Perspectives are interesting. To me at least.
I recently synopsized a story from Hacker News about the Airhart Sling, an aircraft Airhart Aeronautics calls a “modern personal airplane.”
The story generated good amount of discussion on our website.
Two of the most recent comments I found interesting for their perspective.
“People that want this are the same people who want self-driving cars,” wrote Brand Neumann. “They don’t want to be pilots, they just want to be passengers.”
I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’m not interested in self-driving cars. My wife and I bought a new car earlier this year. It has adaptive cruise control and lane assist. I do like the adaptive cruise control feature, but have never felt comfortable using lane assist after multiple attempts.
Of note, the U.S. Air Force is interested in self-flying planes.
During the Aug. 5-9, 2024, Agile Flag 24-3 exercise, Joby Aviation’s team, which includes the autonomy division of Xwing, operated a fully autonomous Cessna 208B Grand Caravan for more than 3,900 miles of flight between military bases and public airports across California and Nevada.
To be certain, Joby’s example is not personal aviation. But why can’t breakthroughs from these exercises filter into private aviation?
We are surrounded by taxpayer-funded research and testing. Why not this?
After all, while pilot in command, I am at that same moment also a passenger.
“The reason you get pushback from this kind of technology is not because we don’t like progress or tech, but rather because it takes away the art of being a pilot,” wrote Mike. “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).”
I must not be in the “most of us” camp Mike is referring to. I learned to fly because as a 13-year-old with an opportunity to fly an ultralight, I thought it would be cool.
Then I went to college with the goal of becoming a professional pilot. That plan didn’t come to fruition, but that’s another story.
Today, I’m a pilot because I want to get from Point A to Point B.
I’m less interested in “the art of being a pilot” than I am in safely traveling from A to B. But that’s just me.
And if I want to travel from A to B in an aircraft that makes operating the aircraft easier for me, I don’t see how that “takes away the art of being a pilot” from someone else.
That’s my perspective.
“That’s an interesting perspective! It seems like the demands of the profession or changing career interests are making some rethink becoming pilots. It’ll be interesting to see how the industry adapts.”
Dennis, I’ve been at this game for 54 years and have owned 5 airplanes in that time.
Trust me—flying won’t get any cheaper if more people become pilots.
Through many economic cycles throughout the years, flying has ALWAYS gotten more expensive and has never gone down in cost.
A very old barely maintained Cessna 150 goes for $35k plus—absurd.
A Cherokee 140 that I bought for $7,500.00 in 1978 goes for $35k plus.
Fuel that used to cost 89 cents per gallon is now over $6.00. Insurance premiums are absurd—and good luck if the insurance carries is even willing to sell it to you. At the end of the day, regardless of participation, flying and aircraft ownership never has not and never will become cheaper.
Lots of people do not want to drive – but they’re forced to. That’s why we have distracted driving laws that prohibit texting and driving among other things. These people do not want to be on the road and are forced to, usually because of bad public transportation. So there is nothing wrong with self driving vehicles – if you need to drive but don’t want to, the computer is probably going to do a way better job at it while you text/read a book/watch Netflix or whatever.
Flying is different as it’s generally more optional – if I don’t feel like flying today, I can probably book a commercial flight which is probably cheaper and faster. I’m not forced to do it. Of course, it would be nice if the computer can help out during the busier parts of the flight, or serve as backup during emergencies to help ensure a successful outcome.
The problem with creating technology that any idiot can use, is that then you will have idiots using it.
I guess I don’t understand the pilot that only wants to fly from point A to point B as fast as possible so that they can get back on the ground as soon as they can. Isn’t that what airlines are for? I learned to fly for the pure enjoyment of flying and mostly hand fly. I’m not against the modern technology as it certainly has a place and can make flights safer and easier when needed.
As far as autonomous cars, they are not for me. Of course, when I’m old and can’t see very well anymore, that may change.
The auto pilot in my ancient Apache does not work. I like it that way because then I have to hand fly it everywhere. I like being a pilot and having to hand fly.
Cirrus owners. Not pilots.
You can own an aircraft and not be a pilot.
But, the Cirrus aircraft only have 1 control integrated with the throttle; the prop control.
All the rest are there , and, it has a big red handle in the roof….
Otherwise, it’s little different from a Cessna 400…
For all the people commenting that they want it to be harder to fly for everyday people, apparently don’t understand that the more people we have into general aviation the cheaper it will become. Just listen up into the sky and tell me you don’t ever hear a plane anymore. It’s as if the skies are empty. So yes bring all the self flying planes, bring any plane let’s get back to the easier mode of transportation that should be cheaper.
It’s actually a matter of supply and demand. During the pandemic, the ‘stimulus’ money caused a lot of folks to take up flight training, and to buy aircraft.
This increase in demand of a essentially fixed supply of aircraft, drove UP the price of used aircraft , to about 2 X what they were selling for before.
So, adding yet more folks in the left and right seats will drive up the costs more…
The supply of new aircraft is minuscule WRT the existing fleet of GA aircraft, if one can afford the $400k to $1 million cost.!!
Additionally , the higher value of aircraft has also driven up the insurance costs of the now, more valuable aircraft.
So, we’ll see what these new technologies being incorporated into GA aircraft will do the costs and insurance costs.
As an example, the cost to insure an EV is much higher than an IC car, for a number of reasons ; repair costs, battery replacement costs, minor accidents causing the car to be ‘totaled’.
Jim, there are a couple misconceptions about EVs that you are perpetuating. No, insurance is NOT more expensive. My F150 costs three bucks more every six months than my EV for same coverage. Do not conflate Teslas to be “all EVs”. Also EVs do not automatically burn up tires (I realize you didn’t mention that). If you drive it like you stole it, sure, but that is true of any car, and EVs can accelerate quickly, but don’t necessarily need to. I got 67,000 miles out of a set of tires recently.
how much situational awareness and compuring power will these “autonomous” will be needed onboard to provide 360 protection? Especially for a vehicle transiting an area at 100-200 kts crossing others also doing 100-200 kts. that will require radars, motion, IR, and more sensors.
It’s almost like there was a point in history when you could buy an airplane for about the same price as a used car and aviation was accessible to most people.
Make it more affordable!
I don’t know when that might have been true.
In 1960, a new car averaged $2,600, and a Cessna 172 cost $9,500, about 4x a car.!
Today a new car averages $48,000 and a Cessna 172 is about $400,000, over 8x now.
Cars are mostly built by robots now , while Cessna are still built by hand labor…
The most affordable new aircraft are experimental, where the owner provides most of the labor, and can be built for less than 4x of a new car….so still in the 60’s costs, but will never be inexpensive.
Even a 50-60 year of Cessna sells for over $100,000…so go figure.?
And now, there is another…
Merlin’s Self-Flying Cessna 208B Begins Testing for FAA Validation,
and applying for an STC .
I hope that these aircraft only fly into towered airports.!
Without a pilot/co-pilot onboard, the comms could get ‘interesting’.!
Automation works fantastic until the poo hits the propeller. I’ve been flying professionally for 20+ years in small(ish) planes, and have encountered many potentially hazardous situations that require proper observation, communication, and judgement by the pilot to solve. The thing everyone ignores when talking about automated aircraft is weather; it’s too dynamic for a simple computer to navigate 100% of the time. How many times have I gotten somewhere and the fog didn’t clear up, or a thunderstorm parked itself on short final, or the winds are at/above demonstrated crosswind capability. Beyond that, I’m not even going to go into system malfunctions (both minor and major) and how everyone ignores those when talking fully automated aircraft. Bottom line, I’m not disparaging automated systems, but until someone can prove advanced automation can navigate these situations properly, the safest route ahead in 99% of scenarios is still going to be strong automation backed up by a skilled and experienced pilot.
“Self flying”, and “self driving” are both terms, in my opinion, used not by technically skilled folks, but by marketeers. My sailboat “self drives” quite nicely, in the middle of nowhere, as does brother’s Cherokee’s autopilot, under supervision, as they both occasionally “misbehave” in subtle ways with obvious implications. How about a “system level” view- which is really what is implied for cars, and, now, general aviation? The notion of autonomous system-level behavior, by drones, for example, has been validated, but in the context, I think, of circumstances in which basic and important assumptions differ from general aviation (and, also, I believe, differ from general ground transportation). The choreographed nighttime display of a system of drones, although appearing to casual viewers to imply extension to general aviation, is based upon refined knowledge of critical – and common- parameters that enable precise prediction of acceleration, velocity, and position in 3-D space for each participant. Now, let’s imagine, a wide variety of drones, each individually owned, maintained, having characteristics a function both of their marketed individuality and some sort of imposed “spec” intended to assure that “they play well together” (however that gets defined- another issue). And, invite them all to participate in such an event. How do they get managed, as a safe system, without apriori knowledge, by the system controller, of these critical parameters (size, weight, inertia (3-D, roll, pitch, yaw) acceleration, etc. etc ). – which will vary by definition? Then, let’s place them all in an inhomogeneous, variable, and unpredictable environment influencing each participant’s response to system control attempted by this “authority”. I have non- perfect faith, for example, in my sailboat autopilot despite operating within its design parameters (it works perhaps 90% of the time, with misbehavior a function of a random- and unpredictable- instantaneous environmental influence) related only to my vessel’s instantaneous attitude and local (at my vessel) environmental influences (waves, wind, their direction). How would this work, in a crowded harbor, even with precise and greatly over-sampled knowledge of position, speed and direction, in 2-D space mind you- given the vast difference in critical parameters associated with each vessel? Each individual participant, entering and leaving the system in an “ad-hoc” manner, must then share these parameters with all other participants. Why? Because each participant (or, some authority acting as the controller) must be able to predict each other’s response. That’s how systems work. Does this sound “safe”, unless, of course, each participant agrees, as do Nascar drivers, to employ identical platforms, each inspected to meet stringent, highly detailed specs?. So, let’s do that. Then, place these identical platforms within not a highly localized weather environment on the same confined track, with a uniform, dictated, direction of travel, but, pretty much the opposite and attempt to predict important stuff like “will I collide with you at 150 kts, as we both travel using vastly different parameters, some if which are chosen arbitrarily”? Complex systems have in common the nasty habit of failing in ways which themselves can be studied, for a given system, for periods outlasting their technical lifetime.
This is not to say that certain “self driving” (or, flying) features are not useful, particularly when you are a “system of one”. But, the implied goal is vastly not that. I vote for the highly adaptive, self-optimizing, continuously updating, non- volatile (mostly), inquisitive, performance-driven, highly communicative and interactive organic version.
Paul,
One of my objections to using an auto-pilot is when a pilot exclaims ‘ what’s it doing now ?!’
Why can’t an auto-pilot have a display, showing the status of all the controlled components, and what it is currently doing WRT the programmed course ?
ALSO, it could display any anomaly that it detects and ASK the pilot for input, rather than disconnecting or make some unexpected maneuvers ?
Having aircraft communicate with each other on their planed flights and ‘negotiating any conflict resolution’ might be much better than having the 3rd party – ATC folks get involved. This would need a ‘smart’ auto-pilot using ADSB data.
Coordination/negotiation could also be done when 2 aircraft are approaching an airport to land and coordinate with other aircraft in the pattern and on the ground.
But, all this would require a lot of computer power and maybe a bit of AI involvement to allow this ‘mass organized coordination’..
Not unlike Air Force drone drivers who get ‘Ace’ ratings and never leave their Nevada desert arm chair.
The new generation of aviator won’t know what to do when that ‘big fuse’ blows in hard IMC.
Bob Hearst
We’re lucky to know what a beautiful word ‘FLIGHT’ is.
Yes, the enjoyment and excitement of moving in a 3 dimensional environment at 2-3 x ground speeds, and free to fly in any direction and altitude, vs ‘following a road’, is a unique activity.
I tell folks that flying is the closest thing to Heaven, without dying.!
I can’t imagine flying by remote console. Where’s the joy? The challenge and, yes, the risk? I trained for my wings, my life made all the richer, to fly.
Correction for those without near death experiences… Flying is the best experience possible without reference to the “Kama Sutra”.. LOL Fred
Any use of the term “ace”, as it might be applied to the USAF unmanned aircraft systems community, is in reference to the acronym ‘ACE’, which stands for “Agile Combat Employment”.
ACE is a “proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver” designed to enable U.S. forces to “increase survivability while generating combat power.”
It has nothing to do with the highly-coveted moniker “Ace”, earned by airmen (not just pilots) with at least 5 confirmed air-to-air kills.
And there aren’t any USAF “drone drivers” with 5 air-to-air kills…yet.
The article mentioned 2 aircraft systems;
The Xwing C208 is a functioning drone, fully automated flight, with substantial load capacity.
I saw the routes it flew from the LA area to the Sacramento area , and back.
[ near me, but thankfully, not where I fly].
It’s an achievement, that looks to me like a possible ‘public transportation’. Book a flight, hop on, and the aircraft flies you to the destination, like a bus , train, etc, except that there is no one in the left seat . The person in the other seat is a passenger.
Looking at the Airhart website, I don’t see how the controls will work.
Is there no throttle, no elevator trim ? How does the system know if you want to climb or increase airspeed ?
No rudder pedals, but are there no brake pedals as well [ 1 or 2 ] ?
Their ‘fly by wire’ idea is different from reducing the number of flight controls available to the ‘pilot’ .
We already have autopilot systems that can fly from point A to point B, but the pilot has to do the takeoff and landing. So, where is the advantage of an electronic servo system of manipulating the control surfaces, vs the existing auto pilot systems.
And now, some aircraft have an emergency auto-land capability, that a passenger can activate, and get safely on the ground.
There are a lot of us pilots that enjoy and appreciate the simplicity of our ’50s, ‘ancient’ technology to go fly , from point A to point A or, to point B and back to point A. !!
Adapt is.
Required item for survival.
Today, do both aircraft handling well and manage that aircraft well inflight.
Automation and better Situational Awareness dovetail to improved flight experiences.
As a professional pilot and a tesla owner. I understand the future. And for my 5 year year old daughter I understand this is much safer because I understand autopilot. Scare ur readers all u want. Truth is self driving cars are the future and would love my kids to be apart of it.
apart = away…
a part = joined
My perspective is this, the guise of accessibility that new technology creates, actually BLOCKS access to the very people who care about aviation the most. The market is in a full on sprint to getting people who don’t know anything about flying, into the sheepskin. The result is a need for safer technology to compensate, and as a result, creates a gap further and further away from the average pilot. Safer is great, but what good does it do when the average joe can’t afford safety? Meanwhile travelers who are impatiently checking the clocks on the most cutting edge avionics are not even enjoying our passion, while those who would much rather be between the points A & B, will very likely never get to A.
I something quits working in an autonomous car it can default to a breakdown lane and car a tow truck. An autonomous aircraft with a component failure may have to pop a ballistic chute and drop you at some random spot which may not be good. It could be a power line, water, occupied building, or wilderness.
Soon somebody is going to have to explain how suction pump powered primary flight instruments are better than low draw, electrical instruments with battery backup to the main battery. How dual twin omnis with glide slope, separate marker lights, & a separate HSI, with fuel & oil gauges way over on the right side of the cockpit are conducive to a solid instrument approach.
The last C-152 I did a BFR in was an electronic Fibber McGee closet of mismatched, barely operable, junk. Hardly a good platform for demonstrating my stick & rudder skills at a towered airport.
I will try to keep this short.. I am 82 years old > still pass my flight physical and CDL physical. I live under G airspace, been flying for over 60.years. Have all my avIation facilities here at the ranch., runway.hangar and etc. Am a left over Vietnam vet from Naval Air.(1964 to 1968) .FAA AIR TRAFFIC FROM 1969 to 1998.have flown most everything from. HOT air balloon to Supersonic and commercial Over 6000 .hours. Still fly my Cessna 172 daily but only in G airspace. Used to fly to work daily Was happy with transponder mode C and 360 channel radio. Flew all over the Western Hemi . I know, technology is for safety .But I dispise restrictions.. I love my flight freedom, no blinking lights outside, no funny looking screens inside. So I stay in G airspace and still enjoy 20th century freedom as that is where I am from. My vintage Cessna also likes it. FREEDOM TO FLY AND NOT BE RESTRICTED!!!!
Thanks for expressing the thoughts of many of those of us over 80. I say if you want to ride in a bus take the airlines, Then hope you have a pilot trained to solve many of the problems that are thrust upon him or her that are caused by too many gizmos. Stick and rudder skills are still useful when “S#@# happens.
Asking for a friend: did you SCAB in the early 80’s?
In the Phaedrus Plato tells us that Socrates railed against the new fad of writing. Socrates insists that writing destroys memory and weakens the mind.
And yet, here we are.
Stick & rudder skills are appropriate for my 80 mph LSA, but i’d really prefer my PC-12 driver (if I were ever to have one), to be a superb systems manager whizzing in & out of busy class b airspace & the plane’s automated pressurization system keeping us all alive at the rarified flight levels.
Besides, ref the photo above, that leaf with an engine is still going to have to be flown by a skilled & adept pilot, regardless of the avionics package. Some how, I don’t mourn the ADF birddogging & DME archs of my younger instrument days.
Yeah, like that PC-12 pilot that had an autopilot failure at 25,000 then flew himself and his family into the ground. I don’t care how whizz bang avionics get, they can always fail.
Gotta get a Tesla, try THAT FSD, or full self driving. People always say “oh my Toyota has that or my Dodge has that” or whatever but nope.
Off-topic, but in my daily commute, gauging from iPad movies playing on top of the dash, animated cell phone conversations behind the wheel, and even novels rubberbanded into the steering wheel i see, people are mostly over driving themselves.
I have access to SAE documents…. including documents related to autonomous operations.
There is an extensive series of documents related to concerns that are extraordinarily difficult for automation to deal with… that a human driver can work thru in real-time… or not… that could mean life-and-death. There are studies for land, sea and air travel… from 1-crew-personal transportation vehicles… up to gigantic transport vehicles. The topics listed would bend most of Your minds… it certainly does mine.
Example: human eye can operate in a huge variety of environments… whereas cameras LIDAR, low energy RF, digital maps, etc input feeds have difficulty integrating… and can run ‘blind’ with no ‘solution’… not to mention when the digital system ‘faults’. Uhhhhhh. Someday perhaps… but not as soon as expected.
Remember… the key words mentioned above were life-and-death.
Auto-fly and auto-drive are to transportation what pornography is to sex.
After 57 years of flying, 32 as single pilot of my Citation, I finally gave it up. Of course,as flying got more complicated, I had to adjust by adding more complex equipment to the plane. Still, for the most part, I hand flew the plane at lower altitude. Reflecting back, flying was a lot more enjoyable years ago and we got where we were going faster and with equal safety. I guess this is what we call progress
We already have on-board pioletless airplanes. They’re called drones. And as with anything remotely ‘technical,’ when the general masses get ahold of it, a small percentage of us ruins it for the rest. Fortunately, the Jetsons flying cars haven’t materialized yet. There was an attempt way back in the early 1950s to give everyone the opportunity to fly around free as a bird: the Autogyro, name of the flying machine and manufacturer. Gratefully, both flopped. Think surface highway carnage is bad? Wait until every ordinary (slow-witted) citizen climbs behind the stick of their own flying machine. The mid-air crashes and uncontrolled flights into terrain will be so numerous the news services won’t even bother reporting them. Regulations? It’ll be like the CB radio craze of yore: the FCC gave up on it because the violations were too numerous to enforce. Alas.
Regards/J
Autogyro/gyroplane is the “generic”…”Gyrocopter” was Bensen’s trademark.
A to B is fine. My flying, for the most part, is A to A these days and that’s because I am a pilot; every corpuscle, every cell of me belongs in the air. Not just in the air, of the air. It’s been that way since I was little, and will be that way until the last breath – of air – leaves me.
I was one of the fortunate ones. After some false starts that proved this round peg would not fit in those square holes someone else created, I took control of my career and my career took me all over the world.
There is no secret. We become what we think about most of the time.
What thoughts of great sorrow this idea of flight is becoming today. Glass cockpit, auto this and that. I am nearly 70 years old. I got my pilot license @19. In all my years in the Air Force, I never saw or used a GPS. I had as those who had gone before me 3 instruments I relied on most. Difficult approaches & stressful flights through frightful weather. Terrain of all sorts & wind . I always step to the challenge and grew a great appreciation for the skills I used and learned while flying. I hope as new pilots come they can find the PURE JOY of flying. It’s a sad day otherwise.
Autonomous aircraft are similar to autonomous cars in that they have to play with others who aren’t. If all cars were self driving there would be little need for ‘one car length per 10 mph speed’ following distance. They could darn near drive bumper to bumper. Similarly autonomous aircraft must flow into what is many times a far-from-perfect landing pattern; a mix of hurried’s, impatient’s, rusty’s, students, overly cautious, underly-cautious…lol. Might work someday. But pretty mind blowing.
At what point does the volume of automated require conformity, regimentation and scheduling of the nonautomated…if allowed at all?
Of course you can’t answer that question because you won’t know until it happens.
I feel this reminisces, in a way, to the art of photography with actual cameras. There were those that learned the craft and lived and breathed it while developing their own film.
Then the advent of the digital world eased the efforts and brought more in, while maintaining the craft.
However… People started using cellphones and calling themselves photographers. Dumping all over the craft and the users who took time to learn how to manipulate settings.
Such as the stick and rudder with steam gauges and carbs. And then fuel injected crafts came along with advances in avionics.
Now we are on the verge of the equivalent of the cellphone photographers. An insult to the craft.
Ponder this advancement step and what it took to become a pilot. It was guarded by grit and persistence. More to some than others.
What if all it takes, suddenly, is button pushing, and boasting of achievements that are not of the craft learned.. but one pre programmed?
Aside that, the devastating reality of hacking and electronic failures.
I never became a pilot but I always wanted to. I’ve always wanted to challenge my self and wanted to do better and learn new things in all the jobs I’ve had. That’s the reason I was hired in a lot of jobs I’ve been in. I think if I was a pilot, I wouldn’t like self flying planes either. The only thing I agree with is equipment like FADEC so I didn’t have to mess with fuel mixtures but as far as stick and rudder flying, I agree 100%.
Engine management is one of the easiest things to learn, but it does have to be mastered, just like handling the airplane. FADEC is nice but adds complexity and expense.
Amen. I learn to fly not only to tack advantage of its value as a time machine for travel but also the reward of accomplishment. Yes it gives me a feeling of being wheat from chaff.
To check with those that are thinking woke from my input here.
This country was built by achievement. NOT ENTITLEMENT!!!!
So you’re not a fan of Auto-pilots or in-cockpit GPS?
Exactly what I was thinking.
Ne pensez vous pas que l aviation generale n a pas benificier de la technologie permettant simplement :
aviate navigate communicate
Translation: Don’t you think that general aviation has not benefited from the technology that simply allows: aviate navigate communicate