| The crash/death rate for piston general aviation is staggeringly high and a lot of it has to do with how unreliable ancient systems in the planes are, and task saturation from pilots still expected to manage stuff like fuel mixture settings by hand. It's almost entirely about protectionism of a massive industry of rebuilding and servicing companies for ancient engines and electromechanical systems, not safety or reliability. Compare a modern electronic gyro to its electromechanical cousin. The electromechanical version is unreliable, power-hungry, and extremely expensive to service. The modern electronic equivalent is ultra-reliable, can self-test, needs no servicing or repair, can contain its own battery to self-power in an emergency, and be networked with other devices in the cockpit. Want to put the electronic version in your plane? Ooooo, sorry, no can do, Mr. Airplane Owner, says the FAA. Can't hurt the profits of an entire industry dedicated to emptying your wallet of thousands of dollars every time your gyro needs to be rebuilt. A modern fuel-injected, water-cooled airplane engine can run constant self-diagnostics and logging, and provide highly useful, actionable information to both the pilot and mechanic. It's single-lever, increasing reliability and reducing task loading during the most critical phases of flight, and reducing emissions substantially, too. It doesn't have special considerations in terms of flight profiles; air-cooled piston airplane engines require a gentle descent profile or they will be "shock cooled" and undergo high wear or outright seize. There are no issues with carb freeze. Starting is a breeze, instead of a chore. The list goes on. We should be encouraging the hell out of EFI conversions and EFI engine options...but instead the FAA buries them all under mountains of paperwork and regulations to protect Lycoming and the like. |
No, I don't want to plug something into an OBD-2 and bluetooth to a phone/laptop. Put the FUCKING INFO ON THE SCREEN. Speaking of protectionism, don't want your customers knowing what is actually wrong with the car...