The Vertical Space

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!

Professor Donald R. Sadoway is one world’s top experts on energy and batteries – one of the most important topics in our society, in aviation, and in AAM. There are few more important topics to our industry – and who better than Professor Sadoway to educate us on the topic – and talk about where we are and where innovation can take us.Professor Sadoway is the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. He’s the author of over 180 scientific papers and holder of 35 U.S. patents, is the founder of six companies, and his TED talk has been viewed over 2,400,000 times. In 2012 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Author of 'Where Is My Flying Car', J. (Josh) Storrs Hall, discusses the challenges and requirements of making flying cars a reality, the prevalence of battery-based EVTO UAM vehicles, the value of advanced air mobility and lessons from the automotive industry, the evolution of traffic laws, and the cost and value of flying cars.

Today we’re taking a look into the future of air traffic management with Chris Hewlett, a retired naval aviator with 30 years of experience in aviation operations, safety, modernization, and optimization of next generation aviation systems. In the conversation that follows, Chris offers thought provoking insights on how we as an industry should be thinking about the management of a truly integrated airspace system that’s agnostic to the type of user, be it small drones, general aviation, commercial aviation, or military aviation….and how current approaches to UTM are not quite aligned with this end goal. Chris draws parallels to best practices in the military, and talks about the pioneering work being done in North Dakota as part of the Vantis project. Enjoy the conversation with Chris!