wrote:


Totalitarian states do not permit experimental aviation.

Not true. The German Nazi regime of the 1930s loved experimental aviation
(and experimental rocketry), they even gave financial support. A lot of the
amateur designers and pilots then went on to play a big part in the Second
World War. The contemporary British government tried everything it could to
stop amateurs getting into the air.

As a result, surviving the Battle of Britain (1940) was as much a matter of
luck as judgment. Later on we had to put up with bombs mysteriously falling
out of the sky (the V2 long range rocket). If the war in Europe had gone on
much longer the first man in space would have been a German piloting a
two-stage missile to New York.

BTW this difference in attitude between British and German governments
continues to this day. This explains why German radio hams are putting
together a Mars lander, and we can't fly a suitably-equipped Lancair in IFR.