"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

NASA intends for
non-certificated aviation passengers to rent aircraft after arrival
equipped with a system similar to that which you describe, and use it
for transport from the airline hub to a municipal airport destination.


Nary a word about weather. So long as aircraft fly by virtue of airfoils,
weather will always be an issue, and not because of visibility either.

My guess is the wild-eyed vision NASA espouses is 100% marketing, in order
to get a bunch of non-aviation people excited enough to provide some measure
of funding. They know full well this will never happen but the research
involved will generate plenty of useful spinoffs into the real world, which
they will be able to use to prove the funding was well spent.

The kind of aviation we're talking about here--fast, all-weather, xc
ops--will simply never be a game for duffers. Serious hobbyists, yes.

What I'd like to see NASA work on with the FAA is to revise certification
standards so we can get promising technologies into the fleet more
efficiently. I can imagine a portable ADS-B type unit that requires only
limited installation (say an antenna mount). After all, we're only talking
about a transponder and a GPS receiver, right?

Now imagine creating a general-purpose specification that manufacturers
could simply prove their units adhere to, rather than requiring a full
certification regime for each one, and also developing a standardized
testing approach that makes installation certification fairly simple and
thus low-cost. Within a couple years you'll see every avionics mfr. building
a unit, thus driving down prices, possibly to less than $5,000 installed,
perhaps even less in high volumes. Before you know it, you get well over 50%
of the GA fleet covered with the equivalent of RNAV, TCAS, EGPWS, and Mode
S, enhancing utility and safety for absolutely everybody. Simplified
installation and low-cost instruments means upgrade cycles will shorten to
3-5 years rather than the 10-20 seen today.

Odds of this happening? Goose Egg.

Best,
-cwk.