This is what institutional decay often looks like! They can still carry out a set of procedures allowing them to do the same thing they've been doing for a long time -- but they get less efficient, less flexible, more ossified. They are no longer the FAA that figured out how to oversee airline operations; they're the FAA that follows the script left to them by their predecessors. Collison gives a nice example:
> The avionics you see in cockpits are bafflingly primitive because it's so hard, slow, and expensive to get the FAA to approve new technology. As a result, pretty much every pilot flies with an iPad running sophisticated flight planning software -- their connection to a world that the FAA doesn't encumber.
There was a time when the FAA was much better at dealing with new technology. There was a time when all the technology in their purview was new. Something changed.
iPads can run out of battery or get smashed in turbulence or fall prey to bugs/malware; old-fashioned steam gauges cannot. The FAA's regulations are written in blood - the aviation fatality rate has fallen sharply over the years [0] thanks to a combination of technological advancement and regulation. Aircraft builders are still free to do pretty much whatever they want within the 'experimental' category, provided they mount a placard informing occupants that the aircraft is experimental.
> The avionics you see in cockpits are bafflingly primitive because it's so hard, slow, and expensive to get the FAA to approve new technology. As a result, pretty much every pilot flies with an iPad running sophisticated flight planning software -- their connection to a world that the FAA doesn't encumber.
There was a time when the FAA was much better at dealing with new technology. There was a time when all the technology in their purview was new. Something changed.