[happyjack]

I'm a pilot, own aircraft and maintain them.

Everything the faa does boils down to limiting liability, and liability is asses occupying seats in aircraft. Want to fly without a medical? Great, you can do basic med but can't fly over 6 people. You want to import a foreign war bird? Awesome, you're going to have to register that restricted and or experimental and you can't do aerial tours or turn a profit. You own a vintage aircraft and are the owner / operator? You legally can fabricate your own parts if you follow certain guidelines.

I hate to burst the "hope" and optimism bubble, but we won't be seeing flying cars or anything crazy from the MOSAIC rules. While I think there will be a lot of positives that come from it, the faa more or less is laying out a set of rules and guidelines for new aircraft and tightening up definitions. LSA was a major failure, and the Feds are realizing that they can actually limit liability and increase safety by making a set of standards and guidelines for small aircraft.

Also, I don't see any "emerging markets" coming out of GA. Flying is expensive, takes a lot of time, and is hard. Real wages also haven't risen since the 80s, and the younger folks have other interests.

[defrost]

Well, at least there's always backyard ground effect builds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ILbQHnHPnY

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37964608

[happyjack]

Pretty sure if you stay under 6 feet AGL you're considered a boat!

[defrost]

There's a vlog on his channel on "Is it a boat or a plane?".

I threw that in more as it's a fun build (that sadly had a bit of a mishap this last weekend).

My background's more in modified STOL for geophysics | heli mustering .. which was all rather seat of the pants back in the day.

[happyjack]

That's crazy! There's actually currently a geophysics crew in my town doing a USGS project.

Which aircraft did you do STOL for?

[defrost]

I principally wrote geophysics software with some time spent in the hangers tag teaming with real mechanics while working for an Australian survey company that was ultimately sold to Fugro.

At time of sale we hade 14 airframes, mostly fixed wing aircraft, some helicopters, all modified for survey work (stinger tail booms, looped EM field detectors, under slung drones, etc) and a perfect 20+ year air saftey record which Fugro didn't maintain - they had two aircraft down and some loss of life within a few years of aquisition.

Many of the planes were older high wing twin engine types (Shrikes, etc) - my personal favorite that was bought and modified in my time there was a NZ Cresco 750 designed for crop dusting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_MO5Wfomks

Sadly, -KPY got totalled kissing a powerline that (presumeably) hadn't been mapped ahead of time.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/89273

We surveyed all of Fiji, most of Mali, NorWest India | Pakistan during the Pokhran-II | Chagai-I test exchanges, along with a great deal of other work about the globe.

[happyjack]

That is really neat! Thank you for sharing! Love hearing people's aviation stories.

[jojobas]

You can have a dual mode vehicle, cruise on WIG effect at 10% throttle or crank it up and go to 3000.

[pcthrowaway]

> I hate to burst the "hope" and optimism bubble, but we won't be seeing flying cars or anything crazy from the MOSAIC rule

You can already buy a paramotor and learn how to fly it for roughly the price of a new Tesla. I can't imagine getting any closer to "flying cars" than that

[happyjack]

I know ... there are already solutions for everything GA out there.