[jeromec]

Airplane maintenance is way more expensive than car maintenance, but every hour you drive this thing on the road will count as an hour towards maintenance required at airplane rates.

Yes, but this isn't an airplane. It's a flying car ;)

Seriously, the maintenance comparison wouldn't appear to be the same. It looks like this thing has a propeller attached to a drag style engine. I would expect maintenance costs to be more akin to a souped up car than an airplane.

Also, by law to drive (in California at least) you're only required to have liability insurance covering the party you hit. Covering your own vehicle is optional.

[mcobrien]

Actually, it's a "powered parachute"[1] which relaxes the FAA rules required to fly one[2]. I'd guess maintenance rules are relaxed as well.

[1] http://mavericklsa.com/releases.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_parachute

[lucasjung]

The reason airplane maintenance is expensive isn't just that airplanes are generally more complex. It's mainly because you have to pay a certified A&P[1] to do it. You're not just paying for the work, you're paying for the entire apparatus of certifications and inspections that backs it up.

>Also, by law to drive (in California at least) you're only required to have liability insurance covering the party you hit. Covering your own vehicle is optional.

If you go this route, you have an even bigger incentive to keep it off the road: if you get into a fender-bender, you'll have to pay to the exorbitant repair bill on your "car."

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Maintenance_Technician...

[jeromec]

Sure, using an A&P is fine. I'd still imagine the maintenance costs on this thing, consisting mostly of a drag engine, propeller, and chute would be less costly than that of a traditional airplane wouldn't you agree?

I do agree it would certainly make sense to opt in for covering the car as well. I was mostly making the point the liability rule could be a baseline showing insurance companies had no reason to charge a higher rate than, say, a sports car (under a minimum coverage scenario where they cover only liability costs).

It appears this vehicle costs $84K. I believe any person able to afford a 100K class of car would certainly be able to pay the maintenance and insurance costs to drive it as a car ;)

[lucasjung]

>Sure, using an A&P is fine.

Not sure what you were trying to say here, but using an A&P isn't "fine," it's mandatory, and it's very expensive.

>...less costly than that of a traditional airplane wouldn't you agree?

Maybe a little, but not significantly. This still misses the point: airplanes are required to get periodic maintenance way more often than cars, and airplane mechanics cost way more than car mechanics. The complexity of the airplane isn't the primary cost driver, the frequent maintenance and the safety requirements placed on that maintenance are.

>It appears this vehicle costs $84K. I believe any person able to afford a 100K class of car would certainly be able to pay the maintenance and insurance costs to drive it as a car ;)

I know a lot of people who own small planes. Most of of those planes were purchased for a price comparable to this thing (because they were purchased used--they would have cost considerably more than $84K if purchased new). All of these people are upper middle class, so these planes represented major expenses for them. They all have to be very careful about how much they fly their planes or they would break their budgets; using their planes as cars would be a terrible waste of money.

Becoming certified as an A&P is a very expensive and time-consuming process, but it pays off in the end for professional A&Ps because they can charge a premium for their work. However, I know a few people who went through this process even though they already have great careers and have no intention of working professionally as A&Ps. Nor were they especially enthusiastic about aircraft maintenance as a hobby. They did it because, in the long run, it was cheaper for them to become certified so they could do all of their own maintenance on their planes rather than pay somebody else to do it. That's how expensive aircraft maintenance is.

[jeromec]

Not sure what you were trying to say here, but using an A&P isn't "fine," it's mandatory, and it's very expensive.

I was trying to say factoring in an A&P wouldn't lead me to believe operational costs would necessarily jump to be prohibitively expensive.

This still misses the point: airplanes are required to get periodic maintenance way more often than car

But you're still missing my point. It's not an airplane :) In other words, I would expect the work and associated costs (including a fully certified A&P) to be quite different on a hot air balloon, let's say with an added engine driven propeller, than on an airplane. The complexity difference is relevant because there is less to go wrong for safety and repair.

I know a lot of people who own small planes...All of these people are upper middle class, so these planes represented major expenses for them.

Yes, but I'd wager those planes are capable of more than 40 mph in the air, and I seriously doubt they would have been bought by under such strenuous expense if they were not. Boats can also represent a source of strained expense, but, like airplanes, they provide recreational function outside the normal cost of living. A person buying this vehicle at 84K with the duplicate function of use as a car, which happens to be capable of 40 mph in the air, is probably going to be richer than upper middle class.

Hey, I'm just an observer looking in at all this. Maybe Maverick LSA hasn't thought your points through, and their project path is flawed. My belief is that it would be workable as a car.

[lucasjung]

>But you're still missing my point. It's not an airplane :)

I understand what you're saying, and you're wrong. You're wrong because as far as the FAA is concerned, it is an aircraft, and if you want to fly in their airspace, you're going to have to follow the same exact rules as any other aircraft of the same category. They're not going to let you skimp on their safety and maintenance requirements just because you happen to drive it on the road part of the time.

>In other words, I would expect the work and associated costs (including a fully certified A&P) to be quite different on a hot air balloon, let's say with an added engine driven propeller, than on an airplane. The complexity difference is relevant because there is less to go wrong for safety and repair.

A hot air ballon does have very different maintenance requirements, mainly because it doesn't have an engine (the "P" in "A&P" is for Powerplants). As I keep saying, the main driver of added costs isn't so much things in need of repair, it's periodic maintenance. The FAA has rules that say, "After every n hours of engine time, you have to take your aicraft to an A&P for [inspection or overhaul]." (There are other types of intervals as well, in terms of airframe time or calendar time.) They don't care if those hours were spent flying or driving, either way you have to go pay an A&P to do that stuff. Those costs simply do not exist for cars, where maybe you have to stop in for an annual smog check. The simplicity might save you a few hours of labor costs with the A&P, but your cost structure is still going to be much closer to "airplane" than to "car."

But even when something does need fixing, you're still going to pay a lot more than you would to get a car fixed. The FAA won't let you go to a car mechanic to get the "car parts" fixed, they will insist on having all maintenance performed by an A&P. They are correct to insist on this, because any time you are flying it isn't 50% car or 40% car or 70% car, it's 100% aircraft.

>Maybe Maverick LSA hasn't thought your points through, and their project path is flawed. My belief is that it would be workable as a car.

I think their target customer is a very small niche: people of means trying to get around a country with lousy infrastructure. Odds are pretty good that a country that lacks quality roads also lacks a serious aviation administration, so all the stuff I've said about satisfying FAA safety requirements probably wouldn't apply. That still leaves the very real safety issues of flying around in something that wasn't maintained by someone qualified to work on aircraft, in a place where the nearest repair and medical facilities are potentially days away. A lot of this will probably be resolved by the fact that the kind of person who is going to motor off into the wilderness of a third-world country is probably the kind of self-sufficient person who gets qualified as an A&P before venturing off into the middle of nowhere.

[simpleTruth]

It's not a 84K airplane it's a 30k car + (84 - 30)K airplane. I bought a vary nice car even though I only drive ~5K miles a year. I could sell my car and add an extra ~800-1000$ a month to be able to fly on the weekends, but paying ~90K + hanger fees and still needing a car is much harder.

PS: Renting an airplane is still a better option if you fly less than 10 hours a month, but IMO there is a nitch for a crappy flying car.