We face the same issues with airplanes. I'm not allowed to install a modern autopilot in my 1954 Bonanza. Instead, I have to install one designed in the 1950 or 60s because those are the units the airplanes were certified with back in the day.
Hence, I have an option of spending $15,000 for a vastly outdated design - complete with discrete components like resistors, diodes, and capacitors in parallel/series circuits along with heavy old clunker servo motors . . . versus 21st century microprocessor based designs, which are equipped with ultra lightweight brushless motors many times faster, stronger, and with better centering. Worse, the old units depend on spinning mechanical gyros instead of piezo crystals. It's almost like insisting you design using a vintage HP 15C scientific calculator versus a modern day workstation with Solidworks.
Anyway, a modern day autopilot weigh a fraction of what an antique autopilot weighs, consumes a very small fraction of the current, and offers many more features, along with a huge step forward in reliability . . . for about $2500. Yes, 1/6th the price!
Unfortunately, bureaucrats at the FAA (Feds Against Aviation) won't allow it without a horribly expensive certification process, which small manufacturers simply cannot afford. This, despite the fact these systems are installed every day in home-built airplanes, which have the same performance capabilities and share the same airspace - go figure. In fact, the most popular home-builder's system is designed bt the dsame fellow who designed the antique autopilot in my airplane and he refuses to ever certify a system. Says it's too much trouble. This means, of course, he cannot sell his system to about 3/4 of the available market, which goes to show there;'s a real price being paid every day by American small businesses due to overbearing government regulations.
eEven more sad, since the old style autopilot designs represent a fair fraction of the value of an old airplane, $15,000 against an airplane worth maybe$20,000, e.g. a Cessna 150 made in the 60s, folsk cannot reasonably afford to install onet because they can never hope to recoup the investment. As a direct consequence, pilots forsake the safety improvements of having an autopilot and do without, which si costing lives year in and year out. The stats bear this out in a category called CFIT - controlled flight into terrain, and loss of control due to disorientation, e.g. getting into clouds and losing situational awareness or just making a dumb mistake. Senseless as an autopliot often could have saved the aircraft and the lives. Heavy sigh.
We somehow have to get government out of our lives. I understand it's all been done with good intentions, but it's simply taken on a life of its own. It's destroying what it means to be a freedom loving American.
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