Re:Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern person...
by aeternum on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @02:56AM
(#41178867)
Why does the warning have to happen in the next few seconds? Electric vehicles warn you at the start of your trip if you won't make it to your destination.
I used to have a super old handheld aviation GPS that would warn me something like 15 minutes out if my flight path was going to intersect either with terrain or B/C/D airspace. I guess foreflight somewhat recently added the feature but it still defaults to something like 3 min.
Re:Launch HN: Airhart Aeronautics (YC S22) – A modern person...
by lovecg on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @11:42AM
(#41182520)
> Electric vehicles warn you at the start of your trip if you won't make it to your destination.
Road navigation is relatively simple and even then there are unexpected road closures and stuff like that. If running out of gas was an emergency in a car you’d never rely on this warning alone, you’d do more careful planning and fuel monitoring. And then cars don’t have to deal with unexpected headwinds, weather (maybe occasionally), closed runways, the list goes on. It’s just a much harder forecasting problem.
Flying a plane is often sort of like that - planning mistakes tend to become problems with large time windows where a warning light is way too late to affect the outcome. Flying into a long narrow canyon is another example where your fate can be sealed minutes before you actually fly into the mountain.
All of this can and should be made better with technology, but a lot of flying hazards are more complex than “warn the user about something happening in the next few seconds”.