Report on RAeS President’s ‘Future of Flight’ Summit

Volocopter 2x at skyports in front of ADP and Skyports vertiport at Pontoise-Cormeilles, FRANCE.

A recent ‘Future of Flight’ summit at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London (20-21 September 2023) highlighted the growing significance of new in-development aircraft powered electrically or by hydrogen, many of which can take off and land vertically (the so-called ‘eVTOLs’).

The Future of Flight summit was opened by RAeS president, 2023-24, Kerissa Khan, who has spectacularly broken the mold of typical RAeS presidents who tend to be male (not always) and late in their career. Kerissa is a trailblazer of the new generation 20-30-somethings enthused and empowered by the coming wave of new aircraft. Aircraft which are now possible due to technologies reaching the necessary maturity – flight control, batteries etc – as the pressure for aviation to be more sustainable intensifies. Add to this heady mix traffic congestion in cities and even on inter-city road routes, and it’s clear we could be facing a revolution in aerial transportation with potentially vast economic and even societal benefits.

Keynote speaker Professor Dame Helen Atkinson, pro vice-chancellor of Cranfield University, said that this was emerging as a “once-in-a-generation disruption.” She said the UK “has a clear and ambitious vision” to be part of this international wave of innovation, outlined in 2021’s ‘Future Flight Vision & Roadmap.’ The UK government’s Future Flight program has provided significant stimulus to activity as it strives to claim a place as a leading country in this new domain.

Atkinson noted that current estimates suggest by 2032 the market could be worth $68 billion – double that estimated as recently as 2021, “driven by congestion, pollution concerns and rapid technological development.” Around $8 billion in investment capital has already been raised “just for platform development,” she added. And, according to Alto Aviation Consultancy, demand is being led by entities proposing using these vehicles for scheduled passenger services, followed by cargo and a range of other uses. “So, we’re on the brink of this market destruction,” she said, suggesting that the new sector had gone through ‘the slope of enlightenment’, and was now through to the ‘plateau of productivity’.

Mentioning the vertiport trial in the city of Coventry, Atkinson said Groupe ADP and Skyports were leading the way and “both see themselves as offering air taxis at the Paris Olympics” – so it could have an “accelerating effect”, with a range of high-profile companies laying down plans.

Meeting the Challenge

The UK’s Future Flight Challenge has been running for five years now, said Gary Cutts, who is FFC director at UKRI (UK Research & Innovation, part of the UK government under the Department of Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT)). Cutts admitted “We still don’t know how big this market will be” before introducing Joby Aviation board member Bonndy Simi, formerly a pilot with JetBlue (and a former Olympic luge competitor) and now head of air operations and people at Joby.

JOBY’s FIRST FLIGHT WITH A PILOT. OCTOBER 4, 2023

The California-based company is leading the way in eVTOLs, and recently delivered the first example of several ordered by the US Department of Defense to Edwards AFB for testing and evaluation. Joby also has established a pilot training academy for its 4-passenger (plus pilot) electric tilt-rotor fleet, which it intends to operate itself. It has also established a production facility in Dayton, Ohio designed to produce 500 aircraft a year.

The next presenter was Michael Cervinka, chief technology officer at Bristol-based Vertical Aerospace. “We’ve definitely gone through some of the hype cycle,” said Cervinka, whose company has gone from a start-up in 2016 to one with 1800 orders. “We’re now getting to the sharp end – there is absolutely a significant commercial demand and not just one use-case in one country – there’s a broad range.”

The former Rolls-Royce engineer said that he could “see we were approaching the technological tipping point” where you could distribute 800V around an aircraft safely, the availability of lightweight composites, and flight control systems with miniaturization of electronics. “We have the ability to control where the power goes – it’s fundamentally different to a helicopter.” Cervinka added that the “catalyst” for him had been going to Sao Paulo and seeing the reliance on helicopters there to beat traffic congestion.

Vertical Aerospace, which is currently targeting certification in 2026 for its VX4 electric tiltrotor, has raised $6 billion in pre-order backing with more than 1500 vehicles pre-ordered, and three prototypes flown (Cervinka answered queries candidly about the prototype that was damaged in an unmanned test flight, saying the blade that failed was of an older design).

Vertical has “a very different business model” to Joby, he noted. “We’d love to have Joby’s bank balance,” said Cervinka, “but we’re not trying to do everything ourselves.” He concluded: “I think this is going to be a mass transport opportunity worldwide, with transport category safety – 1 x 10-9 and Level A software.”

The AAM leaders panel saw representatives from Volocopter, BETA Technologies, SkyDrive, ARC Aerosystems and Ascendance Flight Technologies introduce their products. Volocopter head of regulatory affairs Ron Liebsch said the company is aiming for certification of its 4(+1)-seater “next year,” first with EASA and then US FAA and Japan. “We also aim to operate commercially during the Paris Olympics.” He noted that Volocopter is also looking at “how we can fly it remotely, due to the pilot shortage.”

Adam Twidell, the PrivateFly founder who chairs the European Business Aviation Association’s (EBAA) AAM Working Group, queried whether having a conventional aircraft option (rather than VTOL) gave the likes of BETA Technologies “an advantage.” He noted that with 30-70 percent lower operating costs anyway (with electric powertrains) and a far easier route to getting CS23 certification, such vehicles could be “brought to the market faster.” Also, he pointed out, no OEM has yet certificated an eVTOL.

Glenn Waters, director of advanced technologies at ARC Aerosystems, said: “There are still a large number of unknowns” and also regulatory differences in approach between EASA and the FAA, for example. The issue of energy reserves “has yet to be resolved,” he said. But Ron Liebsch said “Now we know what we have to prove – testing has been agreed with EASA. We have a very high level of support and commitment from EASA. It will be a day VFR certification at first.”

Juliana Rodrigues, head of business development for Eve Air Mobility, claimed that Eve has “the largest and most diversified order backlog in the industry,” one year on from its IPO in May 2022. The order count stands at 2850 aircraft, she said. Eve grew out of Brazilian manufacturer Embraer which saw the ‘Future Flight’ opportunity early on. “We’ve not changed out timeline, and we’re still on target,” said Rodrigues. “We’re working with Ferrovial, lots of airlines, suppliers – with more to be announced soon – and have flown some proof-of-concept aircraft and next year we’ll fly our prototype.”

Alex Ivanenko of HyWatts. PHOTO BY IAN SHEPPARD.

The next session turned to ‘Flight Technologies for AAM,’ with Alex Ivanenko of HyWatts (founded in August 2023) introducing his Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) hydrogen solution. This allows hydrogen to be stored and used, used for generating electricity on-site, and sold, but also has a reversible process to allow electricity to be converted back into stored hydrogen.

The technology has already found application in a microgrid with solar panels at Redwood Coast Airport and is being developed for a couple of vertiport companies.

The topic then turned to airspace infrastructure with Florian-Michael Adolf, formerly head of autonomous flight at Volocopter and now working through his own company on a project for DLR, the German Aerospace Centre. He suggested that “80% of the risk is an airspace risk” and that “cargo before people is kind of a set policy from regulators,” in this nascent stage of the market. Adolf said common rules was coming through JARUS, the Joint Authority on Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems (JARUS). Although U-Space trials such as Frankfurt were a “good demo,” he believes there is “still a very long way to go.” One advance has been that risk-based approvals are “now OK – regulators are now more innovation-friendly.” Airspace digitisation has also progressed and “data is fuel for automation”. Since version 1.0 there has been version 2.5 and now 3.0 is “being formulated,” he said, concluding: “Connectivity and data fabrics remain bottlenecks for safe operations at scale – it needs to be owned, like streets; shared infrastructure.”

Jay Merkle, director of regulatory affairs at Supernal (the AAM arm of Hyundai Motor Group) said that the company is aiming for FAA certification first, and “global later.”

“So we’re speaking with the [UK] CAA, EASA etc. We recently received pilot training criteria from EASA and the FAA, so our team is now busy giving feedback. Regulators are working together, and things are moving fast.” He noted a difference in approach for bird-strike tests; EASA requires impact for multiple birds, whereas the FAA requires bird-strike devices/deterrence. EASA has defined an ‘Enhanced’ operating environment category for eVTOLs. “Certifying an eVTOL is a huge undertaking but the safety record of commercial aviation didn’t come easily,” concluded Merkle.

The following panel session gathered together leaders in the fledgling world of vertiports led by Brad Miller of Ferrovial Vertiports, and Starr Ginn, NASA AAM lead strategist (based at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, California). Ginn said NASA is investigating ‘Nano Electro Liquid Fuel’, because “Lithium-Ion batteries are not great for aircraft.” It is similar to a fuel cell and has been developed since 2018 as part of Project AQUIFER (Aqueous Quick-charging battery Integration For Electric flight Research). The aim has been to validate the technical feasibility of integrating nano-electrofuel (NEF) flow batteries with rim-driven motors, with work now on several proof-of-concept designs.

The panel on the role of airports in the AAM ecosystem was led by Fiona Smith, group head of aerodromes strategy at AGS Airports (which owns and runs Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports in the UK). She said, “We don’t exactly know yet [what the role of airports will be] but Aberdeen Airport is one of the world’s busiest heliport operations,” due to North Sea oil and gas extraction and serving oil rigs. So far, she said, AGS had been leading Project Caelus, which is aiming to create a UK-wide delivery network for medical supplies and organs.

Next to introduce their company was Electro.aero from Australia. Electro’s Richard Watson said the start-up company had developed a new charging solution at its base at Jandakot Airport near Perth, having realised the immense environmental impact of fuel being trucked around Australia. He said he had “learned a lot” from flying the Pipistrel (Textron) Electro small electric aircraft, the first to be fully certificated. “Flying the Electro was an ‘Aha’ moment,” confessed Watson, who is now Electro’s charger product manager. In particular, he saw the need for a “harmonised standard, light charger” for such vehicles – and now is chair of SAE’s AE-7D Aircraft Energy and Charging Committee.

The AE-7D charging standard documents have been evolving with various aspects addressed such as thermal-runaway mitigation. Electro carried out a survey and found that most people prefer the FAA standard for the charger connector.

Electro’s own innovation is based on realising eVTOLs “will need charging in under 15 minutes”. It has therefore created the ‘Aerocharge’ container with multiple inverters, for airports. Cabling is on a reel or can go underground. With Electro’s hangar at its airfield, there are solar panels with excess electricity channelled for things like desalination of water. “So airports can be an energy source for their communities,” said Watson.

The second day of the Future of Flight conference started with a panel on ‘Delivering a fully-operational vertiport’ – starting with addressing the question: “How do you build a vertiport when you’re not sure the infrastructure is there?” Ricky Sandhu, architect founder and CEO of Urban-Air Port, responded: “That’s the hardest question – collaboration is key.” Last year Urban-Air Port set up a demonstration vertiport in the city of Coventry, UK, and has plans to set up 200 vertiports across the world over the next five years, describing them as “compact, rapidly deployable operations hubs for manned and unmanned vehicles providing aircraft command and control, charging/refuelling, and cargo and passenger loading.”

Damian Kysely, Skyports’ head of infrastructure, EMEA, commended that “the cost of using a vertiport is down to utilisation. You need a $7-20 million outlay for a vertiport,” to which Sandhu responded: “If you could build a vertiport with higher capacity in less space it will be cheaper to use. It’s down to innovation.”

Kysely said that “Existing general aviation airports represent a huge opportunity and, in many cases, there is no need for a dedicated vertiport – just charging. It’s a great way to get things started.”

There were several other speakers and sessions, making an excellent conference. Ian Middleton, head of communications strategy, M&A and public affairs at Airbus, said: “It’s imperative we connect the world but also keep pressing the need for decarbonisation. We need to embrace alternative fuels and innovative strategies, but there is no simple solution to decarbonise aviation. The key is to foster a culture of innovation and boldness.”