Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
That very same computer could communicate flight plan to ground, store
minute details of entire flight on hard disk and automatically move
them to home computer for recap....

Glass panel systems are already on the market that have those capabilities
today (except the "auto move" stuff), such as Dynon products:

http://www.dynonavionics.com/

Whatever capabilities you think aren't there yet, you can rest assured that
avionics makers are already working on fully integrated systems.

On Jun 20, 5:16*am, Dylan Smith wrote:
Control electronics does exist for GA, it's called an autopilot, and
they've been around for a long time (some more sophisticated than
others). Some engines are also available with FADEC.

These systems are massively expensive, and there is much redundancy.
For example, the entire radio stack could be eliminated by a software
radio, which controls fed through LCD monitor.

That's already being done. I think you need to review what is already
available.

The software radi
costs $1000. The computer would be one of same 2 computers used for
other functions.

The software development costs for such systems run into the millions of
dollars but the number of unit sales is, at best, under a hundred thousand
- I suspect more typically a few thousand units. Add in the hardware costs
and such equipment can rarely be sold for under a couple thousand.