Show notes
Physicist, chip designer, serial entrepreneur — and the man who spent 25 years making aviation cheaper. Host Mike Bush sits down with John Torode, founder of Dynon Avionics and Vashon Aircraft, for a wide-ranging conversation that runs from vacuum-tube computers and the birth of the PC to the $2,200 glass panel that upended general aviation. Along the way: GPS jamming, the brutal economics of FAA certification, what AI is really doing to software, the end of Moore's Law, and why getting an engine built may be harder than designing the avionics.Two MIT/Dartmouth classmates of '66, both born in 1944, compare notes on careers that ran startlingly in parallel — and on the cost problem that could decide whether the next generation ever gets to fly.⏱ Chapters0:26 — Meet John Torode & two parallel lives3:38 — MIT, physics & collecting five degrees6:21 — Learning to fly on $300 a month8:10 — Vacuum tubes, the IBM 650 & Minsky's AI prophecy15:36 — Designing chips, networks & the Cypress years22:20 — Founding Dynon: the quest for affordable avionics24:19 — GPS is everywhere — and dangerously easy to jam34:17 — The $2,200 glass panel that broke the mold40:40 — Aviation's volume problem & dying semiconductors42:11 — Going certified: the FAA, the STC & DO-17848:22 — Will AI rewrite (and certify) the code?1:04:46 — From Apollo's computer to the end of Moore's Law1:20:07 — Buy today's avionics, not tomorrow's1:23:04 — Telemetry, the cloud & "there is no privacy"1:30:19 — Vision Aircraft: building a plane and an engine1:40:13 — Closing: keeping aviation affordable for the next generation📍 Subscribe to Aviation Masters for more long-form conversations with the people shaping the future of GA.