Airhart Aeronautics recently posted an essay on Hacker News about its “modern personal airplane.”
Founders Nikita Ermoshkin and Brendan Quinn met and become friends while attending Cornell University where they “built autonomous (UAS) aircraft together.” Nikita went on to become an avionics engineers at SpaceX while Brendan became a software engineer at Apple.
Nikita became inspired to improve “small airplane technology” when he 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,” wrote Nikita in his Hacker News submission.
His response to his experience from learning to fly…
“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.”
I’ve often wondered how an airplane would be designed if Orville and Wilbur had started their efforts today.
Company founders call the system Airhart Assist — and they’ve installed it in a Sling.
Nikita’s essay attempts to answer one of the questions I was thinking…
“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.”
Hmm…
When I think back to some of my flight experiences, I can see some of the benefits of a system like Airhart Assist.
Many years ago on a long cross-country flight with my wife and two young children I failed to lean the fuel/air mixture during a long and distraction-filled climb to altitude. As the engine let it be known it was having a problem, my non-pilot wife looked to me for reassurance that we would be safe while crossing the remote Bitterroot Mountains of Montana.
We were.
A system like Airhart Assist would’ve been helpful in that situation.
And yet, I’ve had multiple discussions with pilots who much prefer to manually manipulate the propeller and mixture controls of an aircraft.
At any rate I enjoyed Nikita’s essay. So have Hacker News readers. The essay was submitted on Aug. 5, 2024, and as of Aug. 7 had more than 600 comments.
Commenter sethkim 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.
“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.”
Meanwhile, epolanski believes “It’s insane the length we go as humans (in the US at least) to not invest in the easiest, most cost-effective and environmentally friendly mode of transportation: Trains.”
And mattmaroon said, “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.”
There is a spirited back-and-forth discussion on the Airhart post. It is rather fun to read through.
And, if you are wondering: “The full price of the Airhart Sling pre-tax is $500,000 with availability predicted for January of 2026. This purchase secures a production slot in the limited first manufacture of the aircraft,” as noted on the Airhart website.
I wish Nikita, Brendan, and their small team luck.
Nikita Ermoshkin shame on you. You are a certified pilot and you don’t believe in stick and rudder time? Piss poor decision making on the ground leads to most GA accidents. One real piss poor decision I can think of is not getting adequate stick and rudder time. If a pilot is overwhelmed by flying and decisions then that pilot already made the bad decision to fly period. I hope you save plenty for attorneys fees.
The reason you get pushback from this kind of technology is not becsuse we dont like prgress or tech but rather because it takes away the art of being a pilot. Most of us that became pilots like the challenge of managing and mastering the aircraft and developing stick and rudder skills. The reward was in the challenge of all this. If suddenly anyone off the street can “fly” a plane with minimal training, the appeal is lost (for me anyway). You’re not a pilot if automation is doing all the work anymore the same way you’re not a racecar driver sitting in a car on autopilot doing record laps. You’re just a passenger and to a pilot, there is nothing exciting about that. Further, any aircraft with FADEC has multiple ecus, batteries and backups to those systems. That adds weight, complexity for servicing (which adds to running costs) and more points of failure that do fail. Not to mention FADEC has been around a while too in GA.
People that want this are the same people who want self-driving cars. They don’t want to be pilots, they just want to be passengers.
I look forward to affordable advances. Lead free fuel comes to mind. And we’re probably there with the fuel, but can’t get it to market. Heck even electronic ignition could be more main stream if the marketability wasn’t still stumbling (no pun intended).
As for the current subject though, cool as it sounds…well, I just keep thinking about Miami Mike’s obsolete iWatch; as well as my two old iPads that won’t run Foreflight any longer.
If Airhart will identify, and work up from, the weakest links in their chain, make it bullet proof, and airworthy-worth-i-able for 30, 40, 50 years they might be on to something. Even at half a mil.
Nice looking airplane. So you can sneak into that one for half $1 million? Why not a much simpler airplane for about $ 200,000. How many will they really sell a $500,000 or is that just me being a little on the cheap side?
I’m all for progress. Around 1991 I installed one of the first GPS navigators (Apollo Flybuddy) in my 1947 Bonanza. I was ridiculed by the local north Las Vegas avionics shop, saying I should put in a LORAN unit. I knew better as I’d been using GPS in my day job flying the F16. GPS has absolutely changed aviation and almost every industry. But, what aviation needs is more elegant designs of engines (Deltahawk ising jet fuel and a single power lever is leading the way), simpler fuel systems (both wing fuel tanks should feed into a common feeder tank and then into the engine so there is no more switching of tanks) and far better climb/cruise performance, especially in light twin aircraft. The typical C172 is so underpowered as to be dangerous. I have a lot of fly by wire time in fighters, but there were some serious lessons learned along the way in design. Word of advice. Get people on you team with some SERIOUS aviation and safety credentials, not just techies.
Certainly opens the door wider for those who in the face of emergency will cover their eyes and start screaming.
Spam in a can. Anyone got a stick of Beeman’s they can loan me?
The Airhart Assist folks should join the FAA AI Safety program;
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/commercial-aerospace/article/55133130/faa-lays-out-roadmap-for-ai-safety-in-aircraft?utm_term=9C3C870E-9080-4A20-830A-BF9FB9543554&lrh=cdfe7242ca1adf531c0c7609fe0fcbf0c4768be01a55db3e0ecf969a78ed680f&utm_campaign=A80DF615-7E38-48E7-9993-743FEC2E10FC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=83A7141A-4A3B-4F60-AE25-F864365E0447&utm_source=SmartBrief
A much more useful system would link to a 3-axis auto pilot and provide ‘envelope protection’, including AOA, over-banking, maybe also airspeed, which would require some form of auto-throttle.
That alone would ‘simplify’ flying an aircraft and somewhat protect the pilot from a ‘loss of control’ situation.
Maybe also a forward looking vision system to keep an aircraft on the centerline during landing and takeoff. There are auto ‘driving assist’ systems that alert and correct if a driver veers from the lane. So this technology could be adapted to aircraft.
We don’t need a replacement flight control system, just some system to limit what the pilot might do incorrectly.
Please put the true joy of flying back into . Glass panels today are killing that .
One of the themes in this and many other threads on GAN is the idea that making flying easier and simpler would somehow be an insult to the machoness of being a pilot. But we also know 80% of all GA accidents (including fatal ones) are caused by pilot error. The conclusion is obvious – if we can implement technology that lowers pilot workload, reminds pilots to do important things they forgot, or even prevents the pilot from putting the airplane in a dangerous position (ESP), we can save the lives of pilots and of their passengers, who I suspect are not willing to die to confirm what a bold pilot they flew with. I don’t know if this particular system will succeed but I can guarantee it is moving the needle in the right direction to enhance GA safety.
Some really smart and well resourced folks have been trying to build cars for people that don’t drive. How well has all that worked out???
This effort is misplaced and sure to fail. Leave flying to folks that can obtain a PPL (or better), and the rest can drive or take the bus. Not all things are meant for all people..
Actually that has worked out just fine here in central Arizona, where we have Waymo autonomous ride-hailing service that routinely carries paying customers all over Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs. We call that progress.
If you are a new generation pilot, meaning all glass panels & auto this & that. And God forbid a joy stick keyboard guy. Please I beg you GO out and fly using the 3 main instruments only once in a while. Get real Hands on seat or your pants feel for the aircraft. Please put the Pure Joy of flight back into the pilot.
This is the same idea as cars moving from a stick shift to an automatic transmission.
With the 3 computers taking input from the pilot, is more like a car with the steering, brakes and throttle all connected to some computers, and they will determine the acceleration, braking and steering, via some servo motors.
A number of cars have the throttle electrically connected to the engine computer, and it operates the throttle body .!
You’re far less likely to eat a sandwich, while texting someone when you’re driving stick. Letting the masses do most things is probably dangerous.
Min of three of every thing, odd one out.Even this is not fool proof as recently F16 crash was two faulty computers kicked out the good one.
All I can say to you on this mission is Godspeed. I flew my last time in 1981 and concluded. The outdated technology was a simple disaster waiting to happen what you Are doing is in line with the latest science from human and organizational performance of which I am a student… You are improving the system and removing latent Precursors. With all due respect to all the naysayers… You’re wrong. It’s time to automate General aviation and bring the masses to the skies safely by creating a safer system to fly. Let’s leave our Steam gauges in the dust.
I am Bill Sims and I approve this message
🙂 As it will save many lives and advance our civilization
Bill Sims [email protected] http://www.beyondzeroinjuries.com
Well said!
Suleyman,
Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on this.
I would be curious to know if some of your electronics will be adaptable to older aircraft. I’m quite content with cables and pulleys for flight controls, but I do agree that pilot workload does need to be decreased, often significantly.
A lot of modern avionics are so complex that nowadays the usual flight attitude seems to be head down and locked, a/k/a “The Church of the Followers of the Magenta Line”. This is what is dangerous, not information per se, but information overload, and especially information we don’t need to conduct the flight safely.
I think what you’re doing is analogous to having automatic transmissions in cars instead of having to shift gears manually. I still like to shift gears myself, but in today’s traffic, the automatic reduces my workload so I can concentrate avoiding maniac drivers more. Shifting gears is fun, but can be a distraction. (I guess I’ve been assimilated – I currently don’t own a manual transmission car. Sigh.)
On designing for long-term support, my thoughts would be to use as many standard, generic components as possible. Anything custom, displays, logic chips, etc., will sooner or later become unavailable. Several friends of mine worked on the Shuttle program, they relate having to troll eBay for some of the obsolete, NLA electronic components in the Space Shuttles! (If that isn’t scary, I don’t know what is.)
If you use what the military calls LRU’s (line replaceable units), when one component becomes obsolete/unavailable/unrepairable, they just swap in another one. That may give a reasonably priced upgrade path. For instance when the FCC/FAA/EASA/ITU decides we don’t have enough frequencies (again), just swap out the frequency synthesizer module in the radio, not the entire radio.
Hopefully, your system is modular (and redundant) so a failure in one component doesn’t necessarily ground the airplane.
One issue everyone in GA is dealing with is that we just don’t make enough airplanes to get the per-unit cost down to reasonable levels. The auto industry makes more cars in a week than all the airplanes made in forever, so cars are comparatively cheap. The cost of the first prototype of anything is absurd, the next ten are down to merely ridiculous, but after 100 or so, the cost per unit is much more reasonable. (Reference on request – from an aircraft design and engineering book in my library).
Hopefully, you’ll be able to get enough units “in the field” so you can amortize your development and prototype costs. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on your behalf.
Best Regards,
M/M
I’ve flown the F-16 and the Airbus A320, both aircraft with Fly-By-Wire technology. I can only say that this technology significantly lowers pilot workload, leaving pilots with more mental room for navigation, spatial orientation and other tasks. I would love to see this development come into GA. I encourage Airhart Aironautics.
Exactly!!!!!
At 500+ kts, I would expect that the autopilot and the flight director is flying the aircraft. So, does the pilot then watch so that the automation doesn’t screw up ?
Us GA guys are flying at 100 – 180 kts, and things happen a lot more slowly . Even without an autopilot my old Cessna hold a course nicely, so I get to watch the ground go by slowly….
Why would I need 3 computers driving a bunch of servos , probably needing an autopilot and GPS flight director to tell the computers where to fly. ?
When I was young I imagined that pilots would be lovers of technology and supportive of efforts to advance aviation. Then I subscribed to General Aviation News and discovered how wrong I was! In fact, it is populated by luddites who hate and fear any attempt to advance general aviation technology. What a contrast to the world of Information Technology (my other career) where innovation is celebrated and encouraged and where ideas that don’t work out are treated as learning experiences not as excuses to remain stagnant. If the Information Technology world were run by the people who comment on these articles we would still be computing with slide rules and abacuses. Probably this particular technology won’t make it into the air but the lessons learned in developing it will contribute to other advances, which is how technological advancement is supposed to work.
There is no comparison between electronics hardware and software, and small general aviation aircraft. [ I’m an electrical engineer as well as a pilot ].
Advanced electronics don’t reduce the reliability of a computer system.
But, adding complexity to an aircraft adds more parts and systems that can fail.
Aircraft systems are designed to be the highly reliable. Mechanical cable and pulley control systems are simple , easily inspected and are highly reliable. Even if a pulley fails, it is caged, so that the cable continues to operate the control surface.
Multiple computers getting inputs from a pilot, and then sending electrical signals to servo motors and then feeding back the position, are certainly needed in a 500,000 pound commercial airliner where control forces are 100 x what a pilot can exert.
But our 2,000 – 4,000 pound aircraft control forces are easily handled by the pilot.
Autonomous aircraft have a place in the aviation system, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to put people in them.?
BWT, I do still use a circular slide rule….it never needs batteries.
Whatever you leave out cannot go wrong. Fully autopilot flying has created airline pilots with deficient manual flying skills causing crashes. For GA there is a place for automated engine controls for mixture, spark advance, and freeze protection so long as there is a limp home mode if automation fails. Useful pilot aids could also include hazard warnings and a control input limiter when speed exceeds the max safe maneuvering speed.
FADEC is a wonderful thing, but not necessarily new technology. Incorporating it into more airframes is a great idea. I hope that works. However, I fail to see the benefit of fly-by-wire for simple GA aircraft. It is added complexity in a price-sensitive market. There are some interesting possibilities to reimagine the ergonomics of the typical GA cabin using fly-by-wire, but I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. And while I know that prototypes and mockups are not representative of a finished product, the photo at the top of the article looks like some tablets shoved in a ledge with much of the screen obscured. I would also not count carpet-wrapped panels as very modern next to this technology, but alas, this may be a limitation of the airframe the company procured vs. the end product goal. One can hope.
I wish this team all the best in their endeavors.
And it is already priced out of the market.
When we say that stick and rudder skills don’t matter, we go off script. Rule number one: Fly the airplane.
When I read the headline of this story……I asked myself…..”isn’t that what a Cirrus is?”
General aviation is not just “the airplanes”. It is a system which includes (besides the airplanes, of course) replacement parts supply, qualified maintenance, people’s signatures certifying “this thing is safe to fly”, availability of financing and of insurance, and more.
Half a million dollars is a LOT of money unless you are a tech bro, as these guys seem to be. Lenders will be looking at other assets as well as the aircraft because there is no established resale market for these (yet- that may change after several hundreds are in service). Insurance will be very high, again, because of lack of a track record and no loss statistics. No track record = indeterminate risk = unknown losses = equals a nervous insurance company = whopper of a premium or outright decline to cover. No insurance means the buyer is paying cash, because no insurance means no financing. Resale also is a total unknown. If the venture isn’t successful, buyers are going to be stuck with an orphan airplane with none of the exotic parts available to make it fly. That’s going to be a really expensive lawn ornament.
Now we get to the airplane itself. It is a very technologically advanced aircraft, basically a flying computer. NOBODY is going to risk their IA certificate signing this off because NOBODY is going to understand it. NOBODY is going to risk their A&P certificate because NOBODY is going to be confident (or stupid) enough to work on a highly complex machine without specific type training.
If they can even GET that training (Is it available? Who offers it? Where? How often? What does it cost? Does it satisfy the FAA?), they are going to be very thinly spread out far and wide, so if the airplane has a problem (Check engine light on?) in East Jabib, nobody there can fix it (or will be willing to touch it). Now you have to find and import someone certified to work on it, and that’s gonna be expensive, big time! That person isn’t going to be available 24x7x365, so you better get familiar with the only tourist attraction in (or even near) East Jabib, which is a run-down gas station. And the only food there is whatever is left in the vending machines in that gas station.
Yes, we are flying dated technology – sometimes very dated – but it works, it is affordable, and we can get it fixed almost anywhere. We can also get it financed and (usually) insured.
Rule #1 – The trick stuff always breaks.
Rule #2 – What you don’t have you can’t break.
Rule #3 – Never fly the “A” model of anything.
The tradeoff here is the promise of “less” training time in exchange for wildly added complexity and cost. In this case, that’s a poor choice. We don’t stop training when we have our certificate, we train every time we fly. If the choice is add ten hours to training time, or take a shortcut on training but then get lumbered by an airplane that is and will be an ongoing economic disaster, I’ll take the extra training every time.
I wish them luck, they’re gonna need it – and luck is not a strategy.
Hi Mike!
Thanks for the critique and perspective – I think you raise a lot of really good points, and I’ll do my best to address them.
Yes, GA is so much more than just the planes. The US has invested an incredible amount of time and money in supporting the GA ecosystem, from all our local airports to the incredibly important services provided to users for free (i.e. ATC). Servicing airplanes correctly is a life-or-death responsibility, and all “new technologies” face this barrier to entry. This is an important consideration for us, and without revealing too much, our systems are designed to: minimize installation risks, self-diagnose faults and failures, as well as provide detailed real-time and historic diagnostics. I’ll add a little bonus in the form of a question: what happens when you sprinkle a little internet connectivity into the equation? For consideration, here is something that is the norm in the commercial sector: https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/our-stories/discover/2019/intelligent-engine-health-monitoring.aspx
While our first plane, the Airhart Sling, is experimental, our ambitions are to expand into the certified market, so internally, we hold our development and testing processes to the applicable certification standard. This is why Sling is such a great fit for us for our first plane, they share a lot of our mentality, especially in having high internal standards, and are amazing to work with.
Lets be honest for a second though, electronics in GA has a horrible reputation. At Oshkosh, we talked to a trainer airplane manufacturer who was skeptical of what we could produce because their displays were their #1 source of failure: imagine the horror of an entire flight system going offline mid-flight! The only secret sauce to reliable electronics is rigorous electronics engineering and testing, but electronics in GA are often an after-thought and suffer from avoidable faults and failures far too frequently. We only have to look at the commercial aviation industry for proof that electronics can be robust and reliable.
I’ll speak for myself, but I’m sure the rest of the team feels similarly. The biggest source of inspiration for me is the success of the commercial aviation industry. Flying commercially is *the* safest mode of transportation. There are so many lessons learned that are begging to be applied to the GA market, and every time someone loses their life flying a GA aircraft, I funnel that grief and frustration into proving that GA can be made so much safer than the status quo.
Everyone we talk to has a story, and it’s disheartening that some people accept the current status quo of GA as “working” just because they weren’t the ones who ended up in a coffin.
To be clear, we are not advocating for a reduction in pilot training – we are advocating for a reduction in complexity. It just so happens that reducing complexity also reduces training time, but “less training” is the juicier, money-savings, talking point that is sometimes taken without the full context. For me, the greatest advantage of reducing complexity is that it makes good decision making easier and faster, making flying safer and more reliable.
Everything that follows is secondary.
Sincerely,
Suleyman
Lead GNC Engineer at Airhart Aeronautics
Suleyman,
Thank you for addressing my concerns (in an adult and rational manner – something that seems to be very unusual these days!).
I’m not, repeat not, trying to discourage you from bringing this concept to market, and in fact I agree with you that GA technology is absolutely mired in the dark ages. When I was teaching ground school (over 4,000 students in 11 years) I would tell them we are flying around in the very best technology 1940 has to offer . . .
What I hope to see is a “trickle down” effect. Your system is new, and we well know, people tend to react poorly to “new”. We see this in heat pumps, solar panels, induction ovens and more. Eventually, these technologies, which are far superior to many legacy technologies, get common enough so nobody objects to them any more. (Do you know anyone who heats their home by shoveling coal into a furnace?)
I think my biggest issue is reparability and long term support. Yes, people can (and eventually will) be trained to work on these, and that gas station in East Jabib is going to have to find other sources of revenue besides stranded aviators.
The problem is the electronics, and the very short “half-life” of electronic technology. As an example, Apple has decided that their series 1 Apple watch “will no longer be supported” since they consider it obsolete – after something like six years after it was introduced. What’s the big deal, it is only a watch, right? The big deal is that Apple offered one version of that watch in a solid gold case, for (a mere) $17,500, If it needs repair, too bad, the owner is now out $17,500, less whatever the salvage gold is worth.
Aircraft tend to hang around a long time. There are very few 1960s cars on the road, almost no 1960s vintage electronics around any more, but a 1960s vintage aircraft isn’t at all unusual – these airplanes are 40, 50, 60 years old, still flying, and for the most part, repairable. Airplanes are not “throwaway” consumer goods. (And Temu isn’t selling airplanes . . . yet.)
So my question is this – have you considered long-term repairability, long term parts availability, and (reasonably) affordable future upgrade paths for the electronic components in your aircraft? For half a million dollars, I’d like to know that I’ll be able to keep this flying for 40 or 50 years, and not run into “sorry, we don’t support that any more, buy a new one”. I’d also like to be able to reassure anyone I decide to sell it to later that parts will be available so THEY can keep flying it.
(As to the comment about screen failures, I have a couple of otherwise operational GPS units and some computer displays which are unusable because of screen burn – and of course no parts are available.)
With best regards,
M/M
Glad to have this back and forth with you, Mike… this is indeed a refreshing conversation in a world where discourse and different perspectives are rare.
I think it is a benefit, if not our responsibility, to listen to the GA community. We cannot exist in this community if we shun those that are more experienced than us. We will, in tech bro fashion as you likened us, however, push back on any “well, that’s how it’s always been” logic.
What you hope to see as a “trickle down” affect can only exist with early adopters: those who believe in a world fundamentally different (and better!) than the one we find ourselves in. One cannot wait for a trickle like one does while performing a rain dance, one must create it. All of the inventions/innovations you mentioned had early adopters that were critical to the early growth of that new technology. I don’t want to create a product that has to wait until “nobody objects to it any more”, I want to create something that is so resoundingly better, that everybody objects to what currently exists.
It is difficult to answer long-term commitment questions with too much certainty, but I can say that upgradeability and repairability are extremely important for us. Because we are starting in the experimental market, we must create systems that can be properly installed and replaced by anybody who can read a manual. I do not believe I can divulge more specifics and information publicly at this moment, you’ll just have to wait and see how we tackle the long-term parts availability problem 😉
Sincerely,
Suleyman
As an general airframe mechanic I concur. Without redundancy, preferably mechanical control, this is a reality pipedream. Yes, many things have advanced exponentially, but when the primary purpose is to land safely, I’d rather have actual control than silver and gold.
But as a techie I love it.
It’s pretty much the same idea as military drones.
Be safe and walk away from every landing. JKL
For those who believe that a system like this would be dangerous since it would “[push] more people without all the other skills into federal airspace = very bad”, I’ll point to the fact that -highly trained- airliner crews in at least two of the last major crashes (Air France 447 and Colgan Air) simply pulled the stick back into their stomachs all the way into the crash, against everything they were ever taught.
Or the 2 non-USA ,737MAX crashes where the pilots did not realize that it was a trim runaway, and flew the aircraft into the ground.
This system failed on 2 US aircraft and the pilots immediately realized it as a stab trim runaway, and disabled the auto-trim system, and used the manual trim wheel to retrim the aircraft and returned to normal flight conditions.
It would be interesting to ask these guys how they feel about “no code” and “low code” solutions for software development.
You can keep your cable-and-pulley control system with a record of fatal accidents caused by seat failures and subsequent loss of control; I’ll stay alive, tyvm.
https://www.flyingmag.com/news-faa-revisits-cessna-seat-track-hazard/
Sully, the problem is the seat rails, not the pulley and cable control systems. If the seat slides back on a fly-by-wire system, the pilot will react exactly the same way and reflexively grab the yoke or side stick.
Best Regards,
M/M
Hi, lead GNC engineer at Airhart here: I agree, the explicit failure mode is unrelated to the mechanical control in a Cessna, and in some FBW systems, this would still be a problem. However, I would like to point out that Airhart Assist doesn’t allow you to command inputs beyond the flight envelope, so even with full-stick deflection, you can’t stall the plane – which means seat failures are included in our single-fault tolerant design!
Sincerely,
Suleyman
P.S. Love the article and the discussions!
P.S.S. This message does not mean that our seats are the same as Cessna’s, nor does it mean that we tolerate such blatant and recorded failure modes.
Does anyone else not see the irony here… I think Airhart Assist is a perfect name for the fundamental mentality behind the tech.. because Airhart, who ascended to find herself in a situation for which she was not equipped to deal with died when the technology like radio direction finding she was depending on failed… and didn’t have the stick and rudder skills to find her way to safety
Amelia Earhart was a very good pilot. Fred Noonan was the navigator. The aircraft had no failures. It apparently ran out of fuel due to poor radio comms and radio navigation.
A fly-by-wire system for GA aircraft will push the cost way above the high costs now.!
Then there is the reliability of the electronics, software and all those servo motors and position feedback systems.
I’ll take my Cessna’s cable-and pulley controls with it’s inherent reliability.
JinH, I cannot agree more. Thanks!