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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
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Anyone who believes flying cars are even remotely possible has obviously spent zero time at all looking into basically anything, from the technology to the FAA regulations that make it illegal (love seeing these techbro morons think they can skirt around regulations only to immediately be hit with an illegal charter fine and shut down). Without fail, their triumphant “certification” is a restricted/experimental airworthiness certificate that you can’t see for an aircraft that nobody has seen either. What this means is they can’t do anything for hire and can’t have more than six passengers among a host of other shit. They also cannot operate internationally. Anyone and their mother can get an experimental airworthiness certificate.
Have they considered that you still need to be licensed to fly, how expensive and difficult that is? Seriously, “airmen practical tests” (as they call them) are fucking hard! It’s not like a drivers license where they hand them out like candy, you have to actually work for it. The standards document is over 100 pages and you need to ace every single task. A single mistake is an automatic failure and the test costs 800 bucks a pop! And did I mention that examiners are few and far between and you’ll likely be waiting two months between scheduling and taking the test?
And you can’t just get in a plane and fly like you get in a car and drive. There is so much paperwork and logging shit and fixing and checking that needs to be done, and if you want to leave the US you better have five hours to spare pouring over the exact obscure documents you need to fill out and spend hours on hold to speak to a customs agent.
So much convenience!
And let’s call this what it is, a blatant attempt to circumvent aviation safety regulations with their smarmy lawyering bullshit. I’ve known a few FAA inspectors in my life and they don’t fuck around. There’s been a thousand techbros before them that have tried going “well ackshually” only to be told to shut the fuck up and to take their VC money from whence they came.
14 CFR Part 119.23, Part 121, Part 135 and FAA AC 91-37B, AC 120-12A, and FlyteNow Inc v. FAA would like to have a word
Carrying paying passengers from point to point without an air carrier certificate is called ✨Illegal Air Charter✨
Operating an aircraft (the operator need not pilot the aircraft) carrying passengers who cover or split, any costs, or provide any form of compensation (which includes pilot experience in and of itself or even having dinner paid for), without traveling for a common purpose, without an air carrier certificate is called ✨Illegal Air Charter✨
Obtaining a certificate entails dropping six figures minimum, years of red tape, establishing rigorous inspection, maintenance, and training programs and, get this, having a pilot. In practice this amounts to dropping seven to eight figures on a yearly basis. What this also means is that your shitty startup is now just as expensive as, but more inconvenient and less safe than just chartering an airplane.
Do these people know how many rules a commercial operator needs to follow? It’s an incredibly complex process that I highly doubt any Silicon Valley dipshit could wrap their smoothbrains around.
Yeah, they basically own the Bay Area municipal governments, but trying to fuck the FAA over is just not something you do. They hold all the cards and pissing them off will end your aviation hopes and dreams instantly.
Techbros have also been having trouble finding people willing to work for them after the last startup got fined into bankruptcy and their pilots got their licenses revoked and careers ended. Some of those revocations were eventually reversed but they’ll still be answering “yes” to “has your certificate ever been revoked or suspended for any reason?” I don’t think I need to explain why this gets any job application you ever send in the future auto-rejected. You are gambling with your livelihood by working with these companies. Almost everyone has done the math in their heads and it’s not worth it.
I’ve known some of the guys who work at the regional office overseeing the Bay Area. They have the same opinion on Silicon Valley techbros as your average Hexbear tankie. It’s like whack-a-mole with all the fly by night aviation startups here. Going after these startup dipshits is a favorite pastime for inspectors. What confuses me is what these techbro assholes think they can achieve by deliberately provoking those who have the unassailable authority to shut them down at any time, entirely at their discretion. All these startups are basically in a constant state of spitting in inspectors’ faces.
I do have to emphasize the “unassailable authority” part. Even if these techbro clowns tried applying for an air carrier certificate, they probably wouldn’t get one just because of the enmity that exists between them and the inspectors. They don’t need a reason to deny your application.
They like to brag about being “certified by the FAA”. The office does issue airworthiness certificates, but only a restricted version that basically limits you to circling over the Nevada dessert for 30 minutes at a time. These are issued not as an affirmation of the safety of the aircraft, but as a license for you to kill yourself, and only yourself in your death-contraption. The FAA doesn’t care if you jeopardize only your own safety. The issue is that these startups aren’t eccentric hobbyists, they’re targeting the general public. And doing so immediately puts you under the microscope. A certification isn’t an endorsement, and in this case, the FAA can’t stop you from getting yourself killed, so they basically have to issue the certificate. I wouldn’t really consider being allowed to annoy insects in the dessert with aircraft noise a stunning victory.
And wrt the lobbying, they’re delusional if they think they can out-lobby the airlines, which have an interest in them continuing to get shut down.
The process usually goes something like this:
-Startup tries skirting the rules
-Gets shut down by the FAA
-Startup tries to challenge it in court
-Loses, and faces additional ego-based punishment for pissing the judge off with their tired old bullshit
-Investors flee and move onto the next illegal startup
-FAA adds startup to their enforcement division trophy collection
Rinse and repeat.