2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

Much of the impetus for urban air mobility (UAM), and the technology that will support it, is coming from beyond the mainstream aerospace industries. Investors and innovators are being drawn from sectors such as information technology, and it’s fairly apparent that the corporate culture in Silicon Valley is quite different from that of aviation.
But it’s aviation’s rules that will apply when it comes to getting new aircraft approved to enter service. This is where aviation industry trade groups are starting to play a significant role in smoothing the path for the disruptive technologies and business models that they once might have seen as a threat, but now generally accept to be a force for good.
This trend was apparent at the National Business Aviation Association’s 2019 annual convention held in Las Vegas at the end of October. The trade show’s Innovation Zone was given over entirely to a display of UAM concepts and technology. Conference sessions dealt with key issues, such as how autonomous aircraft will be incorporated into the National Airspace System and the role of artificial intelligence.
<a href="https://nbaa.org/">NBAA</a> isn’t the only industry group looking to play a role in this fast-growing sector. In the U.S. alone, the <a href="https://vtol.org/">Vertical Flight Society</a> (VFS), <a href="https://gama.aero/home/europe-en/">General Aviation Manufacturers Association</a> (GAMA), <a href="https://www.nata.aero/">National Air Transportation&nbsp;Association</a> (NATA), and <a href="https://www.aia-aerospace.org/">Aerospace Industries Association</a> (AIA) are all involved as midwives for UAM and other applications for electric and autonomous aircraft. Their strong connections with regulators and other government agencies worldwide mean they have much to offer pioneering companies. They have been supported by counterparts overseas, such as the <a href="https://www.ebaa.org/">European Business Aviation Association</a>.
In early November, NBAA, VFS, and GAMA were among the 13 founding members of a new alliance called the <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-11-06/new-urban-air-mobility-group-hopes-help-shape-future-policy">Community Air Mobility Initiative (CAMI)</a>. The group, which also includes 10 eVTOL aircraft manufacturers and developers, is looking to cooperate in supporting development of urban air mobility.
In seeking to facilitate the certification process for new generation aircraft, the U.S.-based alphabet groups are exercising their strong connections with regulators around the world, and especially the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). What’s more, in the face of mounting political opposition to business and general aviation on environmental grounds, the groups are eager to stress the green credentials of the new electric technology and its potential to reduce aviation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“We’ve been working on the electric propulsion innovation committee, EPIC, which evolved from other work with EASA and FAA,” said Kyle Martin, GAMA’s director of European regulatory affairs and engineering. GAMA was a key player in the recent rewrite of the Part 23 regulations for light aircraft that regulators on both sides of the Atlantic undertook to refocus rules on performance standards rather than simply a means of compliance. Those changes are helping to pave a pathway to certification for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, which proponents say can be every bit as safe as other aircraft but will achieve that safety through different technologies.
As part of GAMA’s work in the field, which Martin said has been going on in earnest since September 2016, the organization has created various subcommittees, most recently including one focused on infrastructure. As the eVTOL and urban air mobility companies numbering among GAMA’s membership have increased from 15 to 80, Martin said the group looks to get consensus among companies rather than bring individual's&nbsp;concerns to regulators—an increasingly important task since GAMA has “a mix of the biggest manufacturers, Boeings, Airbuses, down to the little startups.
“It’s surprising me how much these companies have in common,” he told FutureFlight.aero. “They all want this system to be enabled somehow.”
With many of the early entrants to the space coming from the tech world rather than traditional aviation, Martin said some companies looked to GAMA for advice while others came in not realizing the value an association can provide in such a heavily regulated industry.
“There was some cross-learning,” he said. “You’d put new guys in the room with experienced players. [They had to learn that] you can’t bring an aircraft to market in months like you can with an electronics product.”
GAMA was one of the earliest associations to realize the importance of the UAM industry—a <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20190000517.pdf">NASA-commissioned Booz Allen Hamilton study</a> projected a potential unconstrained market of up to $500 billion—but other associations have since joined its cause. They characterize their combined efforts as teamwork rather than competition.
"Associations are working together,” said Mike Nicholas, NBAA’s senior vice president of strategy and innovation. “GAMA has been an incredible leader with the EPIC committee, the Part 23 rewrite, they have technical capabilities. I look at them as having taken a leadership role based on expertise. The Vertical Flight Society is doing a phenomenal job from a technical society perspective…No organization has been fighting to say, 'I own this space.' It’s been a wonderful collaboration.”
According to Ryan Waguespack, NATA’s vice president of aircraft management, air charter services, and MRO [maintenance, repair and overhaul], the key is each organization determining where it can do the most good.
“I think we’ve got to collectively get together and say, 'What’s our lane?'” he said. “There’s no desire to run parallel paths;&nbsp;there really isn’t. You don’t move the pendulum forward there at all. The [Part] 135 space, absolutely; the ground handling space, yes, I think we definitely fill a void there.”
NATA made the decision late last year that it needs to invest in the eVTOL space, Waguespack said. “That’s when we decided, if it’s five years [away], two years or 15 years, let’s be a part of the planning and the building of the infrastructure.”
To NATA, which represents Part 135 aircraft operators—air charter carriers, which will comprise most of the early and perhaps long-term eVTOL operators—that means thinking about ground operations. Who will handle the operations and who will train them? How do you deal with all of the situations that come up “in the real world?” How do you get a disabled person in and out of an eVTOL aircraft, for example?
All of that is an aspect of safety, which anybody who is trying to make UAM a reality will tell you is crucial. Waguespack worries that some innovation-focused minds among the start-up companies racing to be first to market aren’t thinking enough about the operations aspects of running an air-taxi company.
“Innovation is good, but the one thing we cannot forget is how we got to this point in safety,” he said. “They just think ‘Oh, that’s the old establishment,’ and in some cases I do agree. I’m 38 years old, I get it, but there’s an understanding that these things didn’t just happen.
“I think Uber has really exposed some of those—I don’t want to say weaknesses, but—I say all the time: Fifteen years ago, we would never have gotten into a [rideshare] car with a stranger. The app makes us feel comfortable, but we don’t know if that individual is inebriated or has been up all night. In an aircraft, you can’t just say ‘I want to get out.’ The general flying public can’t necessarily recognize if [a pilot] did something wrong. We know if a guy runs a red light. There’s definitely some thought needed on that space.”
That might be one area NBAA can help. Nichols identified operational and policy expertise at the federal, state, and local level as the organization’s strong suit—crucial, “as UAM begins to do more than demo flights and begins carrying passengers,” he said.
“Everybody that I’ve been interacting with has been looking at the FAA as a partner as opposed to an obstacle, and I think that’s an important lens for them to have,” said Nichols. “In the long term, the FAA may need to do some rulemaking, and that’s something we can apply some expertise and help with&nbsp;because you can’t manage a whole new section of aviation through exemptions. That’s a good basis, but things [such as the pilot operating handbook]—well, if it's remotely operated, is that that important? Who is going to be on board to read it?”
From January 21-23, 2020, the VFS will hold <a href="https://vtol.org/events/2020-transformative-vertical-flight">Transformative Vertical Flight</a> event in San Jose, California. This will encompass the organization’s seventh annual Electric VTOL Symposium, the International Powered Lift Conference and the Aeromechanics for Advanced Vertical Flight Technical Meeting. It will start with a short course on eVTOL Fundamentals to be held on January 20.

Managing Editor

Charles Alcock

Aviation Industry Associations are Taking a Leading Role in the Birth of Urban Air Mobility

Electric vehicle manufacturer Workhorse has agreed to sell its SureFly electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) program&nbsp;to Moog for $4 million. Workhorse flew a prototype of the two-seat model in 2018&nbsp; and last November signed a cooperative research and development&nbsp;agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to test SureFly for specific military applications.
The hybrid SureFly is powered by a turbine generator with battery backup and has eight props driven by electric motors. It also has a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute for emergencies. In June 2018, Workhorse said it applied to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration&nbsp;to begin the certification process for the vehicle.
Moog and Workhorse also agreed to form a joint venture to complete development of the latter's&nbsp;HorseFly unmanned aircraft delivery vehicle that is deployed from package vans.&nbsp;Under the proposed purchase agreement with Moog, covered by an October 1 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission,Workhorse would retain ownership of the HorseFly technology but the two companies would cooperate to&nbsp;develop and deploy it. The HorseFly multicopter has a maximum takeoff weight of just&nbsp;30 pounds, a 10-pound&nbsp;payload capacity, and a top speed of 50 mph.&nbsp;
Almost 45 percent of Moog's group revenues come from its aircraft controls business. In the U.S. company's latest year-end results, announced on September 28, 2019, the aircraft division accounted for $1.3 billion (9 percent up on 2018) out of total revenues of $2.9 billion (a 7 percent increase).

Workhorse To Sell SureFly eVTOL Program to Moog

Bye Aerospace and Oxis Energy have begun a 12-month collaborative program to develop lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries they believe will allow electric aircraft to fly between 50 to 100 percent longer on a single charge. Development work will involve both ground and flight testing of Oxis’ Li-S batteries on Bye’s existing eFlyer prototype aircraft.
According to UK-based Oxis, its Li-S technology will deliver a two-fold decrease in the weight of batteries due to having a higher gravimetric energy density (in excess of 500 Wh/kg at 20Ah capacity) than lithium-ion batteries. This will result in the increased flight durations possible, it maintains.
In an announcement on November 6, the partners said that Oxis energy cells and modules will be evaluated against the projected performance of both Bye’s existing eFlyer 2 and 4 aircraft, but also new models that the U.S. manufacturer intends to announce “soon.” The <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-08-22/quantum-air-orders-bye-eflyers-la-based-air-taxi-ops">eFlyer aircraft</a> are both fixed-wing,&nbsp;single-motor designs being developed for certification under FAR Part 23 rules.
The development agreement that Oxis has with Bye does not prevent it from working with other aircraft developers. It says that it is already in contact with developers of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and expects to make further announcements “in the coming weeks.”
“Oxis is focusing its research and development on the transformation of piston and turboprop aircraft that is required for regional flight transportation,” commented Oxis CEO Huw Hampson-Jones. “We believe this to be the first phase for the electrification of air taxis, with additional requirements for regional aircraft.”

Bye Aerospace and Battery Developer Oxis Work to Boost Flight Times

The Community Air Mobility Initiative (CAMI) has been formed around the emerging urban air mobility (UAM) industry and will assist in its development, as well as aid cities with the integration of such systems, according to the Seattle-based nonprofit organization. “New technologies and new aircraft promise to make flight accessible and practical on a daily basis for more people than ever before,” said CAMI co-executive director Anna Dietrich. “With that promise comes the responsibility to integrate those aircraft into our communities safely, responsibly, and equitably. We created CAMI as the industry’s commitment to our neighbors and the decision-makers who support them to work to ensure that happens.”
On a conference call with reporters, Dietrich said CAMI’s charge is to work with state and local officials on integrating UAM in their communities through public education and helping to shape policies governing and regulating UAM in local jurisdictions. Dietrich noted there already exists a patchwork of state regulations and laws regarding small UAS.&nbsp;
“This is a fairly time-sensitive project that we’ve undertaken,” she said. “We do need to get ahead of potential issues with awareness and education now while the policies are first being considered. After we have policy and legislation and requirements on the books, it will be much harder to recover from that and change that, as opposed to working with these decision-makers from the beginning.”
Those decision-makers not only include state and local elected officials, but also transportation departments, urban planners, real estate developers, and business owners since UAM involves not just airspace concerns but also infrastructure-related issues such as where to locate landing ports for eVTOLS and how the distribution of those ports would affect various modes of a city’s ground transportation system.&nbsp;
“When we talk about the vision that we have for urban air mobility, we’re asking aviation to intimately integrate into an existing urban transportation system,” Dietrich’s counterpart, CAMI co-executive director Yolanka Wulff, said. “This is no longer a segregated system. It’s an integrated system, and in fact that is what makes urban air mobility both so valuable and interesting, but also challenging.”
Early backers of CAMI include trade groups such as NBAA, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and the Vertical Flight Society; OEMs Bell and Raytheon; and fledgling eVTOL manufacturers Karem Aircraft, Joby Aviation, and Jump Aero. CAMI has a total of 13 founding member companies and organizations.

Community Air Mobility Initiative Formed To Shape Urban Air Mobility Policy

Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturer EHang filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 31 to prepare the way for an anticipated $100 million initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq. The China-based group made an SEC F1 filing for the Cayman Islands-registered EHang Holdings Limited, giving notice of its intention to offer Class A ordinary shares from an as-yet unspecified date before the end of 2019 and secure a Nasdaq listing under the symbol EH. The IPO would make EHang the first of numerous privately owned eVTOL startups to go public.
One factor that sets it apart from other companies vying to get ahead in a crowded sector that reportedly includes up to 200 new aircraft developments is that EHang has already started to make deliveries of its two-seat 216 Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs). According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1759783/000119312519280594/d515413df1.htm">the F1 filing</a>, it has delivered 38 AAVs since March 2018 to various partners and prospective distributors, including freight group DHL-Sinotrans. It reported “unfulfilled orders” for 28 aircraft.
With the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), EHang earlier this year began some demonstration flights in its home city of Guangzhou and various other locations in China. In February, it filed an application with CAAC for operations in support of a customer’s logistics business under the Pilot Operations Rules (Interim) for Specific Unmanned Aircraft. The company said it is hopeful of getting this approval before year-end.
In the SEC filing, EHang indicates that for now its main focus is on the Chinese market. It acknowledged that the regulatory environment for autonomous aircraft operations in the U.S. and Europe remains more complex for now.
During the first six months of 2019, EHang reported a net loss of $5.5 million, which was 42 percent higher than the loss it incurred in the same period for 2018. Revenues for the first six months of 2019 were also down by 15.6 percent at $4.7 million. The company, which was formed in December 2014, already markets a family of consumer drones and also operates drones in public displays for marketing purposes.
During 2017, EHang subsidiaries in Germany and the U.S. filed for bankruptcy and these cases are still being resolved. The company indicated that these companies traded as sales organizations for consumer drones before it decided to withdraw from the market in those countries.

eVTOL Startup EHang Prepares for Nasdaq Share Offering

On October 31, EHang filed an F1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to prepare its planned Initial Public Offering (IPO) before the end of 2019.&nbsp;The company is aiming to raise $100 million from the IPO.
The China-based group's published prospectus provides a fascinating insight into its prospects for fulfilling its ambitions to be one of the early leaders in bringing autonomous&nbsp;electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into commercial service. To meet the SEC's transparency requirements, EHang has had to spell out risk factors associated with its business plan, and this exercise runs to 36 pages of detailed analysis of multiple risk factors. Many of these risks, such as uncertainty about the regulatory process and public acceptance of autonomous flight, would apply to any of EHang's rivals. Others are more specific to EHang's base in the People's Republic of China and the potential it to fall foul of the country's complex corporate legal requirements, such as the new Foreign Investment Law, which takes effect January 1, 2020. EHang Holdings Limited was established in December 2014 as a Cayman Islands-based offshore holding company specifically to facilitate offshore financing and listing.&nbsp;
In some respects, EHang's base in China is both a potential blessing and a curse. For instance, its close relationship with Chinese authorities has presented an opportunity for it to fast-track development work.&nbsp;
With the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), EHang earlier this year began some demonstration flights in its home city of Guangzhou and various other locations in China. In February, it filed an application with CAAC for operations in support of a customer’s logistics business under the Pilot Operations Rules (Interim) for Specific Unmanned Aircraft. The company said it is hopeful of getting this approval before year-end. In the SEC filing, EHang indicates that for now its main focus is on the Chinese market. It acknowledged that the regulatory environment for autonomous aircraft operations in the U.S. and Europe remains more complex for now. At the same time, it recognizes that Chinese legal requirements could complicate its status as an international public company.
The SEC filing also flags up the reality that the path to profitability in the urban air mobility market will require deep pockets, and it remains to be seen <a href="https://cncms.aero/node/292">whether EHang's are sufficiently deep</a>.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

EHang's SEC Filing for Nasdaq IPO Sheds Light on Risks Facing eVTOL Pioneers

With the green agenda rising in the UK's 2019 general election campaign, the UK Labour Party has indicated it would consider a ban on fossil-fuel powered private aircraft flights from 2025. The November 4 statement by shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald was in response to a new report calling for electric-only private aircraft flights published by environmental and economic pressure groups Fellow Travellers and Commonwealth.&nbsp;
The report, titled "<a href="s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/media.afreeride.org/documents/Jet+Set+Go+Summary.pdf">jet, set, go</a>" claims that a passenger in a private jet today emits seven times as much greenhouse gas as a business class passenger&nbsp;on an airline flight. The reported differential rises to 10 times compared with an economy class airline passenger and 150 times compared with a train passenger. According to the authors, there were 128,000 private jet flights between UK airports and the rest of Europe in 2018—representing 6 percent of total traffic—plus another 14,000 flights from the UK to points beyond Europe.
According to the authors, four out of five private aircraft journeys within Europe today could be conducted by electric aircraft from 2025. That said, they acknowledge that even if electric aircraft were widely adopted this move has the potential to reduce the UK's aviation emissions of greenhouse gases by around only 15 percent by 2050.

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Aviation Industry Associations are Taking a Leading Role in the Birth of Urban Air Mobility

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