>>1840456Still going to need engine rebuilds, hanger, annuals (as far as I know?), landing fees, closer to $5k for a license (light sport still is a license), repairs for damage to your plane, etc. +tax+tip
Yes, a light sport is cheaper than a full private license and a 4 seater 172 or something, but it's far from legitimately cheap. From what I've understand, the FAA basically wants to keep as few small planes zipping around as possible (probably because retards crash them all the time and gives all of aviation a bad name). Once upon a time, it was possible to just get a plane and go fly around for a reasonable amount of money, but that was about 50 years ago. You'll notice all of the cheap planes are 50+ years old and there's a reason for that.
As much as I prefer a true "stick and rudder" flying experience, I think the future of (relatively) affordable aviation is eVTOL aircraft. At the time of this writing, the BlackFly is supposed to cost "similar to a luxury SUV" once in full production and will not require a license to fly.
On the one hand, it should be very easy to fly if it handles like the higher end drones I've flown, on the other hand, if you're into small aircraft for the skill of it, it will probably feel more like moving a camera in a video game than stick and rudder flying.
There's also the issue of range due to the battery powered nature, and it's not fast. If they can improve the speed and range, it would be at least sorta cool and hypothetically is much safer than typical small aircraft because it can suffer a few engines failing without being unable to land safely and has redundant electronics so is unlikely to have a full failure. Even if all electronics shit the bed, you can just deploy a ballistic parachute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xa_Gghn63E 