The Vertical Space

In this episode we’re speaking with Jim O’Sullivan, VP Regulatory Strategy and Special Projects at Matternet. In case you missed it, Matternet became the first commercial delivery drone manufacturer to receive type certification from the FAA in September 2022. This is an important industry milestone because, according to the FAA, operators that want to provide a regular commercial delivery service beyond visual line of sight need to run their operations under a Part 135 air carrier operating license…and this in turn requires type certified drones. So, we asked Jim to join us and talk about the drone type certification process: what it looks like, how long it took, all the twists and turns along the way, including the remaining challenge of certifying so called associated elements, meaning all parts of the drone system that do not fly, such as the ground control station and the datalink. We also talk about the commercial drone industry broadly: state of the market today and upcoming milestones. And for those of you thinking about starting a drone business, you’ll want to hear Jim’s advice. 

There are few who are more listened to in our industry than Richard Aboulafia, Managing Director at AeroDynamic Advisory. We start with a discussion of the macro trends and drivers influencing the commercial and defense aviation markets. Then we engage in a terrific discussion on the future of aviation – and how geopolitics and technology will shape aviation in the coming years. Of course we talked about AAM – and what areas Richard is excited about as well as his concerns – and why.  And a great discussion on sustainability, including a detailed discussion around SAF. Richard, thanks for joining us!

Today we welcome Christian Ramsey and Ryan Braun from uAvionix to discuss next-generation avionics. Ryan and Christian lead a successful company with real products for clear industry use-cases – in this case with size, weight, and power-optimized avionics – while straddling both the manned and unmanned markets. Listen to their conversation on the benefits of being in both markets. This is so important as we hear from so many who have yet to build their capabilities, are hoping for a variety of conditions that may or may not occur, with use-cases that have yet to be proven.  The uAvionix approach speaks to the benefits of building capabilities that have a rapid return on investment in today’s market for today’s needs – while creating capabilities in unmanned markets that, yes, exist today, and have the potential to rapidly and expansively grow in size and scope. We talk about the technologies necessary for the integration of UAS into the airspace system: autopilots, command & control radios, high integrity GPS receivers, cloud-based beyond visual line of sight command & control networks, and ADS-B.  You’ll enjoying hearing about what drove the need for ADS-B – why it was so important to our industry and for the foundation of uAvionix, why it is and isn’t a good option for small drones, and yet so important for manned aircraft.  We discuss the AAM supply chain, the role of certified avionics in the unmanned aircraft industry, vertical integration as well as lessons learned in building and selling a profitable and fast-growing avionics company serving both the unmanned and manned markets.  One of the many reasons uAvionix has been successful is that they took an established capability and introduced it to markets with clear use-cases. Listen to how they took their tech to smaller airports, where the airports are sometimes blind when understanding airspace around them…and where a lot happens on ramps and taxiways and where coordination is historically through verbal communication. ADS-B brings the same benefits to an airport that it brings to aircraft…helping to prevent, in this case ground incursions and providing a full range of intelligence, including where aircraft come and where they’re going, as well as providing runway friction information. And rather than building their own business intelligence platforms and selling them throughout this vast market, they partnered with companies that already have their own platforms and broad market acceptance, as represented with the recent market announcement of their recent partnership with PASSUR Aerospace. Finally, listen to the importance of growing a viable, profitable company from the offset – listen to their advice on the importance of running profitable operations from the beginning – which builds a stronger and more attractive opportunity should the time be right to raise funds for more expansive opportunities.  You’ll enjoy listening their to experiences in the early days of their business – echoing what many of our business leaders have said as they started their businesses – and the fundamentals they would pass along to our audience of budding and established business leaders. 

Today we're talking about global navigation satellite systems - or GNSS - and in particular, their vulnerabilities to jamming and spoofing. Joining us in the conversation is Omer Sharar, CEO of infiniDome, a GPS security company based in Israel. As a society, we have come to rely on GPS for countless things we do every day - to determine a position, navigate, track our packages, use maps, and to determine precise and accurate timing. At the same time, we have come to accept it as almost a given, and most of us are not necessarily even aware of the vulnerabilities of GPS. That's what this episode is about: we discuss what happens when a GPS signal is jammed, how easy it is to jam a GPS signal, how often it happens, and who cares about it. Omer shines light on the demand signals in the defense and civil markets, where the pain point is most acute, how big of a risk GPS jamming poses to drone operations at scale...and importantly, how to deal with this risk.Omer also talks about how the FAA and EASA think about GPS jamming as a threat to safety, how the industry is solving GPS-denied navigation, and also what kind of GPS jamming is happening in the war in Ukraine.Enjoy the conversation with Omer!

In this episode we talk to Lisa Ellman, Executive Director of the Commercial Drone Alliance and Partner at Hogan Lovells.  Our discussion focuses on the regulatory and policy aspects of Advanced Air Mobility, and in particular the commercial drone industry.  Among other things, Lisa shares her thoughts and insights on Remote ID, operations over people, BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) ARC (Aviation Rulemaking Committee) recommendations and how/when the FAA might implement them into actual rulemaking, privacy concerns, air rights, drone type certification (including associated elements operational approval) and other regulatory factors driving the commercial drone industry. Listen to Lisa’s description of and takeaways from the August 2022 White House AAM summit, and advice to entrepreneurs entering the world of Advanced Air Mobility.

Better returns from tech investments, opportunities for innovators, what to focus on in AAM, challenges to overcome, batteries, and what will make AAM successful – you’ll want to listen to this conversation twice with Professor de Weck from MIT. He is the award winning author of “Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World” and the week of our podcast released his new book: "Technology Roadmapping and Development."

So here’s a great discussion with Jeff Smith, Chair of the huge Helicopter Association International. This podcast will be an eye opener for many – on how the helicopter industry has embraced AAM, and that the AAM industry should work collaboratively with the helicopter industry to ensure the same successes and overcome the challenges to help scale the AAM industry to eventual success.

James Poss is a retired United States Air Force Major General and now Founder and Chief Executive of ISR Ideas, an intelligence and unmanned aircraft systems consulting firm. His distinguished 30-year Air Force career in military intelligence included combat experience in four wars. Before transitioning out of the military General Poss was the Air Force’s senior career intelligence officer. In this episode you’ll hear General Poss talk about the military cultural imperatives that drove the adoption of drones in each of the branches of the US military, a brief history of military use of drones as far back as 80+ years ago, and how the capabilities of today’s UAS systems compared to the drones that General Poss used in the Gulf War and over the Balkans in the 1990s.He shares what drone use cases the military has made tremendous progress on, and also the missions where sadly this is not the case.  We also talked about the use of drones in the war in Ukraine, thoughts on where the military and commercial drone industries might be 5 and 10 years from now, trusted autonomy, military acquisition process, advice to entrepreneurs, and much much more.

We welcome Ed Bolen, President & CEO of NBAA to The Vertical Space! At a time when so many are focusing on the building the flying vehicles, listen how Ed discusses what has made business aviation as vital as it is today – and if AAM wants to be successful, it should consider the ingredients of the business aviation success. 

We sat down with Rex Alexander - one of the preeminent global leaders on the topic of vertical flight infrastructure - and uncovered an entire pandora’s box of important infrastructure issues including the catch 22 involving eVTOL performance, passenger tolerance for ride quality, and business models. Rex takes the time to explain in painful detail all the different regulatory layers that impact heliports and vertiports: from federal down to local, and how they influence timelines and locations where vertiports are most likely to show up….and in the process we also highlight gaps in existing regulations.We touched on so many other thought provoking topics: vertiport ownership models, how operator business models impact vertiports (or the other way round!), who stands to make the most money on infrastructure, opportunities for entrepreneurs in the number of cottage industries that will emerge on the back of vertiports, factors impacting public acceptance, the wild west of droneports, advice for entrepreneurs…and what vertiport designers can learn from the elevator industry.  Enjoy the conversation with Rex!