| >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. |