Fair enough - you didn't mention an autopilot. But I can't concieve of
one of these being marketed without one.

I'm thinking full time wing leveler. Mooney used to do that. You had
to press a button to turn. I would add GPSS to it, and there you are.

Lots of present day pilots swear by George already.

Yup. Some of them are airline pilots. The Airbus is a tribute to this
sort of thinking. At 400 ft the autopilot goes on, and MAYBE it gets
disconnected on short final.

Don't confuse "simple" with "simplistic". It would most certainly NOT
reduce regulation

Yes it would. Once people with money started flying in quantity, they
simply would not tolerate the heavy-handedness of the FAA and all its
rules. Too many of them would have the money to hire lawyers, the
connections to have the DOT inspector general investigate the FAA (and
we know that historically the FAA can't stand that sort of scrutiny -
too many skeletons in those closets), and pretty soon the FAA would
have to back off. Way off. Not because flying would get safer
(although with some serious technology it might - cars have) but
because numbers mean political clout.

Motorcycles are just as dangerous as GA, and how much regulation is
there on them?

Even if they don't fail much, with lots of them out there, they will
fail often enough to make ATC into AAA.

No doubt. They will deal. Or they will get outsourced to LockMar and
their replacements will deal. And pilots will pay $100/year for AAA (I
mean ATC) services.

Even if they never fail, I don't see the average joe who can't
program their VCR making head or tail out of what it does when it dishes
out an "interface surprise"

The VCR was a perfect example of a lousy UI. That's why people STILL
can't program them. No need, though. We now have TiVo, and everyone
can use it.

Michael