I wanted to be a pilot as a young man. While I did learn to fly, I ended up a mathematician, programmer and tester. Even then I am incredibly frustrated by corporate pathologies which prevent progress and meaningful improvement at the firms and industries I interact with. But it's nothing compared to the dead hand which smothers "General Aviation", which is how you learn to fly if you aren't one of the pampered princes of the USAF. This is not to say the USAF isn't dysfunctional (it is), but that GA is how I learned to fly, and frankly how most people would in a properly functioning situation.

I usually don't talk about it because it rarely comes up. Look up in the sky and 99 times out of 100 you'll see nothing unless you live next to an international airport. Sometimes people complain about "crowded" airspace and I want some of what they're smoking. You could easily fit 1000x more active aircraft in the sky safely.

Imagine my surprise when I see Y Combinator is taking their turn in the barrel. I wonder what has them so hopeful? If I were to hazard a guess, it comes from the qualification at the end of their post where they mention "a plethora of other problems that make flying cumbersome". Here are my thoughts on the ones they mentioned.

• weight and balance worksheets - A sensor package which could detect excessive loading or too aft a CG is possible.
• complicated route planning - When I last flew 20 years ago, filing a flight plan was a phone call and you needed to understand the jargon to make it happen. I suspect it's no different today. A computerized improvement is entirely possible.
• talking to ATC - Comms tech in aviation remains "get them on the radio" even in cases where route adjustments could be pushed as data via a sideband. Ideally getting people on the main freq is the exception rather than the rule.
• lengthy preflight checks - Could largely be automated by redundant sensors. Ultimately like cars it could be an "idiot light", which I'm sure instantaneously raises blood pressure in most pilots.
• a fractured system of FBOs - Who do I call to file my flight plan? It's (not) surprising this hasn't yet been solved; there's a cottage industry of middlemen here. My kingdom for a TXT record.
• difficult access to instruction - In town, good luck learning to fly. Half hour of procedural compliance for a 10 minute flight, all on the clock. Not to mention dealing with gridlock traffic there and back. There are nowhere near the number of airports needed for flight to be remotely accessible to the common man.

They go on to state "the list goes on. We are working on all of these too". Good luck, they'll need it. The FAA is legendarily hidebound and triply so when it comes to GA. Everyone before them who tried was gleefully beheaded by the federal crab bucket.

All this stuff is pretty obvious to anyone who flies and understands tech, but this regulatory environment ruthlessly selects against people who understand tech. Why would you want to waste your life working on airframes and powerplants with no meaningful updates in more than a half-century? Or beat your head against the brick wall of the approvals process to introduce engine tech that was old hat in cars 50 years ago?

It's not shocking the FAA and GA in general is this way. Anyone who can improve the situation quickly figures out this is a club they ain't in, and never will be. Everyone dumb/stubborn enough to remain simply confirms the biases the regulators have about folks in "indian country". Once a brain drain starts, it takes concerted effort to stop. The feds do not care at all about that problem and likely never will.

This is for two reasons. First, the CAB (predecessor of FAA) strangled the aviation industry on purpose in service of TWA in particular, and that legacy continues to poison the well. The aviation industry has exactly the kind of "revolving door" criticized in many other regulatory and federal contractor situations. This is why they don't devote a single thought to things like "which FBO should I call". Like with any other regulator the only answer to all questions is "read their minds" (have one of 'em on the payroll).

Second, there is no "General aviation" lobby thanks to this century-long suppression, so nobody in politics cares about fixing this. Like with the sorry state of rocketry pre-Spacex, this will require a truly extreme amount of work, no small amount of luck, and downright chicanery to cut the gordian knot. I love that the founders of this firm are Spacex alums, perhaps they have what it takes.