Kinda like designing an automobile without knowing how to drive? I'm not sure I would like that kind of auto. It would probably look like a Star Trek walking machine.
Actually, I once had someone of a similar idea. I bought part interest in an avionics shop. We were considered opening a branch shop at the local airport with me as the tech. The problem is that I don't fly but can repair avionics, computahs, some instruments, etc. A little marketing research (asking stupid questions of various pilots) convinced me that nobody would trust their airplanes to someone that doesn't have a pilots license and doesn't fly. That should give you a clue for your upcoming credibility challenge.
Yep. The same applies to any industry where safety is more important than functionality. You'll find a similar situation in military, medical, nuclear, and some industrial electronics. If you want it to just work, it's cheap. If you want it totally reliable, tested, blessed, and as near perfect as humanly possible, you gotta pay the price.
Incidentally, the FAA's peak employment was about 54,000 in 2002 and has dropped to about 42,000 in 2007. Needless to say, some things are not getting done or being delayed.
Been there and done that. Boaters and hikers were using GPS receivers while aviation was stuck with Loran C at best. It took a while to get GPS through the TSO maze. There was quite a bit of testing done by the FAA, which then simultaneously certified boxes by Apollo, Morrow, Garmin, and others. When marine GPS receivers included mapping displays, it was about 3 years before they were approved for aviation.
I can see you've never hung out in the lounge at an airport. All you hear are pilots complaining about this and that. The FAA is a favorite target, although various revenue collecting (tax) agencies are a close second. There's also the traditional $100 hamburger:
Incidentally, a typical Dave Clark headset retails for about $250. If you want noise canceling, about $650. The new X11 ENC ANR is about $750. There are cheaper brands with headsets for about $125.
Figure on $60/hr for a Cessna 172 dry, plus about 10 gallons per hour for fuel at about $6/gal. So, a 2 hr joy ride will cost $240 or the cost of a headset. Play with your computer flight simulator for a day, instead of flying, and you've paid for the headset.
$10,000 is cheap for a complete EFIS or glass cockpit control and MFD display system. However, if you're flying a mult-million dollar business jet, it's just spare change. As far as I know, you can't legally install a general purpose computah in an airplane. The RFI would cause havoc to the much of the RF based navigation. I suppose a Tempest qualified laptop might be approved. Incidentally, most small aircraft run on 24VDC, which adds a small obstacle to OTS products.
Yep. There are those. Go to one of the vintage aircraft shows or antique fly-in's and you'll meet lots of them. They fly by the seat of their pants, paper maps, hand-held radio, navigate by the stars or highways, never file a flight plan, and usually several months behind on their hangar rentals. Many of their airplanes are made primarily of borrowed parts, with borrowed tools, and borrowed money. Kinda scary, often unsafe, but also probably the best pilots around. They don't fly the airplane, they wear it like a suit of clothes.
The retro aviation crowd doesn't worry me (much). It's the yuppies with more money than good sense or patience that worry me. They LOVE gadgets in their airplanes. The more gizmos, the better. Too bad they don't spend the time to learn how to use them. I just hate trying to collect from the pilots estate after he trashes the plane because he was too busy fiddling with the knobs and gadgets instead of paying attention to the surroundings and instruments.