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Comment by _s

Sounds a lot like the Airbus's "normal law" flying!

My $0.02 - I'm a CPL ME/IR who gets wet a lot, and is upside down half the time. Background is Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, been in software since 2007.

Want to shake up GA?

  - 150kt Cruise, 4h endurance  
  - 400kg "useful" load for pax/luggage @ 4h endurance / batteries  
  - 3-axis AP that'll do coupled approaches + autoland  
  - BRS, FIKI, Oxy/Pressurized  
  - $100k fly away
The Cirrus SR20 is the closest we have to this, at 6-7x the cost. You can kit build a Sling or RV10, which will get you what you want at 3-4x the cost plus 2-3 years of time.

Garmin, Rotax, Vans etc ... the avionics, materials, plans and tech already exists. It's needing a few hundred million dollars to set it up to be produced at scale so the $100k avionics package can be had for $10k. The $100k equivalent Rotax or Lycoming can be had for $10k. Maybe it's electric vs avgas.

Foreflight, Garmin Pilot etc do so much of the planning - and integrate well with the "Connext" or Dynon etc already. They've like racked up millions of hours now, I know I've thrown in a few hundred hours worth of feedback to them.

Your closest competitor is Cirrus who are already very successful using off the shelf components customized (eg Perspective+ vs 1000Nxi) to their liking, and are running a pretty substantial wait list for their planes. Their training is top notch, customer service is excellent and have thousands of airframes now flying over the past 20+ years.

I'm glad you guys trying to shake up this space, and I'd like more than anything to be proven wrong - I genuinely hope there's enough runway and capital to setup manufacturing to bring these component prices down and actually deliver a plane at a comparable cost to a car.

parent _s 2 years ago

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