Divraj Jain

start with a bottleneck, not an aircraft idea Instead of: “Let’s build a cool plane” They did: “What constraint is blocking a trillion-dollar industry?” radia.com/windrunner

starship is actually a spaceplane

interesting drones that no one is building :- - personal bodyguard drone = high endurance that follows owner - personal cooling drone = follows and provides air cooling - personal speaker drone = has speakers so owner doesnt have to wear airpods - can use parametric speakers

must read - you can build hardware and still accomplish this

ideally walkable charter cities in cool climates > regular sprawl + air mobility / self driving cars

assess your aviation infrastructure on global time-hours saved daily at current technological limits a sub-orbital point to point aircraft is probably the most ambitious thing you can build but demand / turnaround will be so low that time hours saved will be multiples lower in spite of accounting for higher leverage users like elite heads of state / ceos etc

buying my son a markforged metal X system for his 2nd birthday

"Pondering the potential success or failure of the C919 in markets outside of China, it is easy to draw parallels to China’s advancement in the automotive industry. Once the subject of ridicule among industry gurus, Chinese made vehicles now roam roads all across the planet." flightradar24.com/blog/aircraft-…

the autogyro is safer and easier to fly than most aircraft

If you do not have, - A China R&D office - Have direct flights from your city to Guangzhou or Shenzhen - A presence on one of Douyin/Xiaohongshu/Lemon8 - Know what Tmall/Douyin Mall/Taobao are, - Direct connections to Chinese factories or at the very least a top notch in-house sourcer or sourcing agent you trust, - Some way to track developments in your industry within China, - A Chinese best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or mistress, You are NGMI

China has planted so many trees it's changed the entire country's water distribution agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…

"The Cirrus Story — From Barn to Personal Jet In 1984, two brothers — Alan & Dale Klapmeier — started building airplanes in a barn in Wisconsin. No giant factories, no aerospace empire. Just vision, composites, and stubborn belief. Their first project? A futuristic kit-plane — the VK-30 — a hint that Cirrus was never going to be ordinary. By the 1990s they moved to Minnesota and set out to rethink the light aircraft we all knew. In 1999, the SR20 arrived: fully composite, modern avionics, and something the industry thought was “too radical” — a parachute for the entire airplane. People scoffed. Pilots embraced it. Then came the SR22 — faster, more capable — and suddenly Cirrus wasn’t a quirky newcomer anymore. It became the best-selling piston GA aircraft in the world. The parachute system would go on to save hundreds of lives. But the Klapmeiers wanted more. They dreamed of a jet that felt personal. Small enough for owner-pilots. Safe enough for families. A “new category” jet. The vision took years. It needed fresh investment. In 2011, Cirrus was acquired by China’s CAIGA — a move that sparked debate but unlocked capital. Crucially, Cirrus stayed American-built. Five years later — October 2016 — the Vision Jet was certified: the world’s first single-engine personal jet with a whole-aircraft parachute and now even autoland. It didn’t just enter a market… it created one. Today, Cirrus stands as one of aviation’s modern innovators — born in a barn, reshaping the skies, proving that bold ideas eventually fly. "

"innovating engines, aerodynamics, structures, electrification etc mainly crushes the per seat variable cost. but per flight fixed costs don’t scale down well as the airplane shrinks. "

fuel constitutes 20-40% of operating cost of modern commercial aircraft . toward the 40% in places like india with high tax / regulatory structure

I didn't know that China is that far ahead in wind tunnels. Yeah that can explain why they're so effortlessly advancing on hypersonics. What's the best the US has got? I doubt NASA is it.

Ha-Joon Chang being rather blunt as to the messed up financial incentives in the Indian business sector

the number of evtols from unheard of companies is staggering

in wing integrated forward propulsion like whisper aero concepts