de-loop won't eliminate a category of failure-modes.
|
| This is something I very much wish would be a reality one
| day, but you'll be kicking yourself with every incident
| report that blames bad piloting. One can only hope that they
| wouldn't risk their own life trusting an untrained pilot.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Most accidents occur because the pilot makes a bad decision
| somewhere and a chain of events leads to an accident (in GA
| --commercial is a completely different beast). Our hope is
| to break that chain by making it as easy as possible for
| the pilot to continue flying the airplane and bring it
| safely to the ground in a high-stress emergency.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Even when the tools are available, pilots need the
| training to know to use them. How many NTSB accident
| reports include non instrument rated pilots getting
| disoriented in IMC despite having an autopilot with a
| "level" function? If your system can keep them out of
| this kind of trouble without them even having to take
| action, it will save lives.
| TylerE wrote:
| The thing that worries me is that this will attract the
| same kind of pilots as Tesla's so called FSD.
| TylerE wrote:
| How do you propose this training happens? Surely this will
| require a full PPL as you're well above LSA limits.
|
| I'd also be deathly afraid of what happens when the
| automation inevitably fails.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| A lot of the existing training system from the FAA and
| others all emphasize aeronautical decision making and
| single-pilot resource management. It's the core thing that
| we are taught when we learn to fly.
|
| Also, under the upcoming MOSAIC regulations, such airplanes
| will be LSAs and flyable with a sport pilot license.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > Making the avionics easier to use and more affordable sounds
| like the actual winning product.
|
| Garmin is the clear leader in the certified avionics class for
| general aviation aircraft these days. If you somehow manage to
| capture a part of their market, you win big time.
| daft_pink wrote:
| I disagree with your assessment. I think that the core problem
| with GA is that most people in the United States want to travel
| distances beyond what an affordable GA aircraft can in a single
| flight. I live in the midwest and I generally want to travel to
| the East or West coast or Southwest or Florida and the range of a
| Cessna just isn't going to cut it. The only practical vehicle
| would be a Phenom 300 or Honda Jet II, but I don't have $8
| million lying around.
|
| Reality is that without North American continental range, it just
| isn't worth it to go get a pilots license and buy a plane for the
| few trips that I can just easily drive. Maybe if I lived in
| Boston, General Aviation would be great, but for many Americans
| who live in areas in the middle that aren't near large airports,
| the range of these aircraft just make them expensive toys that
| aren't very useful for the size of North America.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| I might be over estimating, but I'd also think taking off and
| landing will tack on a few hours to the start and end of your
| trip. Fueling, safety checks, dealing with the control tower,
| etc. all seem like they'd effectively take your time savings to
| zero.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| once you get to wanting to travel about 150 miles, the time
| savings do start kicking in, even if you assume 30-45 minutes
| of getting to the airport, preflight, etc. The benefit of a
| small airplane is that at small airports, getting from
| walking up to the airplane and then into the air can be
| pretty quick. And part of our goal is the automate as much of
| the prelight process as possible, wherever we can do it
| safely
| dwighttk wrote:
| If you succeed in making this all easy, won't these small
| airports fill up with planes?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| We will eventually hit a limit to the current
| infrastructure, but based on where the GA market was in
| the 70s when a lot of the small airports were built, we
| estimate we can handle ~10x the number of planes we do
| today.
| restalis wrote:
| _" dealing with the control tower"_
|
| I know little to nothing about GA, but... it only makes sense
| to take time if the procedures are still done somehow
| manually, like speaking with human operators out there. It
| true, the dependence on a fallible human attention for
| something that can be automated, that right there is a safety
| hazard to me.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| You're definitely right that the cross continental trip is a
| big and common one. however, 90% of long distance trips are
| made by car in the US with a median trip distance of about 200
| miles. If we can make flying as easy as driving, the ability to
| make that trip in half to a third of the time, we believe
| that's a big win and incentive for a lot of people. There are
| 19,000 small airports in the US and 300M people live within 15
| miles of at least one. So we totally think it's reasonable for
| that medium distance trip to be done by GA airplane rather than
| car.
| BWStearns wrote:
| I've found my GA flying to really be about trips that you
| _wouldn't have made otherwise_, but the biggest barrier is
| cost. I've done little adventure trips with my wife that were
| super fun and without a PPL we wouldn't have done the
| equivalent. But when it comes to boring stuff it's just too
| expensive to justify flying so the trips don't happen (since
| I have to rent).
|
| My suspicion is that the middle of the Venn diagram between
| "can afford a $500K aircraft" and "doesn't fly GA because
| they're not going to stay proficient enough to be safe" is
| vanishingly small. The doctors who fly their Cirrus once a
| year think they're Maverick so they don't care about the
| safety features. The guys who fly every chance they get
| aren't the ones stall spinning on base to final.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Cost is definitely a barrier and our long term goal is the
| get down to a plane that costs <$100k. getting there is
| incremental, this is just our first product to start
| wedging our way into the market.
| cameldrv wrote:
| The other problem beyond range is dispatch reliability. Most
| light planes can't go very high or fast to get around
| thunderstorms, and they can't fly in icing conditions, and
| flying in low visibility with a single amateur pilot is still
| dangerous even with avionics improvements. This means that if
| you don't want to die, you have to cancel a lot of flights at
| the last minute, which makes it only useful for trips where you
| have a viable alternate means of transportation.
|
| From a speed perspective, one thing that would make a lot of
| difference is speeding up the preflight. Now you have to pull
| the plane out of the hangar, go to the fuel pump, fill multiple
| fuel tanks, check the oil, sump the fuel tanks, etc. Electronic
| sensors for oil and water in the fuel, a simpler fuel system,
| and a built-in electric motor for getting out of the hangar
| might save 20+ minutes per flight, which would actually be
| better than even a faster plane because these tasks are
| annoying and dirty.
|
| Another thing that would be great is a bigger baggage
| compartment with electric power for folding e-bikes or
| scooters. America is amazing in the number of small airports we
| have, but most of them have no rental cars and are outside of
| town.
| howintelligence wrote:
| I hope you succeed
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks!
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Wondering what you think about this video[0], which (if one
| ignores the clickbaity and colourful language and focuses on the
| substance of the argument) frames problems with mass adoption of
| "flying cars" as fundamental and idea-killing non-starters,
| rather than hurdles to work hard on, and overcome.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fcWOivJ6bs
| n_ermosh wrote:
| I love this guy. trains solve all the worlds problems :)
|
| His discussion is focused a bit more on europe which I think is
| a very different environment than the US. We don't have trains
| and want to go larger distances more regularly. We also have a
| much larger airport infrastructure and a complex airspace
| system that handles the issue of flying over populated areas
| and flying approaches safely quite well. So as long as things
| aren't falling of the plane over someone house (which really
| isn't a problem even with todays airplanes) I think until we
| get high speed rail, small airplanes are the next best thing
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >We don't have trains
|
| If you take optimizing transportation options as a holistic
| problem, rather than focusing on any individual user who
| needs to travel those 50-500 km distances, more trains is a
| far more straightforward and efficient investment than flying
| cars, no?
|
| >We also have a much larger airport infrastructure and a
| complex airspace system that handles the issue of flying over
| populated areas and flying approaches safely quite well.
|
| Well, yes, at the scale of our current number of commercial
| aviation flights and a very small number of private planes.
| You're proposing to kick it up how many orders of magnitude,
| if we're talking number of air vehicles simultaneously in the
| air? You need to build an entirely different traffic control
| system for that, and noise pollution becomes a far more
| vexing problem. That last one, I'm guessing, is the idea
| killer if we're talking more than a small number of flying
| cars. If you ever get to a point where this is an actual
| concern, i.e. there are actually a lot of them in the air,
| wait until those rural voters get their hands on you and
| start contacting their state lawmakers, and until those
| representatives start law-making.
|
| > So as long as things aren't falling of the plane over
| someone house (which really isn't a problem even with todays
| airplanes)
|
| But it _is_ a problem that increases with the number of
| vehicles in the air.
|
| >I think until we get high speed rail, small airplanes are
| the next best thing
|
| Is it though? Building good passenger rail (no need for
| actual HSR) is a solved problem with proven solutions, tested
| for decades all over the world. How many decades will it take
| to actually develop a "production-ready" small airplane
| operable by very quickly trained sorta-pilots, and then
| deploy the infrastructure needed for N of them to safely
| operate in an M-kilometer radius? I don't have a good feel
| for what you think N and M will be, so it's hard to tell. But
| I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's a far less well-defined
| question than "how long will it take to connect two cities
| with 200 kmh rail link".
|
| edit: yes, I'm nay-saying, playing devil's advocate while
| rooting for the devil just a tiny bit, but I'm not trying to
| be a jerk, and I _am_ open minded and looking forward to your
| responses.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| > If you take optimizing transportation options as a
| holistic problem, rather than focusing on any individual
| user who needs to travel those 50-500 km distances, more
| trains is a far more straightforward and efficient
| investment than flying cars, no?
|
| maybe. But people are still tied to the trains schedule and
| don't have the "get in a go" freedom that they do with a
| car. I don't know the details of what it actually takes to
| build a train network but my intuition is telling that it's
| fundamentally more investment because of the land
| requirements.
|
| > You need to build an entirely different traffic control
| system for that
|
| probably true. but I think it'll take some time to get
| there and that gives us the opportunity to invest in that.
| The more modernized airplanes we have, the more opportunity
| we have to start creating a more automated ATC system that
| uses digital communication between the airplane and ATC,
| rather than the voice system we use today.
|
| > But it is a problem that increases with the number of
| vehicles in the air.
|
| We (as an industry) have gotten pretty good at knowing how
| to build an airplane so that parts don't fall off (this is
| a facetious example, I'm really referring to general system
| reliability) that revolves around rigorous production
| standard, and those we definitely must continue to follow.
|
| > Building good passenger rail (no need for actual HSR) is
| a solved problem with proven solutions
|
| True, but even those solutions are starting to become
| outdated. Rail also has a very high safety bar because of
| the consequence of failure, so developing a new rail
| network is really hard too.
|
| > How many decades will it take to actually develop a
| "production-ready"...
|
| We expect that we will 10x the number of vehicles flying
| over the next 10 years, so N is ~10k, and M is 500km. In
| the US, we already have that infrastructure, and I suspect
| (based on not much but my own intuition) is that it'll take
| another 10 years to get that infrastructure updated to
| support every 3x (sqrt(10)) increase in N
| user_7832 wrote:
| I love the concept, as an aviation nerd (and hopefully future GA
| pilot). However I'm a little cautious - understanding weather
| particularly is massively different from moving in 2 dimensions
| and you can't land "anywhere", unlike how you can pull over. And
| the average person who doesn't know much about the weather isn't
| likely to know what a microburst is or why it's dangerous.
|
| I'd recommend pitching this to (new) pilots instead at least for
| starters.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Thanks! Our early adopters are a combination of new pilots,
| those that have already begun the training process, and even
| some experienced ones that want a better, safer flying
| experience
| pricechild wrote:
| Howdy! FI(H) here. Looks very cool, I watched the video too.
|
| Many students get the hang of hovering within 10 hours -
| "learning to fly" really isn't that hard? I see the rest of the
| course as "learning to become a pilot." That means the background
| knowledge and practice to allow decision making & dealing with
| emergencies etc.
|
| I think if you could improve just a single one of the problems
| you touch on (difficult controls, navigation, mass and balance,
| fly by wire etc) you could make a lot of money...
|
| ... But improving _all_ of them in one shot... that sounds
| unreasonable to me? Are they really connected?
|
| > Our system makes it impossible to lose control of the airplane,
| potentially solving 80% of today's fatal accidents in general
| aviation.
|
| I'd love to see details on how you achieved this... or at least
| your definition of "impossible"...
| n_ermosh wrote:
| You are definitely correct that "learning to become a pilot" is
| the meat of training. Our belief is that we want to make the
| continued act of "aviating" as easy as possible so that pilots
| can focus on the decision making aspect of being a pilot, and
| when doing so, not let the airplane get ahead of them and cause
| an accident.
|
| Basically, you can't command the plane to do anything it can't
| safely do. If you pull the stick full back, you'll just climb
| at your maximum safe angle of attack. Hold the stick full
| right, you'll be turning at a 45 degree bank. Compared to
| todays planes, which you have to actively be on top of and
| "ahead of" the entire them they are being flown.
| pricechild wrote:
| I get the idea... but what happens when a pitot tube is
| blocked or an aoa sensor gets stuck or ... ?
|
| With "traditional" controls and an autopilot failure, you
| still have control over all the control surfaces.
|
| With your solution, you don't have enough hand axis to fall
| back to manual flying? How can the computer possibly
| guarantee safe flight in all conditions?
|
| In the case of an e.g. air speed sensor failure, how do you
| get on the ground safely? Is the answer "Just BRS"? Or
| multiple sensors etc. ?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Multiple sensors, actively modeling the flight dynamics to
| detect anomalous sensors/behaviors (i.e. is what we are
| measuring what we expect to measure), and BRS as a final
| backup.
| bix6 wrote:
| Exciting project, good luck!
| bronco21016 wrote:
| So 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 hasn't
| actually flown a plane with direct input since their primary
| training 5 years ago. They also don't remember what the different
| flight envelopes do and do not provide. Essentially the system is
| more complex but normally it works so the complexity is hidden.
| They're not equipped to handle flying the airplane anymore.
|
| This is where GA really ultimately falls short IMHO, proficiency.
| Airlines are the safest they've ever been because the pilots make
| an entire career out of being prepared for every contingency.
| People using airplanes as a personal travel tool can be trained
| and proficient to the same degree but often they are not because
| flying an aircraft is ancillary to their primary mission.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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 use a ballistic parachute (which we will have) to
| bring the entire airframe to the ground in the event of a
| complete system failure. Which is always better than just
| letting the airplane crash into the ground.
|
| I agree that proficiency is a fundamental issue. We want to
| make it easy to be and stay proficient. If flying becomes part
| of the primary mission, you do it more often and as a result
| stay proficient. The most dangerous pilots are the ones who
| haven't flown in 3 years and jump into a plane for an IFR cross
| country to an airport they've never been to before. We don't
| want that to happen either.
| bloggie wrote:
| 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?
| morning-coffee wrote:
| This. I liken it to the flawed approaches associated with self
| driving cars... software handles everything up until the point
| it can't then asks the user to take over in the last second.
| Not a great strategy.
|
| As a software engineer and private pilot, I'll take mechanical
| controls connected to the flight surfaces and my competency as
| a pilot to risk my own life, rather than turn it over to other
| software engineers, hoping they get everything right, leaving
| me with no real connection to the flight control surfaces when
| the shit hits the fan.
|
| I'd at least have to know what kind of engineering process and
| change management practices or functional safety procedures are
| being followed by the company developing this stuff before I'd
| even consider going for a ride in such a plane.
| stetrain wrote:
| > 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 100% agreed. I'd love a high speed rail system in the US. but
| we're engineers not politicians :)
| stetrain wrote:
| Sending more travelers into the sky in personal aircraft will
| also be a political issue.
|
| I definitely applaud the goal of improving GA safety, there
| is certainly a lot to improve in that regard even if the end
| result isn't a huge increase in the number of family
| roadtrips taken in personal aircraft.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| > there is certainly a lot to improve in that regard even
| if the end result isn't a huge increase in the number of
| family roadtrips taken in personal aircraft.
|
| that's kind of how I see it too, the failed version of this
| is that GA is safer than it is today.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| It's not just a political problem. It's also a legal one due to
| the property rights involved.
| yogurtboy wrote:
| In this case, as in many others, political problems are just
| legal problems at scale.
| s1k3s wrote:
| Can't the US govt buy back any land they want for
| infrastructure? I mean forcibly buy back.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| 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.
| stetrain wrote:
| You can also try negotiating peacefully first:
| https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-
| wire/virginia-a...
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Governments usually do try negotiating peacefully first.
| It's better for everyone involved than the alternative.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| But, as a previous poster said, these problems always
| seem solveable when building a freeway.
| macintux wrote:
| I think it's a question of public support, political
| will, and stamina.
|
| People think of freeways as vital, so it's ok if I-69
| through southern Indiana takes over 30 years from initial
| studies to completion.
|
| If a train route took 30 years to build, it would be
| lambasted as a boondoggle and abandoned.
| stetrain wrote:
| Eminent domain means property rights issues for public
| infrastructure are also political issues.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Somehow we don't seem to face this problem when it comes to
| building roads.
| stetrain wrote:
| Even when we build them right through populated downtown
| areas!
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917/highways-interstate-
| ci...
| CalRobert wrote:
| Interestingly I'm hosting my dad near Amsterdam for the week
| and to get from Sacramento to SFO (from where he flew to AMS)
| he... flew. Which I guess is logical, but seems insane to me
| when he lives close to Sacramento Amtrak which actually HAS
| good, regular service to SFO (via Bart, connecting at
| Richmond).
|
| Even if you build the train some people won't give it a try,
| sadly. A lot of carbon was spewed in to the air to fly him and
| his suitcase over the capitol corridor tracks.
| stetrain wrote:
| > Even if you build the train some people won't give it a
| try, sadly. A lot of carbon was spewed in to the air to fly
| him and his suitcase over the capitol corridor tracks.
|
| They might be more willing to try if the service prices
| included the cost of the associated emissions.
| sixothree wrote:
| I bet if you and he were travelling together he would do it.
| I've gotten people to join me on train trips when the option
| was something different - flying or taking a one hour taxi
| ride.
| maples37 wrote:
| I really want to try Amtrak. I've looked at it a few times.
| But the only train line near me only has a train at it 2 or 3
| times a week, at some crazy hour like 2:30am. If I'm taking a
| Monday-Thursday business trip, I'd have to arrive at my
| destination the Friday before and return home late night on
| Sunday. It's just not a realistic choice, unless you're
| _really_ excited about trains.
|
| It doesn't help that the website is terrible at helping you
| plan a trip, if you say "I want to leave on Monday" but there
| are no trains at the station on Monday, it just takes you to
| a page saying "there are no routes, sorry" instead of
| suggesting the next day a train _is_ available. I found a
| download link for the train schedule, and it took me a solid
| 10 minutes to figure out what I was looking at. (If you 're
| following along at home: the big bold date at the top of the
| page is completely irrelevant. It's just today's date, so you
| know when you downloaded the PDF. Because of course that's
| why you downloaded the PDF in the first place.)
|
| I have a friend who _is_ really excited about trains, and he
| wanted to take a weekend Amtrak trip. The only way he could
| make it work was to ride the train up and have someone at his
| destination who was willing to drive him back. And even then,
| most of the trip was plodding along in the darkness, because
| the train only stops at our city in the dead of night.
|
| They're supposed to be putting in some new lines in the
| coming years, one of which will stop by our city. I'm
| cautiously optimistic, though I'm not sure how useful those
| lines will be if there's no trains rolling on them at
| reasonable hours.
| sitharus wrote:
| I saw a cargo flight going from LAX to Ontario, California
| which looks like ~80km/50mi distance, which seems crazy to
| me.
|
| I don't live in Europe, but I was there earlier this year
| going from Amsterdam to Paris. That's 430km/260mi direct from
| what I can find. I took the train, it took 3.5 hours, direct
| from central Amsterdam to central Paris, and no security
| theatre. And I had leg room!
| shafyy wrote:
| A million times this. Modern and efficient train networks are
| the best way to travel, even for longer distances of a few
| thousand kilometers (night trains). Sure, there are still use
| cases for flying, but the dismissiveness of people who have
| never experienced great train travel against it just shocks me.
| gizajob wrote:
| Hmmm I just flew from Bergamo, Italy to Liverpool, UK and it
| was basically four hours door to door from where I was
| staying to where I was going in Liverpool, and for less than
| EUR100. The train can't do this.
| lbrito wrote:
| Was about to post the same. Passing no judgement on this
| particular project, which must have been the result of honest
| hard work and dedication, but it's truly bizarre that people in
| the US would rather double down on the failed personal vehicle
| concept rather than embracing public transit, as more developed
| countries have.
| bigyikes wrote:
| I'm begging for trains in the Texas triangle. It's such a
| perfect use case. It's ~3 hours between any of San Antonio-
| Austin, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Long enough to be a
| horrible drive, short enough to be a waste of a flight. There's
| also not much density in between to contend with.
| BWStearns wrote:
| Always happy to see new GA aircraft, and the tech here looks very
| cool. The emergency autoland and chute will definitely be
| lifesavers. If your system can reliably prevent base-final stall
| spins then that would clearly be awesome.
|
| One thing that jumped out at me is what are you trading to get
| that protection? While I have no issues with fly by wire, I'd be
| nervous about a GA aircraft that's overly opinionated about what
| it should be doing vs how to do it.
|
| * Can I put it into a forward slip, or will it refuse or return
| to coordinated flight? This could be critical in an engine
| related emergency where you're too high and can't or don't want
| to risk getting farther from the airport.
|
| * If I need to make a steep turn to avoid someone heading the
| wrong way on base is it going to let me?
|
| I see the value in stall prevention but, outside of stall spin on
| final, that's largely been solved in GA via passive aero design
| characteristics making it tough to stall and harder to stay
| stalled.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| > If your system can reliably prevent base-final stall spins
| then that would clearly be awesome.
|
| This was actually a core inspiration for this project. A
| student on his first solo at an airport north of me crashed on
| his base to final turn.
|
| > Can I put it into a forward slip, or will it refuse or return
| to coordinated flight?
|
| Yes, you can make if forward slip. It's a bit clever imo--you
| just "ask" for low speed and a high descent rate and the energy
| controllers in the flight computer will figure out that a
| forward slip is the best way to achieve that. We also have
| independent ailerons that can be used as spoilers for an even
| faster descent.
|
| > If I need to make a steep turn to avoid someone heading the
| wrong way on base is it going to let me?
|
| yep! just push the stick full deflection. you'll feel the
| active stick fight back because it doesn't want to bank that
| steeply in normal flight, but you are in control of the plane
| and it will do anything you command up to it's aerodynamic and
| structural limits.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> If your system can reliably prevent base-final stall spins
| then that would clearly be awesome.
|
| I keep thinking we need more canard aircraft - they don't
| stall. Most of them are designed with laminar flow wings and no
| flaps, so landing speeds are higher which makes them less safe
| and not good for grass strips. I'd like to see a stall-free
| aircraft without those drawbacks of canards.
| BWStearns wrote:
| Look up the Vashon Ranger, the Kitfox, and the Foxbat. You
| really cannot stall them by accident and they're conventional
| layouts. The Ranger/Foxes will just nosedown if you even
| manage to get them into a stall. We could also bring back
| biplanes and make some AN-2 derivatives.
|
| I think a cheaper approach to what Airhart is trying to
| accomplish (from a don't kill pilots perspective) would be to
| make an aftermarket smart stall horn that could warn earlier
| and maybe gives some audio/visual feedback if you're getting
| uncoordinated at a certain angle of attack.
| kreck wrote:
| First of all: great that you're working on bringing innovation to
| general aviation! During training I also wondered about some
| technical aspects, as a lot of the tech in an airplane is from
| almost 60-70 years ago.
|
| However, as a PPL holder myself I think that understanding weight
| and balance, aerodynamics, flight planning, ATC, airlaw,
| principles of flight etc. is paramount to keep yourself and
| others safe.
|
| In the air you cannot simply drive to the side of the road and
| have a look at what's going on. As a pilot you must be able to
| make decisions on the spot. To be able to make those properly,
| you have to understand what's going on from first principles. In
| aviation safety is the primary goal. Statistically more than 80%
| of aviation accidents can be traced back to human error. Anything
| that facilitates bringing people in the pilot seat suggesting
| they need less training is something i strictly oppose.
|
| Despite, anything that helps to simplify aircraft operations may
| decrease cognitive load and is therefore welcome.
|
| I guess you're aware of the ICAO/FAA hoops you have to jump
| through to get anything of what you're developing beyond
| experimental certificate but having seen how long it took e.g.
| Volocopter to gain their (still incomplete) type certificate it
| is a long road.
|
| If you'd be able to simplify avionics and create an affordable
| standardized fly-by-wire kit that alone would be a great
| innovation for GA especially in the ultralight and light sport
| aircraft category.
|
| I wish you all the best!
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks! I 100% agree with your comments.
|
| > anything that helps to simplify aircraft operations may
| decrease cognitive load and is therefore welcome.
|
| exactly. decreasing cognitive load is very important and I
| think we as existing pilots tend to forget how much of their
| cognitive load goes to just aviating. But the students who drop
| out certainly don't.
| iambateman wrote:
| This is fascinating.
|
| Other, smarter commenters will undoubtedly point out potential
| issues...but since I am a decidedly uninformed groundling, I hope
| you succeed.
|
| Ambitious, complicated, probably-impossible challenges create
| space for the kind of projects which could actually change the
| world.
|
| Sounds tough...good luck!
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks! my hope is to eventually make you a well informed
| airling!
| consumer451 wrote:
| Really cool to see people working on tough problems.
|
| Are you building your own FADEC system, or working with existing
| engine control systems?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks!
|
| initially we'll be working with existing systems (specifically,
| a Rotax 916iS) which has an almost-FADEC, but we're adding our
| own systems on top of it to add push to start, full control of
| the throttle, automated restart in the case of an engine
| failure in flight, and full data collection to better predict
| when maintenance is going to be needed.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Presumably anyone who wants to fly this would still have to go
| through a traditional pilot qualification with an old-school
| plane? So this is actually targeting people who do fly airplanes,
| but want to be more comfortable and more able to focus on the
| navigation and general enjoyment of the air while reducing the
| actual risk of flying, rather than having to, as you put it,
| micromanage the aircraft. As someone who likes nothing better
| than to look out of the window of a passenger jet with the GPS
| and map on my phone in my hand to see where I am, and to know
| which geographical features are unravelling below, I kinda get
| it.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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 same time as when we begin production, so we
| hope that new pilots will be able to learn under these new
| regulations and not have to learn the old-school way of flying
| at all.
| singhuler wrote:
| First of, so nice to see someone solving hard problem. Best of
| luck to you and your team.
|
| Do you see the overcrowding of airspace as a concern at all?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Eventually, it might be. Currently, the US airspace system
| could handle ~10x the GA traffic we have today (I'm basing this
| on the fact that when we were building it up in the 70s, we
| were selling and flying ~10x more airplanes than we do today).
|
| However, as we get to much larger scales, we can start using
| our aircraft to actually augment ATC to help handle the
| traffic. the airplanes can have more intelligent communication
| systems to coordinate with each other and the pilots and
| automatically send and receive data to/from ATC with digital
| comms rather than voice radio. That's an entirely separate
| project and company though when Airhart is a huge success and
| we hit this problem :)
| catchmeifyoucan wrote:
| I got my PPL a while ago, and I'm super excited about this!
| Though, I'm mostly a renter, so I may not be of much support to
| purchase at $500,000.
|
| This would be quite the upgrade from a 1980's Cessna.
|
| I guess we'll have to wait for the new standards, but things like
| learning about the engine, stall recovery and crosswinds are a
| pretty major part of aviation training. Though the plane can do
| these things, I'm not sure how much training will be abstracted
| away (since it's a generic curriculum and we can fly most ASEL).
|
| Few questions:
|
| 1. Does the flight controller have a back-up?
|
| 2. What does the override for controlling rudder and aileron look
| like. How about spin recovery or taxing with headwinds?
|
| 3. Would you sell your avionics set-up so I can retrofit and
| replace a Garmin System. I've always found Garmin's to be tricky
| and hard to read. Yours looks waay better
|
| 4. Love the Live ATC transcriptions
|
| Best of luck! Hoping I get to fly one of these some day.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| congrats on the PPL! we understand that 500k is a high price
| point for a lot of people (but still cheaper than a new SR20
| and we have the same performance and better fuel economy), but
| our goal is to get to a scale where our 3rd model costs <$100k.
|
| 1. the flight controller is triply redundant, so it's basically
| 3 flight controllers and any 2 can fail and the system will
| still function (though with a greater risk posture as you now
| don't know if that 3rd one is giving correct information.
| There's also an emergency reversionary mode to fly the airplane
| directly without the flight controller in the loop
|
| 2. We don't think that a direct override is necessary or even
| recommended. We're relying on the fact that we have multiple
| sensors, flight computers, and servos to make sure that the
| probability of being wrong is < 1e-7. You can't force a spin in
| the system and the system will always leave enough buffer so
| that external factors can't initiate a spin. but if one
| happens, spin recovery is automatic.
|
| 3. We are exploring this possibility. If you are genuinely
| interested, fill out the contact form on our website and we'll
| talk.
|
| 4. Thanks! we are actively debating making this a standalone
| radio product for any airplane to replace an existing comm
| radio
| smt88 wrote:
| First, Soylent names their company after a famous product made
| out of humans.
|
| Then iRobot and now an aviation company named after the most
| famous _dead_ aviator.
|
| Seems... not ideal.
| newsclues wrote:
| Could this enable a cheaper flight as a service? Short hops from
| city to city or the cottage, with cheaper pilots it could be
| lower cost.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| I hope so! That's definitely a use case we want to see happen,
| but when you start charging people for flights things get...
| complicated
| asimpletune wrote:
| These are the kinds of problems, when I was younger, I always
| imagined the tech industry would be solving. This is just so
| cool. Congratulations to you and your team and I really hope a
| future of small, safe, and affordable personal aircrafts becomes
| a reality!
| Majestic121 wrote:
| 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 ?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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.
| _jss wrote:
| Take a look at the more economical modern GA aircraft. A Cirrus
| SR22 can run at 10 gallons per hour, with a ground speed of
| 160+ mph.
|
| Yes, it's more total fuel consumption than a car (but in an
| hour covering 2x the distance, and allowing to travel more
| directly) but not at all close to turbine or turboprops. At the
| extremely cheap (accessible to more pilots) side for
| pressurized planes, fuel burn is going to be 40gph and it just
| goes up from there.
|
| There are many variables, and winds work for or against--but by
| doing good flight planning you use the winds to your advantage.
|
| There is also a lot of research on better aviation fuels (100ll
| :(((). I'm excited about that part of it, more so than the
| current electric planes (although electric self-launching
| gliders are pretty neat)
|
| MOSIAC is going to make light sport aircraft more useful, which
| will also help in this area.
|
| Tons of interesting stuff happening here!
| n_ermosh wrote:
| yep! lots of interesting stuff indeed!
|
| Our plane will be ~7 gph at cruise burning unleaded fuels and
| fly ~170mph over the ground (with no wind)
| entropie wrote:
| For my part, I find it questionable to invest in and
| develop a transport technology that consumes seven times as
| much fossil fuel as a car.
|
| You give consumption of 7 gallons in cruise mode. I don't
| want to know what is burnt during take-off or landing.
| BWStearns wrote:
| Some of the LSAs I've flown are not actually that bad
| pollution/climate wise. Slightly less green per mile than my
| mini cooper, way more green than basically any common American
| pickup truck.
| blt wrote:
| MPG-wise sure. Emissions-wise almost certainly not. Airplanes
| don't have catalytic converters, exhaust recirculation, etc.
| michaelmior wrote:
| 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| our system has a complete picture of what airports exist in the
| vicinity and can plan a path to get their fairly trivially. ATC
| communication can be done by the system automatically as a
| "broadcast only" emergency message with it's intentions and
| rely on ATC to give the airplane priority (though we'll have
| obstacle avoidance as well to avoid other traffic that ATC
| can't get out of the way). There are other systems on board
| that let ATC know that your airplane is in an emergency and
| needs to full priority.
| chinathrow wrote:
| Autoland for higher range GA planes is nothing new, but still
| impressive.
|
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/aviation/five-ways-garmin-...
| michaelmior wrote:
| Cool! Didn't know this was a thing that already exists.
| chinathrow wrote:
| Here's a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmdPZPWZKw8
| Carrok wrote:
| 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?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > 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?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The general opinion in professional flying is that the pilot
| and operator (for something like Airhart the owner would be
| both I guess?) decision making has an immense impact on safety.
| You don't typically have a two sided crash where some other
| party is at fault like in a car. The vast majority of general
| aviation accidents happen because of bad deciding making. So
| it's much more in your control.
|
| While the stats may conclude "loss of control" as the cause of
| the accident. Often that loss of control is caused by for
| example the decision to fly into instrument conditions (bad
| weather) while the aircraft or pilot is not suitably equipped,
| trained and experienced for it.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| > You don't typically have a two sided crash where some other
| party is at fault like in a car
|
| However, increasing the number of things in the air will
| likely shift that, at least a little bit. Things at
| uncontrolled fields can get busy with just a handful of
| aircraft in the pattern. Add a hot-head and the safety factor
| drops significantly.
|
| > So it's much more in your control.
|
| WX is never in your control. Just like anything in life, you
| can make all the right decisions and still die. It's just
| that aviation is less forgiving than the rest of our lives so
| (inevitable) mistakes matter more.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > Our system makes it impossible to lose control of the
| airplane
|
| Thing in aviation is, that there are a couple of outside
| factors which might leed to a loss of control: bird strike and
| mid-air collision come to mind.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| True--but those are quite rare compared to other sources of
| fatal accidents. And if it does happen, we have the full
| airplane parachute to bring the airplane safely to the ground
| chinathrow wrote:
| Yes sure, but then I would not use the word "impossible"
| related to loss of control.
| 101008 wrote:
| It sounds amazing! Let us know if you are hiring, working on this
| type of problems must be exciting! (Though I personally have no
| related experience I bet it'd be great and challenging!)
| purplerhino wrote:
| 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?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Today, airplanes are not great when it comes to their
| environmental impacts. If we are successful in our bet that we
| can grow the GA market, we'll have the resources to invest into
| greener propulsion technology. That space is currently evolving
| quickly, with hybrid-electric, hydrogen, full electric and
| others all being explored. So it's in our plans to address that
| as well.
| namdnay wrote:
| So your plan to reduce aircraft pollution is to... have more
| aircraft in the sky? Come on...
| mightyham wrote:
| Innovation doesn't come from nowhere, and demand for air
| travel is not going away. So if there is a small, personal,
| innovative platform that makes it easier to test new
| propulsion technology at scale (in contrast to large
| commercial airliners that are less innovative), it seems
| entirely possible that could help with aircraft pollution
| in the long run
| shafyy wrote:
| 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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
| burkaman wrote:
| This is like saying that you know gas power plants are
| not good for the environment, so you're hoping to get gas
| generators into more homes to generate capital and demand
| to fix the problem.
|
| If your company is successful enough for you to invest
| significant resources into "greener propulsion
| technology", what is going to happen to all the planes
| you already sold to get there? Are you going to send an
| email blast out to all your customers telling them to
| stop flying now because it's time to pivot to hydrogen
| planes?
| mightyham wrote:
| Classic false equivalence. Mature airplane engine
| technology based on alternative energy really doesn't
| exsit at the moment, while the same cannot be said for
| residential energy.
|
| The existence of the a fossil fuel based car market
| provided an impetus for electric car and battery
| technology to develop. Similarly, practical alternative
| energy flight will likely develop faster if there is a
| market for small, innovative aircrafts.
| breck wrote:
| > 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].
|
| [0] https://breckyunits.com/ifNatureIsDoingIt.html
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| So you have no incentive to vote for a carbon tax
| duped wrote:
| I didn't want to make a snarky, unabashadly NIMBY comment
| until I read this response. For every dollar you lower
| barrier to entry in aviation, I'm going to be calling my
| local government representatives to raise it back up by two
| with taxes and fees.
|
| The solutions to environmental problems aren't to grow
| markets with technology we know is bad so we have the money
| to make it less bad. The solution is to make it so expensive
| for the average consumer that it's uneconomical to do the bad
| thing at all.
| morsch wrote:
| It's not just a question of whether they generate more GHG per
| mile, it's a question of whether they generate more GHG _per
| hour_. You wouldn 't make a thousand mile trip over the weekend
| by car, but people don't bat an eye doing it by plane.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Hard to tell. I have a frequent route that takes me ~ 2 hours
| of flight (13 liters/hour, 26 liters in total) or ~ 10 hours to
| drive with around 50 liters of gas. Flying means burning 50%
| less gas. But for others there may be better driving, how to
| calculate that?
| echoangle wrote:
| What kind of plane are we talking about here? A Cessna 172 is
| cruising at about 200 km/h, so your route would be 400 km.
| You're not driving 10h for that, right?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| 560 km, almost no highways, a lot of driving through the
| mountains at 50-60 km/h. Flying is an almost straight line
| of 320 km. Ikarus C42, cruising 160 km/h.
| remolacha wrote:
| This is so epic. One of the fundamental challenges in
| mainstreaming personal aviation is the difficulty of learning to
| fly. If you can make it 10x easier, it will be a massive step
| forward. Good luck and congrats on the progress so far!
| nurple wrote:
| 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 working on a ground-up build of an
| aircraft, turboshaft engine, and an avionics suite that you can
| "drive like a car". It's an enormous undertaking, and I'm not
| sure if they'll pull it off or not.
|
| The second one is Skyryse[1] and their SkyOS. They're focusing on
| the avionics like you guys, and putting it in an R66 initially,
| though they plan fixed-wing versions as well. It is also intended
| to be a single-stick input which can handle emergency situations
| automatically; they've already demonstrated their first automatic
| manned autorotation.
|
| I do think that one of the bigger problems in aviation is cost.
| Most people can't afford an aircraft whether it flew itself or
| not. This leads to people not flying enough to become excellent
| and safe pilots. I've been working on my rotorwing addon and the
| R44 time is $750/hr!?! If you look at the cost of aviation
| indexed against median income, it has increased over 5x since the
| cessna 172 era. In cities, another big problem is hangarage,
| these have waiting lists currently in the decades and costs in
| the range of a new home.
|
| 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.
|
| I will also say, while I think that the range you're targetting
| is smart, and the mass of mostly unused airfields is staggeringly
| sad to me, there are a lot more issues than just getting there
| that need to have infrastructure that I'm not sure will be easy
| to scale.
|
| I think the reason we see gov talking about vertiports now is
| because in medium-to-large cities they are completely lost on how
| to solve the traffic issues (hence rich powerful people asking
| for them). One area that I don't think aviation looks at enough
| is relatively short-range travel. If you think of a time-
| topography map of a city, you could make a much larger city, by
| area, if you can shrink the time it takes to travel (i.e. same
| QoL if I can go 50mi in 15min vs 10).
|
| 0. https://www.hillhelicopters.com/
|
| 1. https://www.skyryse.com/
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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 <$100k.
|
| > 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.
| atlex2 wrote:
| 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/Pa
| ges/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!
| n_ermosh wrote:
| I can't speak for what will or won't happen with MOSAIC, but
| the current proposal bakes in SVO so we (and a lot of other
| companies) all hope that stays.
|
| Yes, our first product is experimental and has a 51%
| requirement, but Sling has a great factory build assist program
| that will help with that. Typically, electrical systems aren't
| included in a 51% build and Sling builders don't usually touch
| the avionics (when doing a factory assist), so we hope that
| stays true.
|
| The things that exist today are good steps in the direction,
| but we are pushing the boundary further with fly-by-wire, where
| these is very little innovation.
| sethkim wrote:
| 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.
| j45 wrote:
| 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?
| sethkim wrote:
| > 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks!
|
| Yes, it's that entire helmet-fire that makes flying hard and
| often dangerous. But what the accident data shows is that these
| kinds of problems that you mention occur, and then the pilot
| loses control of the plane. If we give them the ability to
| relax, think through their situation, and make a good decision
| because at least the airplane will continue to descend safely
| towards the runway, we make safer pilots.
| Onavo wrote:
| I just want to say I love what you are doing, you are solving
| a problem close to my heart. This is the sort of hard tech
| company that YC (and SV) should invest more in, not silly
| SaaS and ChatGPT wrappers. That being said, after fly by
| wire, would you be interested in tackling the GA engine
| economics problem? They are closely linked. If you solve
| that, the TAM for your product expands massively, and your
| exit opportunities are no longer limited to just being
| acquihired by Garmin.
|
| https://airfactsjournal.com/2022/10/the-20-hour-
| cessna-172-e...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34728405
| n_ermosh wrote:
| Yes, lowering all operating expenses by moving to more
| efficient engines and greener propulsion systems is on our
| roadmap as "the next problem"
| sethkim wrote:
| In single pilot IFR, an autopilot is often your best friend.
| It's exactly like you say - when you're busy with everything
| else you want the plane to fly itself. Isn't that problem
| already somewhat solved in a sense? Or are you referring to
| Garmin Autoland (or similar) in emergencies?
|
| By the way - I can totally see how a great GA fly-by-wire
| system is an improvement to maintain positive control of an
| aircraft at all times. I'd personally love to give it a try
| and see how it reduces pilot effort while flying.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| It's solved for the "cruise in a straight line" sense, but
| for emergencies or much more dynamic situations like a
| final approach, autopilots don't really help all that much.
| We can set up our VNAV and everything, but the second we
| get an unexpected clearance because something changed or we
| need to be diverted for a faster airplane or something, you
| need to be a real pro at using the autopilot to quickly
| adjust, or hand fly. We're offering a third solution--blend
| the two into one unified control interface.
| moffkalast wrote:
| The current systems seem to be all designed around there only
| being minimal air traffic, as it was in the past. People
| talking one on one with ATC, everything being done on a plane
| by plane basis. Can that really continue to function if traffic
| increases a few orders of magnitude?
|
| I mean hell, imagine everyone having to ask the city car
| controller for permission to back their car out of their
| driveway, state their route and get for approval to drive all
| over the place without any regard for traffic and let the
| controller make sure there's nobody in your way.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| In the 70s when a lot of this system was designed, the
| industry was selling 10x the number of GA planes it does
| today, so I imagine 10x more were flying as well. So we have
| the capability for an order of magnitude increase. We'll need
| more controllers, sure.
|
| But, you are totally right, we need to move away from voice
| based ATC to more digital systems that allow a management of
| more aircraft, and allow the GA aircraft to manage themselves
| through a "peer to peer" type ATC system, but like we have
| with our cars.
| bambax wrote:
| 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 at risk_
|
| So which is it? Do modern airplanes fly themselves or not?
| Pilots need to be able to fly. All pilots. Otherwise everyone's
| at risk.
|
| Some of the worst recent accidents happenend when under-trained
| (AF 447) or misinformed (737 MAX) pilots didn't have a clear
| mental picture of what the airplane was doing.
|
| It would seem this is solving for the wrong problem.
|
| And the whole paragraph about "sexyness", aluding to sports
| cars and iPhones, seems very wrong to me. What makes flying
| sexy is the nerdiness, the skills involved, not shiny control
| surfaces.
| bozhark wrote:
| The airline design industry seriously needs some sexy
|
| He ain't wrong there
| bigyikes wrote:
| 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.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > What makes flying sexy is the nerdiness, the skills
| involved, not shiny control surfaces.
|
| Yaesu, Kenwood, and Icom 2-meter transceivers are not more
| desirable than an iPhone, and an iPhone generates far more
| economic value. Yes, some of the "wonder of radio" is lost
| when communicating over modern cell networks.
|
| Similarly, sexy, easy to use planes and the resulting influx
| of new pilots could result in an "eternal september" for the
| community. "Flying cars" sounds amazing to most, but they do
| represent a death of what aviation was before.
|
| These objections are largely emotional... progress happens.
| windexh8er wrote:
| > 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 exciting to a person like myself
| so as to lower the barrier to entry and allow me to just start.
| In fact I don't really like the idea of this and my first
| thought was: "this seems like the plane that other pilots hate"
| simply because of a lowered barrier to entry and new breed of
| "lazy" pilots. I could be 100% wrong.
|
| The thing that turns me off from this is that when I do chart
| the path I want to learn and be able to do - the traditional
| way. And in fact I don't want to rely on software or
| inconsistent controls vs the norm. I'm all for the idea of
| making the cockpit easier to navigate and have situational
| awareness, but I'm not a fan of abstractions as much as I used
| to be.
|
| So as a non-pilot who aspires to become one in the next decade
| I agree with the parent comment in that I do really hope the
| goal is not to lower the bar to become a pilot.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The barrier to entry is not learning how to fly. That is
| the easiest thing for most people.
| TylerE wrote:
| One of the biggest barriers at this point is probably
| getting a medical. There are tons of perverse incentives
| there - getting one if you've _ever_ been prescribed
| mental health meds, for instance, can be at best a ton of
| red tape.
| echoangle wrote:
| I'm willing to bet the major barriers are money and time.
| aeternum wrote:
| Excellent points, it's really these other aspects that get
| pilots into trouble.
|
| For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to
| calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff
| performance.
|
| I think you could save more general aviation lives with a
| fairly minimal system.
|
| A gas gauge sensor that calculates whether you have enough fuel
| to get to your destination + reserve. Avionics where you input
| your personal minimums like crosswinds and weather and it warns
| you if you're about to accept a landing or flight-plan that
| violates those. Encode that data and send it to ATC via
| transponder so valuable comm bandwidth is not lost asking for
| fuel status when emergencies occur.
|
| A gear down warning. It's ridiculous that we still have so many
| belly landings and consider it a "good" to rely on training and
| human memory to prevent them. How much cheaper would complex
| airplanes be if we didn't have the crazy insurance rates due to
| this?
|
| Angle-of-attack and spin warnings. It's ridiculous that even
| $1mil+ Cirrus planes can't detect when you're too slow in a
| base to final turn and sound a warning before you spin. We have
| the technology, it's foolish to depend on a decades old stall
| horn!
|
| A system that parses all the hundreds of notams and filters out
| the important ones.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| > For example it's crazy that most pilots are still taught to
| calculate W&B using printed charts and approximate takeoff
| performance.
|
| We're taught that so we know what we're doing. Then we open
| our iPhone app (EFB or electronic flightbag) and do it there.
| In fact, part of the reason we do it there is because most of
| them phone home to their maker and log that we did it. So if
| there's an accident people can know "well they did their W&B"
|
| > the rest of the things
|
| Regulations have made aviation so expensive that it's
| ridiculous. A lot of airplanes flying today are flying with
| their same avionics from 60 years ago because upgrading is
| expensive. To get the gas calculation you mention would
| require a certified GPS (on the low end from Garmin that's
| $6,000) and an engine monitor ($5,500 from Garmin), plus
| installation costs of another few thousand dollars.
|
| Most planes have a gear down warning (ie, 3 indicator lights)
| but their original "bitching betty" is hard to hear because
| we now wear ear protection when we fly and have noise
| cancelling headphones. You probably can't even integrate that
| with a new Garmin system because they've gone full encrypted
| CANBUS to lock out integrations.
|
| re: spin warnings - not sure what to tell you there. Stall
| speed is based on weight and configuration (flaps) and 99% of
| GA planes have no idea what they weigh or if their flaps are
| deployed.
|
| But again, it's not that we can't do those things, it's just
| that they're completely cost prohibitive. Getting anything
| certified today is a flippin' nightmare and at too high of a
| cost to ever break even.
| TylerE wrote:
| Stall speed is a misnomer.
|
| Stalls occur due to exceeding the critical angle of attack
| and can happen at ANY speed.
| echoangle wrote:
| I think that was his point. To calculate if you are going
| to stall in a final, you need to know your weight and
| flap setting to see if you will exceed the critical angle
| of attack when doing the turn, exactly because the speed
| isn't constant.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Whoever is downvoting this: Stop. It's the key point
| here. Planes don't need to know their weight to produce a
| stall warning; AoA is a great metric, and GA planes not
| having an indicator or warning based on it is
| astonishing.
| echoangle wrote:
| I thought the point was predicting a stall by knowing the
| approach speed will be so low that you will stall, not
| detecting a stall just before it happens
| BWStearns wrote:
| As much as I am excited about Airhart, I would be way more
| excited for all of these items than I would be for the fly by
| wire bit. These would be more likely keep me and my wallet in
| one piece and lower the cost of aviation. Unfortunately
| they're not terrifically sexy or super lucrative problems.
| danielschonfeld wrote:
| While some base to final stall accidents are as simple as you
| make it sound a good chunk of them happen when you try to
| come OUT of the turn at an already slow speed increasing the
| angle of attack on one wing alone. The stall and subsequent
| spin catches the pilot entirely surprised unaware of why
| they're even stalling and with very little escape bandwidth.
|
| The FAA has been trying for better angle of attack
| instrumentation but what I described above isn't an easy fix
| with technology.
|
| When you talk to pilots who inadvertently stall spin and
| lived to tell the tale most of them will tell you they didn't
| even recognize that they were in a stall. That's where the
| problem starts.
| blantonl wrote:
| _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 airspace
| endorsements, and I fly in the DFW Bravo all the time.
| sethkim wrote:
| 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 private or sport license you'll be fine in the
| majority of cases. I think my comment comes more from the
| edge and corner cases that more skills and experience help
| with, not your ability to work in the system at all.
| randomnumber314 wrote:
| I live in a suburb near a county airport. I cannot fathom a
| life with Tesla owners flying over where my kids and I bbq.
| This idea is great, but people should still be licensed for the
| real safety protocols e.g. radio and not crashing into others.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| A CIWS maybe be the next standard feature on premium grills,
| ammo not included.
| j45 wrote:
| 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks!
|
| We are creating a complete "managed ownership" experience, so
| that fractional ownership is super easy too
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| No offense, but:
|
| > The only real single point of failure is the engine
|
| Sounds like a dangerous statement to make. There is multiple
| more: software, flaps/alt controls, pilot failure, etc.
|
| And also "lever sensor fusion math" - personally being software
| engineer I am not a big believer in "clever"
|
| I also wanna mention that I really like the idea, and looking
| forward to where it gets you; hopefully such skeptics like myself
| will have enough trust into what you're working on!
| worik wrote:
| This is a terrible idea. A waste of talent
|
| Worsening the systemic problems that are burning the planet
|
| We need more high density transport for the 500 mile range, not
| more individual aeroplanes- each with one passenger
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I 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 it and can probably
| easily save itself back quickly in added fuel economy and
| maintenance, not to mention any monetary value you might place on
| your safety.
|
| But then I watched as the ADS-B mandate (or whatever you want to
| call it) came into effect and GA enthusiasts started tossing
| around concentration camp metaphors. So many of the people in the
| industry are very old and just don't want anything to change.
|
| Also shocking is how expensive everything is. It's like new
| blockbuster prescription drugs, and perhaps for similar reasons
| (FAA testing is maybe very expensive?) but with no expiration
| date. At least in 25 years that new drug will be cheap, adding a
| simple GPS to your plane is still going to cost more than your
| Lexus.
|
| It feels like the real problem in this industry is lack of
| competition. There's a chicken and egg problem: planes are
| expensive because so few people buy them, but so few people buy
| them because they're expensive.
|
| Light sport aircraft were supposed to be the solution, but the
| difficulty of flying (which you're addressing) seems to have
| precluded that.
|
| All of which is to say: you've got a wide open field here and I
| hope you do well at it, aviation needs this.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| > It feels like the real problem in this industry is lack of
| competition. There's a chicken and egg problem: planes are
| expensive because so few people buy them, but so few people buy
| them because they're expensive.
|
| 100%. We're here to try to break that cycle.
|
| We definitely think aviation needs this too and I'm excited to
| connect with all the people out there who agree!
| nikitaga wrote:
| > It feels like the real problem in this industry is lack of
| competition. There's a chicken and egg problem: planes are
| expensive because so few people buy them, but so few people buy
| them because they're expensive.
|
| Lack of competition is not the root cause. It's all the
| regulations. Certifying a new GA airplane takes a lot of time,
| and costs a fortune. This translates to high development costs,
| and certification costs, and ALSO is a huge barrier to entry
| for new companies, and a significant barrier for existing
| companies to develop new modern designs.
|
| I could potentially muster enough resources to design and build
| an ultralight aircraft (that does not need any certifications),
| but a type-certified aircraft even as simple as a Cessna 152?
| Forget about it.
|
| You could argue whether those certifications are worth it for
| safety, e.g. by comparing Canada's much more generous
| ultralight aircraft max weight allowance compared to US, or
| looking at the change in accident rates in European countries
| that recently deregulated ultralight aircraft, but whether it's
| worth it or not, regulation is the single most impactful market
| force driving the cost of GA aircraft.
|
| Lack of competition is also sometimes directly enforced by the
| government. For example, several countries mandate the use of
| FLARM, a proprietary collision avoidance system for light
| aircraft. Governments gave this company a monopoly without
| requiring their protocol to be made interoperable, open source,
| and dis-encumbered from patents.
| TylerE wrote:
| One key difference I see between something like this and an
| ultralight is the danger to people on the ground. A few
| thousand pounds moving at up to 200mph or so (potentially
| 300+ after structural failure) is a lot of kinetic energy.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I do believe that's a factor (and mentioned it further down)
| but there are shockingly few companies that build planes.
|
| The regulatory cost is amortized over the number of planes
| built. If people bought planes the way they buy cars, they'd
| cost far less. Hence the chicken/egg problem I mentioned.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Congrats on the launch!
|
| > The core of what makes a good pilot isn't stick and rudder
| skills; it's good decision making and risk management.
|
| At best, this is only half of the story. What separates GA
| operations from airline operations in terms of safety is much
| more involved than that:
|
| - GA (Part 91) flight hours are not recorded so safety data can
| only be estimated
|
| - Part 91 incidents follow much less scrutiny than part 121 or
| part 135 incidents
|
| - Part 91 lacks consistent checklists/flows and rigorous training
| for many particular aircraft
|
| - Passenger airlines in the US (Part 121) have -
| pilots that go through rigorous training and check rides on a
| schedule - chief pilots that oversee operations
| - chief pilots that continuously refine procedures -
| data collection and monitoring for many variables of flight
| eg: exceeding an accepted bank angle while under manual flight
| control - ... and so much more that part 91 lacks
|
| In practically every example so far in aviation, adding
| automation makes things harder, not easier. In general, the more
| complex the automation, the harder it is to understand and
| safeguard against failure.
|
| One safety factor in a lot of small GA planes is that pilots can
| often lose all power (engine, electrical, etc) and still fly and
| land their aircraft. Fly by wire removes that ability. Not being
| able to competently fly the plane coordinated also removes that
| ability.
|
| The question I think you are not addressing is: there has been a
| _lot_ of effort to do exactly what you are doing. What sets your
| approach apart from those efforts?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| thanks!
|
| > In practically every example so far in aviation, adding
| automation makes things harder, not easier.
|
| While somewhat unsatisfying as an answer, I think the industry
| has done it wrong, exactly because the result was harder, not
| easier. the UI/UX of modern glass cockpits is incredibly
| unintuitive and difficult to use. It's extremely opaque as to
| what the system's actually doing, if much. And no one has truly
| tackled the core problem of stopping our less trained, less
| rigorous part 91 pilots from losing control of their airplanes.
|
| We definitely recognize that this creates a new failure mode.
| However, we're address those failure modes with redundant
| systems and following the same engineering standards as
| commercial aircraft. Many of them fly pure fly-by-wire and rely
| on the probably of a total electrical failure to be extremely
| low. We are doing the same.
|
| If everything really does fail, there's the full airframe
| parachute to bring the airplane to the ground as a final layer
| of safety
| imoverclocked wrote:
| > the UI/UX of modern glass cockpits is incredibly
| unintuitive and difficult to use
|
| Be careful here :)
|
| The current UI/UX is the best that design had to offer ... at
| one point. That design is then solidified in concrete; It was
| once considered to be intuitive but the world's design of
| interfaces always moves on. Touch/swipe based UX drives many
| design decisions today but those practices can fall over in
| turbulent situations. That is to say, the "intuition" is not
| an innate factor of the interface itself. Rather, it's
| culturally informed.
|
| Any UX design you create will likely seem unintuitive to
| either the previous or to the next generation. Either way,
| current pilots will likely just view it as something that
| needs training to adopt. I don't envy your task of making a
| new UI that is modern and timeless! It will be fun to see
| what you come up with though. :)
| namdnay wrote:
| > 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
| bavell wrote:
| Better than adtech or fintech
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Private Pilot here (so obviously biased.)
|
| This is an excellent question to ask.
|
| There are good reasons to fly. Some places in the US are only
| accessible through flight (I'm looking at you, Alaska.) Some
| places require insane amounts of time to commute/manage because
| of a lack of infrastructure. Some common low-flight hour jobs
| (eg: pipeline monitoring) are only feasible through flight.
|
| There are currently good reasons that most people don't fly.
| They usually come down to time, money and training (which is
| time, money and ability.) There is also significant risk
| (think: along the risk level of riding a motorcycle)
|
| I guarantee that flying will not get so safe and cheap that the
| average Joe will just start hopping in a plane for a hamburger
| every other day.
|
| I personally think the things we should be focusing on are
| making much more efficient GA aircraft. Also, getting rid of
| 100LL and gasoline would be nice. It's really hard to do
| though.
|
| As for the smartest and most-privileged people, there are much
| worse things to devote time to as an engineer. There are also a
| lot of engineers these days. Don't despair too much :)
| ein0p wrote:
| Totally, we should all just be creating shareholder value
| cradle to grave, never go anywhere, and eat ze bugs.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| No. What we should be doing is encouraging smart, motivated
| people to address what they see as problems that they can make
| actual progress towards solving. As a natural consequence, many
| of those efforts will be things you find worthwhile and many
| others you won't.
|
| If you think there's a problem more worthwhile of their
| efforts, why don't _you_ dedicate _your_ life to it?
| namdnay wrote:
| It's not a question of "worthwhile", I'm not judging them for
| writing mobile minigames or whatever, it's a question of
| pulling in the exact opposite direction to where we should be
| going. What's the point of having people dedicating their
| lives to getting us out of this pickle, when others are
| saying "you know what we need more of? Private air flights"
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Came here to say this. Yes. I am sad that YC would even
| consider this.
| qzw wrote:
| How else will people be able to go on independent aerial
| excursions to watch the ice sheets melt in real time?
|
| Kidding aside, we're really going to name the company using a
| homophone of the most famous missing pilot in history?
| dsugarman wrote:
| you don't really clarify why people should stop flying, I'll
| assume it's due to global warming? Personally, I think this is
| a fantastic idea, to simplify the user experience of flying to
| make it accessible sounds incredible. Private jets are the
| ultimate luxury in life that so few have access to today. If it
| is global warming related, then I think that problem needs to
| be solved as well, but it's somewhat separate. EVs have become
| a reality, and there needs to be a lot more work done to solve
| global warming, not a reason to stop all progress.
| namdnay wrote:
| > I think that problem needs to be solved as well, but it's
| somewhat separate
|
| How is "we want to get more people to fly private planes" a
| separate issue from global warming? It's literally pouring
| oil on the wildfire
| hsolatges wrote:
| That ain't do; please consider to just https://stay-
| grounded.org/
| kiechu wrote:
| Genocide? Maybe they should rather work on open source man pads
| for the last generation crowd to shoot down the planes.
| two-sandwich wrote:
| I agree. There are many more important issues that could be
| solved with this person's expertise and willingness to apply
| themselves. Unfortunately, you can only lead a horse to water.
|
| The vastness of areas which could be studied, advanced, or
| challenged lends itself well to human curiosity. I feel it
| would be unwise and unreasonable to stop people from exploring
| their area of interest.
|
| Consider all the academic papers written with 0 citations. Did
| they waste their time? Should they have picked from a
| centralised pool of "most important" issues? The breadth-first
| search approach benefits the scientific community long term,
| I'd imagine.
|
| Do you work tirelessly to prevent climate change as your day
| job? If not, why?
| namdnay wrote:
| > Do you work tirelessly to prevent climate change as your
| day job? If not, why?
|
| Guilty as charged, we could all do more. But I don't actively
| work to increase pollution, which is what this company seems
| to be doing
| lovecg wrote:
| 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.
| Tepix wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. It's depressing really. Even if i had an
| idea for a novel airplane that leads to more people flying, i
| would immediately conclude that it's not a good idea to chase
| after because our planet needs less CO2 emissions, not more.
| ryandrake wrote:
| As 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, or will you be
| the certified manufacturer? If it's the latter, how do you plan
| to navigate the FAA? I think a lot of aspirational "GA
| innovators" ultimately die climbing the regulatory hill.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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.
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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?
| rushingcreek wrote:
| It was awesome meeting you guys way back in 2022 during our YC
| batch. I've always loved this idea and I'm so stoked that you've
| made it a reality. Would love to try it out :)
| bozhark wrote:
| MEMS gyro for fly-by-wire airplane using " clever sensor fusion
| math" does not sound reassuring
|
| At $500,000 why not use the laser-ring gyros that's hardly cost
| prohibitive
| pjkundert wrote:
| One expensive laser-ring gyro, or 3+ independent MEMS gyros?
|
| I'll take the multiple independent gyros, thanks.
| makestuff wrote:
| > Unlike a traditional airplane, it becomes impossible to command
| the airplane into a stall, a spin, unsafe attitudes, or other bad
| states.
|
| Interesting product and definitely different from most YC
| startups we see!
|
| However, I am curious how the above will be impossible. Since it
| is fly-by-wire it seems like there is always a chance your
| sensor/servo fails and causes bad input. Or a software defect
| causes bad input with no manual overrides to just fly the
| airplane.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| redundancy in sensors, computers, and actuators reduces the
| probably of a system failure due to random errors/failures and
| dissimilar computer systems help reduce the probability of a
| common mode software bug causing a failure.
| spaceywilly wrote:
| I worked for a company doing something similar and they used
| servos that were strong enough to control the plane, but no so
| strong that the safety pilot couldn't overpower them if needed.
| I think it's the same for any autopilot really. And there's
| always a big "disconnect autopilot" button in case it goes
| haywire.
|
| I think they will need to consider that situation though, if
| the autopilot does fail the pilot would still need to have
| enough skills to land the plane. Even ATP pilots have this
| issue where they over rely on automation too much and lose
| their ability to land manually in an emergency situation.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| How much of GA accidents are caused by the high prices of
| training? Like, there are minimum hour requirements to get a
| license and then minimum yearly hours for proficiency but I can
| see the high cost of training and flying to cause pilots to just
| do the bare minimum.
|
| My wish would be that prices go down and we'd see more pilots
| training more often and becoming better as a result.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| We want to see prices go down too. That will only happen if
| more people want to fly airplanes and the market grows. So, we
| are trying to make it more accessible to people who wouldn't
| otherwise want to fly.
| _djo_ wrote:
| Smart approach partnering with an established light aircraft
| manufacturer with a good safety rating (South Africa's Sling
| Aircraft) rather than trying to reinvent the wheel on the base
| platform. That gives me more faith in the rest of the engineering
| decisions made on this project.
|
| Wishing you all the best! Anything that improves the safety of
| flying GA aircraft like this is a good thing.
| 9dev wrote:
| I understand the excitement on a technical level, and your plan
| sure sounds neat; and I definitely have a lot of respect on a
| personal level.
|
| On the other hand, humanity is rolling head-first into a climate
| crisis, won't stop emitting way too much CO2, and people
| generally refuse to adapt their lifestyle even a modicum in face
| of an exponentially growing list of problems.
|
| Do we _really_ need even more personal aviation in the situation
| we're currently facing? Is that what talented engineers should
| work on, are personal planes in addition to personal cars really
| what people should be buying?
| ctoth wrote:
| > Do we really need even more personal aviation in the
| situation we're currently facing?
|
| Yes? What's to stop them from using the fly-by-wire tech on a
| battery-powered, solar-powered, or hydrogen-powered airplane as
| they become viable? What in particular does the motive power
| for the prototype have to do with global warming?
|
| Is flying inherently bad even if carbon-free? I certainly don't
| think so!
|
| Mad props to the engineers behind this project. We need more
| innovation going in more interesting and varied directions, and
| less pooh-poohing. Maybe you can be the one who works on the
| hydrogen engine!
| light_triad wrote:
| As someone interested in learning to fly this is very cool.
| Congrats on the launch!
|
| > an aviation grade GPS can cost upwards of $10k, but it's the
| same hardware as in a $20 consumer grade GPS
|
| I think the cost of aviation hardware might be much higher
| because of issues with precision, insurance, updates, redundancy
| and the very small volumes compared to consumer volumes. Is there
| a way to certify consumer hardware for aviation applications or
| are there essentially monopolies and regulatory capture that
| limit cheaper alternatives from entering the market?
| dzonga wrote:
| I used to fly the same type of plane like a decade or so ago.
|
| very fun plane, easily carried away by the wind. for people that
| are not pilots surely sling will cause a lot of panic.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > A lot of people will likely wonder: "isn't removing stick and
| rudder skills going to make worse pilots"? Short answer: no. The
| core of what makes a good pilot isn't stick and rudder skills;
| it's good decision making and risk management.
|
| I find it's easiest to just ignore this mindset. These are the
| people who claim that a manual transmission is "real" driving.
| (Unlike the people who enjoy driving stick and aren't snobs about
| it.) The market will favor you and everyone else will see those
| people as snobs.
| fdeth wrote:
| Another Icon A5 then, but non-amphibious and FBW?
| hank808 wrote:
| Is this statement accurate? "Airhart Assist provides a
| combination of (car like) cruise control as well as automatic
| rudder control." If correct, does it do anything else?
| fdeth wrote:
| Kudos on not going with a Garmin for the software and glass
| cockpit. Super ballsy.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > 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.
| n_ermosh wrote:
| 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)
| spaceywilly wrote:
| You will also need to account for the time to pre-flight the
| plane, and fuel it up, possibly wait on the taxiway, and
| possibly divert around weather (including to an entirely
| different airport if necessary).
| jbaviat wrote:
| > There's a plethora of other problems that make flying
| cumbersome
|
| How about CO2 emissions?
| joshe wrote:
| Very excited about this. I've been flying curious for years, but
| haven't actually done it. Some of the cons that have held me
| back...
|
| A few of the places I'd want to travel to have consistently bad
| crosswinds. Crabbing looks complex and you have to get 5 things
| right or you die. For the non flyers check this out
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca0V5q4XSb8 and
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ri0D_0DdIU and how to do the
| maneuver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92K8s-vppDI&t=3s
|
| It greatly limits your available flying days if you think "hey
| 30mph crosswinds are super sketchy, I don't want to fly today."
| So that means delayed trips or delayed returns. Hard to plan
| around.
|
| I realize this isn't part of the current iteration and requires
| lots of regulatory hoops... But in future with automation, it
| would be amazing to know you could fly in clouds or evenings
| easily with only a basic private pilot's license.
|
| Aviation self driving is so much older and reliable than
| automotive self driving, it's frustrating that it isn't generally
| available. It's awesome that you are working to bring it to low
| cost flying, thanks for working on this and congratulations on
| the launch!
|
| I'll add that I think the "easy to drive as a boat or car" size
| of the market is easily 10x the existing private pilot market.
| (And the easy as a car and the price of a pickup truck size of
| the market is probably 1000x the current market). So I think you
| are on to something big.
| TylerE wrote:
| You're not landing this thing in a 30mph crosswind in something
| this small, no matter how fancy the control logic. You'd be too
| skewed to land safely. 30mph is pushing is for some airliners.
| The aircraft this is built on is only certified for a 15kt
| cross.
|
| The bigger problem is that low level winds that strong are
| often associated with bad weather...which again doesn't mix
| well with small planes.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Sport pilot with ~10 years of experience and a few hundred hours:
| I would never fly such a plane. Not only it does not solve any
| real problems I have with flying planes, but I think it is the
| most insecure place to be when (not if) the s hits the f.
|
| Biggest 2 problems I see with flying these days are engines and
| overall cost. Archaic engines with mixture adjustment are a thing
| that needs to go away (fuel injection anyone? 2024 is calling)
| and the ginormous cost of planes needs to change in order to
| sell. There is also the problem of decent avionics costing way
| too much, but this is included in the second main problem - it is
| 20 times cheaper to fly with an iPad than a decent glass cockpit,
| while the reliability can easily be compensating by having 2
| iPads onboard, even a third as a backup.
| timfsu wrote:
| Congrats! I was an angel investor in a regional transit airline
| (https://www.surfair.com/) - there are a lot of wonderful places
| out there especially in the US that folks aren't traveling to
| because of logistics. As someone with a family as well, I'd love
| to learn to fly if it could be made safer and easier. Hoping you
| guys succeed!
| mercurywells wrote:
| In your video, what flight simulator engine are you using? Is it
| something you created or is it something like Xplane or MSFS?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| The core flight simulator is x-plane with some of our own stuff
| on top
| Zak wrote:
| This reminds me of programming languages designed with an
| English-like syntax in the hope that people would be able to
| develop software without learning to code. It also reminds me a
| bit of the Ercoupe, an airplane designed in 1937 with the
| ailerons and rudders mechanically coupled so that pilots would
| have fewer controls to operate and reduced ability to put the
| airplane into uncoordinated flight.
|
| Neither approach has remained popular into the modern era. Of
| course it also reminds me of Airbus, which has a similarly
| simplified fly-by-wire control system that abstracts away the
| details of controlling the aircraft under normal conditions.
| Airbus promised that system, introduced on the A320 would make
| planes uncrashable, which pilots promptly disproved on that
| aircraft's first passenger flight[0].
|
| Helping people get pilot's licenses without learning to fly
| coordinated turns does not strike me as particularly useful, but
| there is no doubt room for improved avionics and planning
| software.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296Q
| nick4981716 wrote:
| Would be great if you can make CFIT difficult/impossible to
| accomplish by default as well.
| muhaaa wrote:
| I love the idea & I love to fly but building and operating air
| planes is a shitty business.
|
| Technology wise we could have fly by wire fully automated planes,
| vtol, and helicopters easily (at least in limited areas first).
| The problem is not tech it's regulation, insurance, backwards
| compatibility and scale.
|
| Sadly scale is the killer. You would need a Toyota for airplanes
| but your market to sell is tiny. You just cannot spread your dev
| costs over huge volumes of planes. I have seen aero dynamic
| designs which are comparable to fuel efficient cars but travel at
| 200mph. But it's very expensive and risky to build a company
| around it.
|
| What you might be able to break into is Garmins market but hard!
| Maybe new markets like electric planes or vtol.
|
| I hope I am wrong and you are right. I wish you guys succeed bc
| GA aviation is stuck in 1970s.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Nitpick: "Manual lever" not level.
| robomartin wrote:
| I am sometimes flabbergasted by some of the things YC will fund.
| This is one of them.
|
| I don't know where to start, other than to say I would never make
| some of these assertions in public. Doesn't YC provide legal
| support to the startups it funds?
|
| For example:
|
| "Unlike a traditional airplane, it becomes impossible to command
| the airplane into a stall, a spin, unsafe attitudes, or other bad
| states."
|
| This is categorically and absolutely false and wrong. There is no
| such thing as "impossible". Do not ever say things like that or
| you will find your own words used as weapons against you in the
| inevitable court case when something does go wrong. Too late now,
| it's already out there.
|
| Attorney: Sir, your plane stalled and became uncontrollable. The
| pilot had no controls because you removed pedals and any
| industry-proven direct control mechanisms. Your company asserted
| this failure mode was impossible, yet, it happened. Exhibit A, in
| your own words.
|
| "we can use MEMS gyroscopes that cost <$100 instead of laser-ring
| gyros that cost $1000 if not $10k"
|
| Attorney: Sir, your aircraft killed all four of its passengers,
| destroyed three homes, killed an additional three people on the
| ground --two of them children-- and sent half a dozen others to
| the hospital in critical condition. Why did you use cheap sensors
| instead of industry-standard, battle-tested, fully-vetted,
| qualified, susceptibility-tested hardware?
|
| "We've developed our own control surface actuators"
|
| Attorney (following-up to the previous question): Control
| surfaces failed to actuate controls as required. You used cheap
| self-designed actuation hardware that did not have extensive
| engineering design, testing and qualification pedigree as
| industry-standard products...to save money...
|
| "own radios and GPS hardware (an aviation grade GPS can cost
| upwards of $10k, but it's the same hardware as in a $20 consumer
| grade GPS)"
|
| Attorney: I repeat the question. Your cheap $20 GPS just killed
| half a dozen people. How could you justify placing such little
| value on human life?
|
| "The only real single point of failure is the engine."
|
| False! A triple-redundant design, will, at best, mitigate a
| single failure and ZERO in the case of common-mode failures.
| Triple modular redundancy requires, at a minimum: Triple
| redundant power, triple sensing, triple compute, triple actuation
| and no common-mode failure mechanisms. Once a triple-redundant
| system experiences a single failure, it turns into a system with
| two possible sources of truth, which means it is impossible to
| know who might be right.
|
| My free advice is to stop talking and get out of this business
| before you kill people. Seriously. You are not at SpaceX with
| hundred-billion-dollar budgets launching craft that fly so far
| away from population centers that they could explode and nobody
| gets hurt. Before Crew Dragon flew for the first time billions of
| dollars went into evolving the systems that made it possible.
|
| Then again, what do I know? I could be wrong.
| rkagerer wrote:
| _...three flight controllers ... two different sets of sensors
| ... independently compute the desired actions to take, and vote
| on what to do. Each ... has its own power source, backup battery,
| networking hardware, and set of critical sensors._
|
| You didn't mention activators. Do all the redundant components
| you mentioned connect to a single voting system, and single set
| of actuators? How do you avoid your voting system and actuators
| being another single point of failure?
|
| Or does each redundant system have it's own set of actuators, and
| enough of them to tolerate failure of one set? (e.g. three sets
| sized such that two working ones can overpower one erroneous one)
| n_ermosh wrote:
| yes I should have mentioned actuators as well. the actuators
| are internally redundant in terms of computation and power and
| will fail silent and not move if they disagree. Then, each
| control axis has 2 sets of these servos.
|
| I say axis, rather than control surface, because for something
| like ailerons, we can have one go neutral in a fault case and
| the aileron on the other wing still operates with some reduced
| control authority. So even though each aileron has one servo,
| the roll axis has 2 and it maintains redundancy
| mhb wrote:
| In the demo, on what is the system's assumption that you want to
| land based?
| n_ermosh wrote:
| a combination of altitude, commanded descent rate, and
| commanded airspeed transition the control system from flight to
| landing, flare and touch down, and into ground control mode.
| seeekr wrote:
| super cool, and if this works you'll bring a big part of what we
| dreamed of as "the future" into the present!
| fzxu22 wrote:
| Getting cheaper and better planes is good. But this is not a
| correct way of solving traffic problems in US. We need high-speed
| railroad network, not one airplane per household.
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