On Jun 23, 10:49*am, Gig 601Xl Builder
wrote:
Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
It's a Catch-22. *The FAA, NASA, DARPA, CAFE, and other organizations
are trying to make it not a small market, so the assumption is that,
if a PAV were created, it would be created for a mass market.

You just named three government agencies and a non-profit. By all their
very nature they are designed to blow smoke up the publics collective
ass. Winning the X-Prize isn't what motivated SpaceShipOne into
sub-orbital flight. It was a nice bonus though. The $250,000 prize CAFE
is offering won't even buy and fly one copy of what they are trying to
replace.

You cannot blame them for trying. After all, when DARPA allocates $3
million award for a company or organization to solve a problem, and
the problem is not solved, it is the organization's fault, generally.
The alternative is to fund nothing at all, which will not work,
because someone will come up with the brilliant idea that government
agencies should provide stimulus funding for innovation.

The $300,000 being offered by NASA/CAFE is not a huge amount, true. I
regard it as NASA's way of saying, "if you do your part, we will do
ours."

Last year, the entries into the PAV Challenge were embarrassingly
unimaginative, but the funds were still allocated. I suspect that, if
someone were to actually enter something that looked more like a PAV,
NASA would not be the only agency providing funding. DARPA would
join, etc.

They are waiting for innovators in aviation to do more than introduce
slightly-modified LSA's.

-Le Chaud Lapin-