You can become a private pilot with an airplane or helicopter rating in 40 hours. 250 is for commercial pilots.

And this shit does happen.

It took decades an many lives to get there, people tend to forget that.

Not to mention that the frequency of inspections even for the kind of planes amateur pilots fly is insane compared to cars.

Something like a Cessna 152 (common single seat, single prop, plane) has in addition to the annual inspection another one every 100h of flight, plus of course before using it the pilot has to conduct a pre-flight inspection (which is mostly visual).

Imagine if before starting your car you had to check that the steering wheel actually turns the wheels or that the brakes actually work and every 100h of use you have to take it to a mechanic for a more thorough inspection, plus the engine only lasts 30,000h and you have to replace it after that.

I am not looking forward to random idiots falling from the sky onto my property.

That's just a normal day in Alaska.

And also a huge QC culture. If we let the auto industry make aircrafts for the general public, we'll soon wish we were flying Boeing