His insight was that the problem wasn't on level 1, it was on level 2. MacCready realized that the iteration cycle was the problem.
Aerodynamics of conventional prop planes is by now a done deal. With anything from a Piper-Cub to a 747, there are tons of similar craft already existing you can imitate and a market from which you can draw funding to build near-production functionality prototypes.
This was not true for the extremely low power region of the design space, however. For that region of the design space, he returned to the "tinkering" paradigm of the Wright Brothers.
There is a clear and clearly useful analogy for startups here.
Aerodynamics of conventional prop planes is by now a done deal. With anything from a Piper-Cub to a 747, there are tons of similar craft already existing you can imitate and a market from which you can draw funding to build near-production functionality prototypes.
This was not true for the extremely low power region of the design space, however. For that region of the design space, he returned to the "tinkering" paradigm of the Wright Brothers.
There is a clear and clearly useful analogy for startups here.