Personal aviation is about to get interesting (2023)
89 comments
·July 26, 2025oceanplexian
SR2Z
> I will get a lot of heat for this but I think the FAA has killed a lot of people.
On the balance, the FAA has saved more lives than it's cost just because big jetliners hold SO MANY PEOPLE.
But otherwise I fully agree with you.
It's deranged that students these days are taught to manually lean the mixture until the engine sputters (i.e. the engine begins to DIE), then bump it back up.
It's incredibly stupid that an aircraft flying in 2025 has multiple solid state accelerometers and gyroscopes on board as part of people's phones - but the only certified one is a vacuum-powered analog instrument from 1981.
And why the hell do we still fuel GA aircraft with a gasoline that's literally ILLEGAL to use anywhere else?
Don't even get me started on the DPE or medical systems.
These changes cannot come soon enough, because the entire GA world has slipped through the cracks as the FAA has become a disaster.
dreamcompiler
> And why the hell do we still fuel GA aircraft with a gasoline that's literally ILLEGAL to use anywhere else?
Unleaded avgas is a thing now. But it won't work with many legacy aviation engines. I hope this new rule will finally enable some engine (and thus fuel) innovation.
sokoloff
> equipped with real time satellite weather
Many people have died from believing that their satellite weather was real-time. It’s 3-15 minutes delayed typically.
Go up on a VFR day with widely scattered wet clouds and maybe scattered showers or virga. Fly near some of the wetness and notice they are physically quite displaced from where they are on your weather display. In some cases, your weather display will show weather on the left and clear right, while your windshield will show the weather is actually on your right, having moved during that delay.
Imagine then trying to navigate that in more serious weather and you’ll hopefully get religion that the display is definitely not real-time and must not be relied upon as if it were. It’s a strategic tool, not a tactical one.
TylerE
More than a few have died in the last few years treating their iPad with GPS as a replacement for a glass cockpit and instrument rating too...
Animats
There are at least five YouTube videos of ATC communications with pilots in trouble because of an IPad failure.
darig
[dead]
looping__lui
You might be in for a bad awakening when comparing the reliability and safety statistics of Lycomings to the Rotax engines in Flight Design planes. Even though I entirely share your enthusiasm in general - these “old technologically outdated Lycosaurus engines” are really reliable in comparison…
Rotax engines have been extremely popular in Europe for LSA equivalents - but boy do I recall countless stories of engine failures. The most crazy one was of a flight instructor that had a total of 12 (!?) before he quit flying. A lot has to do I believe with the “creative ways the engine and its components are stuffed into different airframes”.
scarier
>far safer than a certified aircraft than the statistics will tell you
I share your frustration with the technological stagnation of general aviation, but this is completely damning. Cirrus added all of the features you mention, at great expense and in a fully certified aircraft, and took decades to show any kind of clear safety advantage over clapped-out Cessnas (as I understand it, the vast majority of improvement came from intensive training in when to deploy the parachute, which was wildly less intuitive than anyone originally realized and likely remains so for pilots without specialized training). Digital instruments, weather displays, and automation have significant benefits for many use cases, but it's unclear that they're inherently safer than legacy systems for amateur aviators.
lovecg
Not only it took a focused training campaign to get people to use the chute, all the increased training did was take the plane from having some of the worst safety statistics in the first decade to somewhere around average to slightly better than industry average.
It’s (mostly) not the plane, it’s the pilot.
TylerE
A confounding factor here is that when a shiny new "safer airplane" is on the market you know who it attracts? The least safe pilots. All the doctors and dentists bought Cirruses.
Risk compensation is real... they put themselves into marginal situations because they're telling themselves they can always just pop the chute.
dreamcompiler
> Basic things like fuel injection
Don't get me started. It's virtually impossible to buy a car without fuel injection nowadays, but most GA airplanes still use carburetors. And these are vehicles that are constantly changing altitude, so carburetors are even more unsuited for airplanes than for cars.
Okay I lied. You can buy fuel injected engines for airplanes. They are readily available. They merely cost 2x or 3x the price of carbureted engines.
looping__lui
I hear you in general, but GA engines need to work more reliably and go through way more intense operational challenges than automotive engines. Picture this: you take off at 100°F on the ground at full throttle with only air cooling to save weight and reduce potential failure points, then climb to 10,000 feet where the outside air temperature drops to around 65°F (or even freezing conditions). The baffling is a bit worn, and the pilot maintains 70 knots in the climb, pushing cylinder head temperatures (CHT) to 420°F or higher. Then the pilot gets chatty and pulls the engine back to near-idle while CHTs are still at 350°F, before pushing the nose down to kill altitude—causing CHTs to plummet to 250°F in minutes. Through all these extreme thermal cycles and temperature swings, the engine simply cannot quit on its pilot.
GA engines may look antiquated—with their carburetors, magnetos, and mechanical fuel pumps—but this apparent simplicity is entirely by design. These “outdated” systems are actually time-tested solutions engineered for ultimate reliability when failure means catastrophe. While car oils use metallic detergent additives, aviation oils must use ashless dispersants to prevent spark plug fouling that could cause engine failure. The oils must handle sustained high RPM operation and brutal temperature cycling while meeting strict FAA specifications that prioritize proven reliability over cutting-edge performance.
Every component, from the dual magneto ignition (no electrical system dependency) to the mechanical engine-driven fuel pump, represents decades of refinement focused on one critical goal: the engine will not quit when you need it most. It’s not that these engines are behind the times—they’re precisely engineered for their mission-critical role where proven, simple systems trump technological sophistication.
3ple_alpha
It is not true that reliability requires old-style engine design, it's more a question of cost. Modern jet airliners (their engines but also really everything about them) have a ton of complexity, including a myriad of electrical control systems, yet they are no less reliable.
It's just that this is not a fair comparison because manufacturers of said airliners have more resources for R&D.
sokoloff
I agree with most of what you say, but airplane piston engines are low RPM by necessity of keeping the prop tips below supersonic.
Many common airplanes engines have a max RPM of 2700 and are often cruised at 2300-2400.
iooi
> I will get a lot of heat for this but I think the FAA has killed a lot of people.
It drives my crazy that in 2025 ADSB is still not mandatory for all aircraft. I get there's old timers flying their tail wheels from the 1950s that don't have any electrical components, but this would massively improve GA safety.
Another one is multiplex radio, again, it's 2025, the technology is there. Why are we still seeing so many blocked communications during emergencies in busy airspaces?
looping__lui
FLARM as the “uncertified predecessor” in the gliding community was a game changer for safety. Game changer.
Completely agree with you.
parsimo2010
For those not tracking: this article is about the MOSAIC rules, which the FAA announced this week is now approved (Final Rule). In 90 days the new Sport Pilot rules will go into effect and allow Sport Pilots (a certification less stringent than Private Pilot) the ability to fly aircraft of much higher performance. Over the next year, new certification rules will go into effect allowing manufacturers to manufacture much more high performance aircraft under the Light Sport rules. There are some details, but the big picture is that the allowable performance for these “entry level” classes just got a lot higher.
Is it good? Well, a lot of people are cheering the change. The FAA doesn’t normally make things easier for the average Joe. This will make it easier for an inexperienced (but still fairly wealthy) pilot to get their hands on a real hot rod of a plane. There’s probably some additional risk, but the FAA has clearly recognized that one of the biggest dangers too flying a high performance aircraft is having to land fast. 200 kts vs 100 kts doesn’t make a big difference in risk in straight and level flight, but landing at 80 kts vs 55 kts does make a difference.
I don’t know where I stand exactly. It’s a big jump. Surely this is going to cause some old geezer to be screaming through a congested area and not be able to keep up with the ATC traffic calls because he’s never gone this fast before, and he’ll have a midair collision. Surely this is going to cause someone to buy a “light sport” aircraft with 280 hp and a huge prop and they’re going to crash taking off. But I think that overall I’m just being overly cautious, and most Sport Pilots are too poor to afford a plane that burns 15 gallons of avgas an hour, so most of the new planes under MOSAIC won’t be that powerful. I am curious to see what kind of new aircraft become available, and what the long term safety impacts will be.
Edit: for about five minutes my post said “not approved” when I meant to type that MOSAIC is “now approved”
parsimo2010
I’m going to add a list of things that I think are going to be cool to see:
- New engine options. Previously getting an engine certified was a big expense, so there wasn’t a lot of advancement. Now I think that higher performing Light Sport aircraft can be made with non-certified engines or components. All electronic ignitions, variable valve timing, electronic fuel injection, it’s all on the table now, and it gets to exist in a factory manufactured plane, not just experimentals.
- New avionics. The light sport category got to put some neat digital avionics in their panels because they weren’t certified. They had portable ADS-B transmitters that were legal. These options will now be open to faster planes too.
- Importing light sports from around the world. Lots of European light sport planes couldn’t be imported in the past because they weren’t certified but were too fast for American light sport rules. Now a lot of them will be able to be imported as soon as the rules allow.
- Cheaper complex trainers. Allowing variable pitch props and retractable gear in the light sport category will hopefully mean there will be a plane that comes along that allows you to build time in the complex category without spending the money that usually comes with these types of planes.
- there’s probably a bunch of other things we’ll see that I haven’t thought of, and I am curious to see whatever that is as well.
scarier
I really want to believe that MOSAIC will usher in a revolution of safe, affordable airplanes, but I'm not holding my breath. A lot of the stuff you mention has existed for decades in experimental aviation (electronic ignition, EFI/FADEC, non-TSO avionics, the ability to import factory-assembled but otherwise non-certified light sport aircraft...), and none of them seem to offer compelling cost, performance, and safety advantages over legacy systems.
My cold take is that the only significant, short-term effect will be slightly lowered training standards for low-to-moderate-performance aircraft. It's unclear that this will have any practical effects, since personal airplanes will remain prohibitively expensive to own and operate for the vast majority of us.
parsimo2010
Garmin charges an extra $1275 for their G5 instrument if you’re putting it in a certified aircraft vs a light sport. $1850 vs $3095. I’d call that a compelling cost advantage.
FADEC means one less knob the pilot had to worry about in flight and one fewer item on the landing checklist. Probably not a massive performance difference, but I’ll call the sum of the marginal fuel efficiency and engine longevity gains along with the additional safety reduced cognitive load a compelling advantage overall.
Cheaper, modern three axis autopilots are compelling. Repeat this exercise twenty more times with areas all over an airplane and you make a huge difference. Cheap planes aren’t going to swamp the market overnight, just like most of the original LSAs were over $100k when they first came out. But a $100k LSA sure was cheaper than a new SR20 or C172. But they trickled in, and now you can buy a few year old LSA at a decent price. The new crop will start to trickle in over the years too and maybe I’ll be able to afford one when I’m at retirement age.
You’re right about the reduced training standards, but doing it with the old light sport pilot restrictions didn’t cause a massive increase in incidents, so maybe this won’t be that bad. If you fly around rural airports you’ve already been flying around sport pilots and people on BasicMed for several years, so you would have already seen the difference.
ryandrake
In the experimental homebuilt world, just the fact that you (the builder) can choose to equip your plane with < 50 year old technology is compelling. All those things OP mentioned involve trade-offs that the builder needs to consider, but I’d rather have the choice than not (which is the case for certified airplanes).
sokoloff
> landing at 80 kts vs 55 kts does make a difference
Most single-engine aircraft were already restricted to 61 knot stall speed (and I think all MOSAIC-eligible ones were).
I’m a big proponent of MOSAIC (as I was of BasicMed), even though the MOSAIC rule change won’t directly help me.
parsimo2010
The precious light sport rules limited stall speeds to 45 kts. Jumping to 59 kts for sport pilots adds a huge amount of aircraft to the allowable list for a sport pilot.
sokoloff
Indeed. My point was these new LSA landing speeds are essentially the same as the landing speeds for light singles flown by private pilots. No one is landing light singles at 80 knots.
TinkersW
Have they removed leaded fuel yet? I'd rather not have more of these things spewing that over me.
parsimo2010
No, leaded fuel will continue for several years as they haven’t found a drop-in replacement that will work in the entire existing fleet, and the financial burden of modifying engines is too high for them to mandate the change. Some existing planes are approved to run unleaded fuels but not all.
But MOSAIC probably will result in more aircraft being announced that are designed to run unleaded fuel because you won’t have to use a certified engine and can use something more modern.
fnord77
> Surely this is going to cause some old geezer to be screaming through a congested area and not be able to keep up with the ATC traffic calls because he’s never gone this fast before,
Some "geezer" trying to land at OSH 2025 did this, just this year.
The geezer has an ATP and ATC certifications (Airline Transport Pilot)
The amount of people gatekeeping, coming up with scenarios and hating MOSAIC because of "feels" is so tiring. FAA made these changes based on DATA
cmurf
Sport pilots can’t operate in airspace requiring two-way radio communication, without separate instruction and endorsement. 14 CFR 61.315(c)(7)
All pilots are limited to 200hp or less, and non-complex aircraft without separate instruction and endorsement. 14 CFR 61.31(e) & (f)
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
parsimo2010
Crap, forgot that sport pilots couldn’t fly within a mode C ring. Well someone will probably do it anyway.
You could always get endorsements as a sport pilot, but complex and high performance didn’t make sense because there were no LSAs that qualified. But tons of people got tailwheel endorsements as sport pilots in the past. Now a bunch of sport pilots are going to get complex and high performance endorsements too.
tc313
I’m a sport pilot with a controlled airspace endorsement. It took just two lessons for my instructor to give me the endorsement. I don’t know why anyone would skip it.
MichaelZuo
Wouldn’t this problem be obviated by simply mandating sufficiently high third party liability insurance?
Then it will be the much less likely to be gamed insurance market effectively deciding who gets to fly the higher performance aircraft.
zzless
I was wandering the same thing. Quite often the insurance sets a much higher standard than what is legal. I had a lot of fun flying a local police helicopter as a commercial helicopter pilot with the police pilot (who only had a private certificate at the time) simply because insurance required a commercial pilot to be present in the cockpit.
parsimo2010
By and large the affordability will keep a lot of people from anything too high performance and dangerous. But there will be a few dead doctors who weren’t dissuaded by high premiums and high gas bills.
willis936
The goal of regulation should not be "make reckless endangerment expensive enough that only the plutocrats can afford to do it".
Teever
Any idea if the FAA will change the rules regarding having ADHD and a private pilots license?
It's really disheartening to know that I'm not allowed to fly recreationally from time to time because I take a stimulant medication to help finish university.
bigiain
Xyla Foxlin has a video related to that: https://youtu.be/aj0H8oVS7qg?si=xfkjvbqNFMIz1tfh
She talks about Pilot Mental Health Campaig https://www.pmhc.org/ and a campaign to lobby for changes.
She's also just started a new video series where she's building a wood and fabric Pietenpol Air Camper plane from 1929 plans: https://youtu.be/YThMZZ3M9uk?si=byl8E_wJF9cKY0Fj
sokoloff
The FAA aeromedical philosophy is quite risk-averse for all levels requiring a medical (including BasicMed, which requires an initial medical).
I don’t expect that to change, but I also wouldn’t have expected MOSAIC to be adopted either.
I think your best path is either to fly with an instructor (you don’t need a medical if the instructor is acting as pilot-in-command) or to fly Part 103 ultralights.
tc313
I think it’s more likely that the FAA drops the requirement for a third-class medical certificate to get a PPL than that they significantly loosen the diagnosis restrictions. At least they have discussed dropping the requirement in the past.
projektfu
It seems that they are evaluating it. Hopefully they will come up with new rules faster than they did for unleaded fuel.
rkagerer
over-the-air avionics updates
I was on board up until this phrase. I don't want my plane behaving as flakey as my Tesla, and my gauges shifting their location around every update at the whim of some junior designer.
Not saying there couldn't be a manufacturer that does OTA properly, I just haven't seen that as the trend in any other space (cars, smartphones, etc). The OTA part always seems to benefit the manufacturer, not the user. ("Watch this ad to take off....")
giantg2
"Let’s start with the obvious one. If the compliance costs of safety regulation get too high, it will shut down iteration and innovation in the industry. These innovations include safety enhancements."
An interesting point here is that you can sometimes get safety improvements in an experimental aircraft that you can't get in the same airframe under Part 23 because the manufacturers don't want to go through the certification process for upgraded parts and newer technology.
daft_pink
The reality is that personal aviation doesn’t make sense because the range of an cheap aircraft just isn’t very high so you’re not gonna fly from New York to California on an aircraft under $1 million dollars brand new and you’re certainly not gonna fly internationally. How can you spend so much money and so much time getting your pilots license for a plane that only will get you 500 or 600 miles effectively. Most people who can afford a six figure aircraft wanna fly much longer distances than they are able to fly.
hollerith
The main way that personal aviation contributes to the economy is by giving inexperienced pilots the experience they need to qualify to work for the airlines.
ufmace
Wouldn't they just land, refuel, and take off again a few times if they wanted to fly cross-country, similar to what they'd do in a car?
andoando
You can but its very slow and very expensive.
Even at full speed in a straight line, 2000 mile trip in a C172 would take 14.5 hours, and that's without refueling. Fuel would cost you ~$920.
In a twin prop like a Piper Seneca it would take about 9 hours, and ~$1700 of fuel.
There's also the issue of weather which small aircraft are much more subject to.
dontTREATonme
Wow, private flying really is for the rich. $1700 to fly cross country and it’s still 3 hours longer than flying commercial.
fnord77
Read the article. The reality is the FAA choked innovation in this industry.
daft_pink
I read it. I think we need planes with more range in the United States before personal aviation could become popular. I think that's the limiting factor not the 20 hour flying requirement vs the 40 hour flying requirement, Light Sport Aircraft.
wingspar
MOSAIC is Done! >> Ninety days from now, about three-quarters of the general aviation fleet will be accessible to sport pilots and those exercising sport pilot privileges. One year from now, new and modern aircraft will begin entering the fleet with minimal certification costs.
https://www.eaa.org/eaa/news-and-publications/eaa-news-and-a...
FabHK
Aviation moves more slowly than IT:
> the category could include planes like the forthcoming Pipistrel Panthera.
The "forthcoming" (2023) Panthera has been worked on since 2011, had its first flight in 2013, and is still in development (2025).
GianFabien
The big question: How is pilot training and certification going to ensure that accident rates are further reduced?
Will also need huge changes to training and certification of aircraft mechanics.
Existing air traffic controller shortages, under-staffing, equipment deficiencies are going to have trouble coping with the increased workload posed more and faster planes.
parsimo2010
On the maintenance side, MOSAIC rules are actually allowing people with a repairman certificate to do a condition inspection on an experimental or light sport aircraft. So there will be a bunch more mechanics available with a shorter training course.
Hopefully those mechanics only take jobs they are proficient in, but this is going to create a bunch of new mechanics. And maybe a trickle down effect of giving those people enough experience to upgrade to a full A&P / IA license over time. But it will be the owner/operator’s job to make sure that only a proficient repairman works on their plane.
JumpCrisscross
> Will also need huge changes to training and certification of aircraft mechanics
Why? These aren’t novel power plants.
> Existing air traffic controller shortages, under-staffing, equipment deficiencies are going to have trouble coping with the increased workload posed more and faster planes
Sport pilots aren’t landing at La Guardia.
null
sparrish
> Will also need huge changes to training and certification of aircraft mechanics
There's already a shortage of certified mechanics. Adding thousands of more pilots and presumably aircraft will make already long wait times for annuals even longer.
dang
Discussed at the time:
Personal aviation is about to get interesting - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37988638 - Oct 2023 (137 comments)
jauntywundrkind
MOSAIC has seemingly been approved, just last week I guess.
A bunch of the coverage has a nice table showing the new spec. https://www.flyingmag.com/faa-finalizes-major-overhaul-of-li...
brikym
It'd be good if small time pilots could fly quieter aircraft. There is an A380 that regularly takes off near me and it's quieter than most small planes. The engines on smaller planes drone loudly and it goes on and on as the planes are slow. Just another externalized cost of aviation.
nosefrog
On the flip side, my baby likes the small loud airplanes. He points at them and says "oooh!"
hoekit
This idea of a continuum as a tool to allow experimentation and gradual evolution of a critical infrastructure is an interesting one.
Wonder if there's something similar in other domains.
Can’t support MOSAIC enough. I’ve owned a composite LSA called a Flight Design for about 5 years, been in arguments with a lot of old timers about the safety aspects but I consider revolutionary and far safer than a certified aircraft than the statistics will tell you.
For example it has a ballistic parachute that will bring the entire aircraft to the ground. Unlike the Lycomings and Continentals the engine wasn’t designed in the 1950s. It’s equipped with real time satellite weather, GPS autopilot, Avionics that would cost you $15-20k to put in a Cessna due to all the red tape.
I will get a lot of heat for this but I think the FAA has killed a lot of people. If pilots had low cost access to things like glass cockpits, satellite weather, inexpensive autopilot, and a healthy ecosystem of cheap, modern aircraft with modern engines (Basic things like fuel injection) a lot of pilots might still be alive right now.