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Lilium Closes $119 Million Capital Raise

Lilium recently announced the successful closing of a capital raise totaling $119 million which came from from existing shareholders, strategic partners, and new investors. (Photo: Lilium)

Leading eVTOL developer Lilium has closed a $119 million capital raise—a concurrent private placement and registered direct offering (RDO). Participants included existing shareholders, strategic partners, and new investors. Honeywell, Aciturri, Tencent, and B. Riley Securities contributed to the capital raise along with LGT and its affiliated impact investor Lightrock, as well as Klaus Roewe, Lilium’s new CEO, and three board members.

Rowe remarked on the successful closing of the $119 million capital raise, saying, “These proceeds are expected to strengthen our balance sheet and advance our commercialization efforts including signing of customer agreements with pre-delivery payments, reaching an agreement with EASA on our Means of Compliance, and commencing assembly of the type-conforming aircraft for the final manned flight test campaign.”

The net proceeds from the offerings are expected to go towards funding Lilium’s operations and continued development of the Lilium Jet.

Honeywell Aerospace’s Stéphane Fymat, Vice President and General Manager of Urban Air Mobility, also commented on the announcement from Lilium: “Honeywell and Lilium share a common vision of the importance of electric aviation and the positive impact it will have on air transportation and decarbonization. We are proud to partner with Lilium as the provider of the avionics systems, [flight] controls, and electric motors used to guide and power Lilium’s revolutionary electric jet.”

Honeywell has worked with Lilium for about two years. They shared news of a partnership in 2021 to create avionics and flight control systems for Lilium’s electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Honeywell will provide its compact fly-by-wire system for flight control of all moving parts on the aircraft. Honeywell’s Anthem flight deck is also being considered for integration into the electric air taxi developed by Hyundai’s Supernal.

In June 2022, the team at Honeywell announced a collaboration with DENSO Corporation to develop an electric motor for Lilium’s aircraft. The motor will provide 100 kilowatts of electric power and is expected to weigh less than 4 kilograms.

Later that month, Lilium selected Astronics Corporation to design and manufacture an electrical power distribution system for the electric air taxi. The two companies plan to collaborate for more than 12 months on the project. In July, Lilium also confirmed its selection of L3Harris as a supplier of extra light data recorders.

Lilium’s technology demonstrator, Phoenix 2, completed the full transition from hover to wing-borne flight this fall. The flight was conducted at the company’s ATLAS (Air Traffic Laboratory for Advanced Unmanned Systems) Flight Test Center in Spain.

The post Lilium Closes $119 Million Capital Raise appeared first on Avionics International.

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Space Avionics from L3Harris Propel Artemis I Launch

On Nov. 16, Artemis I successfully launched into space, thanks in part to L3Harris’ space avionics. (Photo: John Kraus)

Northrop Grumman successfully launched NASA’s Artemis I on Nov. 16 with the help of L3Harris’s space avionics. L3Harris’ avionics systems ensured that the launch and the first eight minutes of remote command for the unmanned spacecraft went smoothly.

In order to help the unmanned spacecraft hit 17,000 mph within the first eight minutes of the flight, L3Harris provided over 30 advanced space avionics systems. These were used in the core, upper stage avionics, and booster for Artemis I to enable remote control, help determine the trajectory of the flight, and provide a rocket booster jettison.

Compared to earlier space exploration flights, Artemis I had a reduced risk for material obsolescence, a lower cost per flight, and an increased payload capacity, all thanks to the booster provided by L3Harris. L3Harris avionics systems provided a low-cost, high-quality solution for Artemis I. L3Harris works with a variety of customers to help them reach their goals as efficiently as possible.

As a company, L3Harris offers a wide range of avionics systems and solutions for spacecrafts, airplanes, and other aviation applications. The company has a long history of working with branches of the US government—and upcoming projects demonstrate the continuation of this partnership.

L3Harris will be providing mission management processors for Boeing’s T-7A Red Hawk, a pilot training system designed for the U.S. Air Force. The processors developed by L3Harris are also integrated into the F-35, F/A-18, and the U.S. Navy’s new MQ-25 unmanned tanker aircraft.

With regards to NASA specifically, the company has contributed to their space exploration missions for decades. Kristin Houston, the president of Electro Optical at L3Harris, stated, “NASA relied on L3Harris’ expertise and technology from early spacecraft through the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Mars missions.”

On launch day, the use of L3Harris’ avionics translated into a smooth launch for Artemis I, enabling the spacecraft’s mission to analyze the moon’s surface with more attention to detail than ever before. In the short-term, the Artemis mission is designed to land the first women and person of color on the moon. NASA predicts this project will also create a long-term human-robot community on the moon and allow humans to go to Mars in the next decade.

To accomplish this mission, NASA is working with private and international partners, including companies such Northrop Grumman and L3Harris, and countries such as South Africa and Japan. Jim Free, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, stated, “This successful launch means NASA and our partners are on a path to explore farther in space than ever before for the benefit of humanity.”

L3Harris has been a crucial partner for NASA’s goal of improving the technology inside their spacecrafts. The L3Harris team expects to continue helping NASA with their missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Their next contribution will be the hardware for Artemis II, which is scheduled to launch in 2024.

The post Space Avionics from L3Harris Propel Artemis I Launch appeared first on Avionics International.

How Increasing Levels of Automation Impact Air Traffic Controllers

Adaptable automation offers air traffic controllers the advantages of increased safety and efficiency while counteracting the unintended consequences that can follow static automation, such as skill decay and loss of perceived autonomy. (Photo: SESAR Joint Undertaking)

Automation of tasks often helps companies and workers to get more done in less time. In the aviation industry, almost everyone—from pilots to aircraft maintenance technicians—relies on some kind of automation during the workday. Air traffic controllers, for instance, have relied on automated solutions for years to ensure that they receive accurate information quickly and to communicate with pilots effectively.

However, some may not experience automation as having a positive impact on their work. They may feel as though they have less control over how to complete tasks or make decisions independently.

During a recent webinar hosted by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL), Dr. Michèle Rieth shared some findings from her research on the effects of adaptable automation on air traffic controllers.

Competence, autonomy, and relatedness were identified as the three most important components of work for air traffic controllers, Dr. Rieth shared. They need to feel that they are good at their job, that they have control over work-related decisions, and that they are connected to other people in their daily work. She noted that these aspects need to be preserved as levels of automation increase to ensure job satisfaction for air traffic controllers.

To identify the effects of automation on air traffic controllers, the researchers conducted interviews with air traffic controllers and experts, held workshops, and conducted an online survey. “The results showed that automation is already changing a lot,” Dr. Rieth stated. The positive effects are the support that automation provides to human operators, which reduces coordination effort needed. Automation also improves safety and efficiency.

“The use of automation can also come along with new problems for humans which can lead to serious consequences in safety critical contexts,” she explained.

“The air traffic controller’s role is becoming more passive. They increasingly have to monitor the system, so they notice a shift from active air traffic control to more passive system control.”

“Successful human-automation interaction can only be achieved if the human side is adequately considered.” (Photo: Screenshot from presentation by Dr. Michèle Rieth)

Air traffic controllers that participated in the research project commented that the meaningful elements of their work are lost as a result of increased automation. Things are balanced at the moment, and individuals reported still being satisfied with their work, but it is important to consider the downsides of increasing levels of automation in this industry.

Dr. Rieth remarked that adaptable automation allows for flexible function allocation. This paradigm dictates that the human operator can dynamically adjust how tasks are divided between the air traffic controller and the automated system.

“Most conventional automation approaches involve static allocation concepts, or fixed function allocation,” she added. “It cannot be changed afterwards once the system is designed and implemented.”

Adaptable automation offers the advantages of increased safety and efficiency while counteracting the unintended consequences that can follow static automation, such as skill decay and loss of perceived autonomy.

“When automation crosses a critical boundary from information automation to decision automation, loss of perceived autonomy and competence is more likely,” Dr. Rieth said.

The researchers’ findings indicated that adaptable automation could contribute to a more human-centered design without negatively impacting performance or workload for air traffic controllers.

The SESAR 2020 Scientific Committee Automation Taskforce drafted an extensive report on the topic of automation in air traffic management, or ATM. “Although it is generally agreed that the future of the ATM system will evolve towards higher levels of automation, a shared vision is needed in order to develop a research roadmap with a breakdown of specific research actions,” the report stated.

The committee concluded, “The vision of the future ATM system remains resolutely human-centric but at the same time, the technical system gains a certain level of autonomy. Both the operator and the system work in close cooperation maintaining a multimodal conversation and making use of the most recent advances in AI/machine learning.”

The post How Increasing Levels of Automation Impact Air Traffic Controllers appeared first on Avionics International.

NBAA Urges FAA and DoT Action for Safe 5G Implementation

“Our industry is strongly supportive of the deployment and implementation of 5G services nationwide, but we will not compromise aviation safety.” (Photo: NBAA)

Technological development is often seen as the key to an improved future. However, not all new or updated technology comes without logistical challenges when integrating it into pre-existing infrastructure. 5G, the latest in cellular technology, is an advancement that allows for a significant increase in the speed and responsiveness of cellular networks. As 5G is deployed across the nation, it has begun to impact the safety of aviation across the United States.

It appears 5G might be interfering with avionics in aircraft, raising questions regarding the new technology’s ability to safely coexist within aviation. In fact, since January 2022 alone, there have been over 100 reported incidents that could potentially involve 5G interference. The concerns stem from the C-Band of the radio spectrum that carriers Verizon and AT&T purchased for 5G: it sits dangerously close to the band of spectrum radar altimeters on aircraft use for navigation on take-offs and landings.

Given that a majority of the 100 incidents that occurred this year were cockpit safety alerts resulting from radar altimeter impacts associated with 5G, it seems the issue of air travel and 5G coexisting safely is becoming more pressing as the cell network becomes more widespread. Despite this, beyond requiring any operators of regional aircraft to install radio frequency filters on aircraft types most susceptible to interference, it seems the FAA has taken few further steps to mitigate the risk of this new technology on the aviation industry.

Now, a group of aviation stakeholders, including the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), is pushing the FAA, Department of Transportation, and Department of Commerce to address this growing issue proactively. The goal is to introduce a solution that allows 5G to grow while preventing flight delays and cancellations from becoming prevalent as a result of changing regulations. With only seven months before the next aircraft retrofit deadline, it’s clear these government agencies must take action quickly to prevent complications associated with retrofitting aircraft to meet new regulations.

The coalition of stakeholders, including Thales, Garmin, Embraer, Boeing, Airbus, Collins Aerospace, and many others, published a letter of concerns and requests last week, including the following message:

“We will continue to be committed to finding reasonable solutions that allow implementation of 5G while addressing safety and operational disruptions in the NAS. Stakeholders cannot do this alone and we need the federal government to codify mitigations for all airports and extend the July 2023 and ‘Power Up’ retrofit deadlines. The entire government must work together to ensure future 5G deployment is unencumbered and our aviation system remains the safest in the world. Aviation stakeholders call on the Administration to meet with us to discuss a way forward that will achieve the goal of moving 5G forward, while ensuring passengers and cargo reach their destinations safely and on time.”

Despite the controversy, it seems business aviation is not feeling the impact of 5G to the extent that the commercial sector of the industry is. While the NBAA claims this is because business aircraft do not typically utilize CAT 1 approaches (these rely on radio altimeters, which are vulnerable to interference from 5G), there could be other reasons as to why this segment remains less affected.

For example, aircraft like the Boeing 757, 767, and even certain 737 models have radio altimeters that are deeply integrated with other systems, such as auto throttle, ground proximity warning, and thrust reversers. If the FAA requires changes to radio altimeters, it might be more difficult to make these revisions. While changing requirements could impact various aircraft types differently, this factor could cushion the impacts of 5G for the business aviation segment.

The coalition of stakeholders urging these government agencies to create a solution clearly recognizes the importance of acting proactively in such a dynamic industry. If the FAA, Department of Transportation, and Department of Commerce cannot identify and implement a solution for the 5G challenge before the deadline, the aviation industry could be facing more delays, cancellations, and frustrations.

The post NBAA Urges FAA and DoT Action for Safe 5G Implementation appeared first on Avionics International.

Appropriations Bills Provide $194 Million for F-15 Upgrades

An F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 492nd Fighter Squadron flies over Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England. (U.S. Air Force photo / Tech. Sgt. Matthew Plew)

House and Senate appropriators in their committee-approved versions of the fiscal 2023 defense appropriations bill provide more than $194 million for upgrades to Boeing [BA] F-15 aircraft.

Lawmakers have yet to take up and pass the bills in their respective bodies after which House-Senate conferees are to negotiate on a final bill. The federal government is operating under a continuing resolution (CR) through Dec. 16. Congress passed the CR in September (Defense Daily, Sept. 30).

The F-15 upgrades include nearly $37 million for the Honeywell [HON] Advanced Display Core Processor II (ADCP II), integrated by Boeing on the F-15E and F-15EX, and more than $28 million for the Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS-JTRS), a new Link 16 system to comply with the National Security Agency (NSA) cryptographic modernization mandate that military aircraft were to meet by Jan. 1 this year and a Federal Aviation Administration frequency remapping deadline of 2025.

Data Link Solutions (DLS)–a Collins Aerospace [RTX]/BAE Systems joint venture–and Viasat Inc. [VSAT] have built the software-defined MIDS-JTRS, which is to replace older radios with the NSA certified encryption and which is to feature a modular design to replace older MIDS-Low Volume Terminals (MIDS-LVTs).

As of Jan. 1 this year, eight F-15Cs and 52 F-15Es met the NSA mandate, and by March 16 another two F-15Cs and 10 F-15Es had received MIDS-JTRS, the U.S. Air Force has said.

In April, Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.) told Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall that he was alarmed by the delay in the Air Force’s Link 16 crypto modernization effort, and Kendall said that the Air Force had recently begun devoting funding to the new radios after two decades of not upgrading radios because the U.S. had not postured its defense budget to take on high tech adversaries, like China (Defense Daily, Apr. 27).

In fiscal 2022, the Air Force requested more than $234 million for F-15 upgrades, but congressional appropriators provided about $179 million–a $55 million cut. Lawmakers said that $28 million of the decrease was due to ADCP II contract delays, $15 million to the F-15E digital color displays being “ahead of need,” $10 million to an ADCP depot hazardous air pollutants analysis being “ahead of need,” and about $1.9 million to F-15E MIDS-JTRS installs “excess to need.”

The Air Force approved ADCP II for full-rate production in the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and awarded Boeing a full-rate production contract of more than $59 million on Apr. 1 this year. Boeing referred questions on the one-year ADCP II contract delay to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Defense Daily will add any response received from AFLCMC.

The Air Force has said that the common mission computers for the F-15C and F-15E have hit their limits in speed, memory, throughput, and security. ADCP II, which is the F-15EX’s mission computer, is able to process 87 billion instructions per second of computing throughput, Boeing has said.

ADCP II had its first test flight on an F-15E from Eglin AFB, Fla. in July 2016.

The Air Force said that ADCP II is also to support the Boeing/BAE Systems’ Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) for the F-15 and to provide the F-15E’s Raytheon Technologies‘ [RTX] APG-82 radar with increased target tracks and track data and mode simultaneity. The F-15’s Tactical Electronic Warfare System (TEWS) is “functionally obsolete,” as it “uses 1970’s analog technology to combat 1980s-era radar-based ground and air threats,” while the digital EPAWSS electronic warfare system is “capable of detecting, identifying, locating, denying, degrading, disrupting, and defeating modern and emerging threat systems in contested airspace with dense radio-frequency (RF) background environments,” the Air Force has said.

Boeing has said that the Air Force plans to equip 43 of the service’s F-15Es with EPAWSS. That number would seem to indicate a ratcheting back of Air Force plans for F-15E EPAWSS upgrades, as the Air Force had projected last year that it would outfit all 217 service F-15Es with EPAWSS. The Strike Eagles have an average age of more than 29 years.

Some lawmakers have criticized the Air Force’s plan to divest its F-15C and D fleets by 2026 and to trim the service’s F-15EX buy from 144 to 80 (Defense Daily, Apr. 27).

In fiscal 2020, the Air Force said that many F-15Cs and Ds “are beyond their service life and have SERIOUS structures risks, wire chafing issues, and obsolete parts” and that “readiness goals [for the aircraft] are unachievable due to continuous structural inspections, time consuming repairs, and on-going modernization efforts.”

“The average F-15C/D is 35 years old with over 8,300 flight hours; the oldest F-15C was delivered in 1979,” the Air Force said then.

The fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act allowed the Air Force to retire 48 F-15C/Ds and 47 Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-16C/Ds. The approved F-15C/D and F-16C/D retirements in fiscal 2022 were to bring the fighter inventory down from 2,094 to 1,999–just above the level required for an Air Force justification of planned fighter reductions.

The fiscal 2023 Air Force budget did not contain any proposed F-15C/D or F-16C/D divestments, but the service asked Congress to allow the service to retire 150 other aircraft.

This article was first published by Defense Daily, a sister publication to Avionics International; it has been edited. View the original version here >>

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SmartSky Executives Talk Air-to-Ground Connectivity Service

David Helfgott, CEO of SmartSky Networks, and Ryan Stone, President and co-founder, talked about the availability of their air-to-ground connectivity service offering for the Cessna Citation X series aircraft. (Photo: SmartSky, flyExclusive)

SmartSky Networks recently announced that its air-to-ground (ATG) connectivity service offering is now available for the Cessna Citation X series aircraft. This aircraft was recently issued a supplemental type certificate (STC), which was completed by flyExclusive and engineers from Liberty Partners. SmartSky intends to make its ATG connectivity service available for more than 7,000 business jets and turboprop aircraft, according to the company’s announcement.

Textron Aviation is making SmartSky available at its 11 service centers in the U.S., and installations are expected to begin during the fourth quarter of 2022.

In an interview with Avionics International, David Helfgott, CEO of SmartSky Networks, and Ryan Stone, President and co-founder, shared details of their strategic relationship with Textron Aviation and their efforts to expand network coverage.

David Helfgott, CEO (left) and Ryan Stone, President and co-founder (right) (Photos: SmartSky)

Avionics: Could you share more about SmartSky making its connectivity solutions available for the 300+ Cessna Citation X series aircraft?

David Helfgott: We announced our nationwide coverage here in the U.S. at the end of the summer. Prior to that, we had announced two fleet deals with flyExclusive and Jet It. As part of the flyExclusive relationship, we announced the Citation X aircraft, a very high-powered jet. They installed our system on it and flew it to the NBAA show.

We also announced a broad strategic relationship with Textron Aviation, which covers a whole series of their aircraft including the Citation series, as well as jointly promoting our hardware—our shipset—through their 13 regional service centers. It’s been a very busy commercial ramp for the past month and a half.

Ryan Stone: Textron is now making SmartSky available at its service centers for install, and we’re expanding the number of aircraft covered by STC with them. The Citation X was the first of those, and more will follow pretty rapidly.

It’s really exciting for us to have a company like Textron getting behind this, understanding how important it is for the customers to have an experience that connects them as passengers in the way we’re connecting right now. Now the aircraft can interact, and aviation data as a service can also happen. Now you can make aviation more like everyone envisioned it would be, where you have useful connectivity for the aircraft and the passengers.

What does SmartSky’s network service enable?

Helfgott: We’re all focused on the experience in the back of the aircraft, especially in private aviation—can you do video teleconferencing, or access cloud-based computing, or go through corporate firewalls or encryption? The answer, until now, was no.

There’s a real problem with latency and bandwidth off the aircraft with any satellite solution. The incumbent air-to-ground system has very, very low bandwidth and very patchy coverage. We’ve consistently demonstrated this level of real-time interactivity and functionality in-flight. That’s really the back of the aircraft—that’s only part of the story.

The part that I think is going to drive this industry in the future is the middle of the aircraft—the flight operations and aeronautical IoT, telematics, getting operational data off the aircraft to the flight operations centers to the fleet managers to the aircraft operations folks, and all of that to the FBOs. All of that is really important and will streamline and make much more efficient business aviation.

The third area that hasn’t taken off yet is supplemental content—information and applications to the cockpit. Everyone has an iPad, an electronic flight bag. How do you use our network to provide better information to the pilot? Especially in the smaller jets, where you have fewer passengers and a lot of pilot owners, they really need that supplemental information.

What challenges has the company faced?

Helfgott: Every wireless network has challenges. We have made incredible inroads. In 24 months, we went from 13 sites to the entire continental U.S. being covered by our network. It’s not just towers, radios, and local wireless networks, but it’s the fiber, and the data centers, and the network operation center, all of that tied together, and integrating the back end of all that into our channel partners.

For example, Honeywell is our value-added reseller. We also have 20 MROs and OEMs who sell and install our equipment, such as Textron. It’s a lot of moving parts, and we’ve made remarkable progress, but it’s not easy.

Stone: We’ve wanted to do more demonstration flights where customers can try the system out and see what it’s like. At NBAA, instead of taking customers around Orlando, we did a demo flight from Orlando to Dallas, to demonstrate the nationwide network. With our flyExclusive arrangement, we had their Citation X flying customers around nationwide. Not everyone can do that. One of the challenges we face is getting more people up in the air, and as we are adding customers, it will get easier.

What are some highlights of current efforts at SmartSky?

Helfgott: We’re not only commercially operational as a network nationwide, we’re selling and have inventory to sell the shipsets—the equipment that goes on the aircraft, the radios and antennas. We have those three product lines, the hardware, the network service, and the application layer called Skytelligence. All those are now up and running, and generating revenue. We are actually having a difficult time fielding the interest, which is a high-quality problem, I know.

Many of the people who take advantage of business aviation are corporations and government agencies. The idea of having a secure VPN—not just Wi-Fi in the airplane—is a nice thing that we enable because of the high bandwidth to the aircraft, ultra low latency, and high bandwidth off the aircraft. Those three things in combination are what make this possible.

Stone: What appears to be gaining a lot of interest, based on recent conversations, is the idea of being able to do a private network for customers. Previously, you would be sharing that resource with everyone else around you.

We have one beam going to one plane at a time, and our backbone infrastructure on the ground enables that ability to have a private network on top of our network. A customer’s data wouldn’t necessarily have to touch the internet for their own internal uses. That seems to be an area we’re exploring more because we have that capability that no one else does.

The post SmartSky Executives Talk Air-to-Ground Connectivity Service appeared first on Avionics International.

NASA-Funded Research Team Explores Electric Aircraft Development

University researchers have made strides towards the development of advanced fuel cells and electricity-conducting technology for generating the power that will be necessary to enable fully-electric aircraft. (Photo: Phillip Ansell, University of Illinois)

In recent years, the sustainability and environmental impacts of air travel have been brought under intense scrutiny from governments, nonprofits and the public. This has led to aircraft manufacturers and other aviation companies alike focusing on creating more sustainable and efficient aircraft for use in both commercial and private segments of the industry. Supported by NASA, CHEETA (the Center for High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft), is a group of researchers and students that are looking to take this movement further by cutting carbon emissions from aircraft entirely through the development of fully electric aircraft.

Electrifying aviation, while a relatively new concept, has gained traction in the industry. Its popularity has been seen specifically in recent months, as Icelandair conducted its first test flight for an all-electric training aircraft that could have future application in some of the carrier’s short-haul, domestic markets. However, CHEETA is thinking bigger, aiming to harness the power of fuel cells to power large aircraft beyond the size of training aircraft.

While created as a component of NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI), CHEETA is composed of researchers, graduates and undergraduate students from nine universities across the country. It fulfills the ULI’s goal by allowing talented minds across many disciplines to collaborate with funding from NASA to develop advanced solutions to the challenges facing the aerospace industry today. Phillip Ansell, CHEETA’s director, highlights the benefit of this campus involvement, explaining, “The students are just so enamored with our work, which has been really cool to see.”

The focus for CHEETA is to harness the power of fuel cells to generate sustainable power for large aircraft. These cells would create electricity by combining oxygen in the air with hydrogen. This chemical process would only result in the emission of water, making this science a promising lead toward sustainable air travel.

While developments like this are much closer in reach thanks to technological advancements, a goal to create electricity to power aircraft using fuel cells comes with logistical challenges that must be faced by the ULI. For one, hydrogen must be in its liquid state in order to be used in the process of generating electricity. This becomes a significant obstacle for CHEETA researchers, as hydrogen must be stored at -423℉ in order to remain in its liquid state.

“Storing this supercold, or cryogenic, liquid requires tanks that are heavier than those used to hold regular jet fuel, which has made it difficult for fuel cells from achieving widespread use in aviation,” writes NASA’s Lillian Gipson.

Even if the team is able to address the challenges, they must also find a way to ensure that the fuel cells can power a large aircraft and the complex systems needed for operation.

Despite these headwinds, CHEETA seems determined to propel the aviation industry forward through its research. Its progress toward sustainable air travel is proving to be a unifying cause in the industry, as even companies like GlobalX are indicating interest in electric aircraft. Given the support for electric aircraft and the bright minds working toward the application of fuel cell generated electricity, CHEETA is taking steps toward making sustainable aviation a reality.

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Skyfire and Textron Partner to Offer Actionable Data for Drone First Responder Programs

Skyfire Consulting and Textron Systems are collaborating in an effort to offer actionable data for public safety officials and first responders using drones. (Photo: Skyfire Consulting)

Skyfire Consulting recently announced a partnership with Textron Systems to offer useful data to public safety agencies as well as Drone First Responder programs. Skyfire’s team offers consulting services for the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in public safety applications. Textron’s industry-leading geospatial products include the SeeGEO software, which enables the creation of detailed mapping products from video footage taken by drones. First responders can apply artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to make informed decisions about the data they collect.

“We specialize in getting the right tools to the public safety agencies, the right hardware, software, and regulatory approvals,” Matt Sloane, founder and CEO of Skyfire, told Avionics International. “We have a close working relationship with the FAA and have done a few novel waivers with them.” Skyfire’s team has also worked with the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Skyfire announced this week that it assisted PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) in obtaining a waiver for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations in California under Part 107. PG&E will use the BVLOS waiver, which covers operations throughout the entire state, to monitor parts of their critical infrastructure within districts that are most vulnerable to fires.

Textron Systems’ SeeGEO software (Photo: Skyfire)

Matt Sloane and the team at Skyfire have expanded the company over the past nine years. “As we were building these programs out,” Sloane explained, they realized that “public safety pilots are really good at flying the drones and getting the data in an immediate fashion, but they don’t take it beyond the immediate. They’re great at collecting the data but they don’t really leverage it in a novel way.”

He observed that this was particularly true for applications like search and rescue, where approaches are often outdated and inefficient. Things like machine learning, AI, and data processing could be leveraged to significantly improve the efficiency of search and rescue operations. Textron’s team ended up approaching Skyfire about a year ago to explore how tools like SeeGEO could be applied to public safety.

“It’s critical to understand the needs of the users—and to engage with them—to respond quickly and develop the tools they need to complete their mission,” remarked Darryl Madden, Vice President of Geospatial Systems at Textron.

Textron’s team observed that Skyfire was keenly aware of the pulse of public safety and the first responder community, and they could help Textron to apply its tools in the best possible way.

“Our products needed features to really derive value from collected data,” Madden said. The geospatial information that public safety officials and first responders gather could be leveraged to enhance various missions.

“It’s critical to understand the needs of the users—and to engage with them—to respond quickly and develop the tools they need to complete their mission.” – Darryl Madden, Vice President of Geospatial Systems at Textron (Photo: Skyfire)

Matt Sloane believes that the public safety drone industry is currently at somewhat of an inflection point. Agencies will provide drones to a police officer or firefighter who then needs to get to the scene and deploy the drone, and this process can take up to 15 minutes.

“We’re starting to see the industry move very rapidly into the Drone First Responder [DFR] model where it’s flown directly to the scene from a rooftop,” Sloane stated. “It’s ideal to have these autonomous boxes that deploy drones—now [the challenge is] trying to fit that into the existing manned aviation environment.”

There are now about 10 to 12 agencies in the U.S. with DFR-style programs. It only takes two or three minutes to get the drone deployed to the site. “It’s really accelerating the pace of adoption for public safety drones, and it’s also making the need for better tools obvious,” he commented.

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Archer Unveils Midnight eVTOL Aircraft

Archer Aviation has publicly unveiled its production aircraft, Midnight. The Midnight eVTOL aircraft is the evolution of the demonstrator aircraft, Maker. (Photo: Archer)

Archer Aviation revealed its production aircraft, Midnight, to the public today following its Open House event in Palo Alto on Nov. 16. The company previously developed a demonstrator aircraft, called Maker, to test out the configuration and functionality of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) concept. The team at Archer expects to certify Midnight with the Federal Aviation Administration towards the end of 2024.

“We built, tested, and flew Maker as a testbed to advance our process with the FAA,” Archer’s CEO and founder, Adam Goldstein, shared in an interview with Avionics International. “We validated a lot of our technology; we validated the configuration, the tiltrotor, and the flight controls. It gave us confidence in the technology and helped set a lot of the frameworks with the FAA that allowed us to get to where we are today—the building and unveiling of our production plane.”

Midnight keeps the same 12 tilt 6 configuration as the Maker testbed. “We’re still using a lot of those same philosophies that we validated with Maker,” said CEO Adam Goldstein. (Photo: Archer)

Midnight is designed with a 100-mile range. Archer’s strategy, however, focuses heavily on 20-mile back-to-back routes conducted in rapid succession. “A typical route would be airport to city center for passengers in and around urban environments,” Goldstein said.

Archer announced its first eVTOL route in partnership with United Airlines last week. The route will take passengers to and from Newark Airport and a heliport in downtown Manhattan. “That’s a really critical key hub for United, and it’s a route that a lot of people take every day,” remarked Goldstein.

For initial urban air mobility (UAM) operations, Archer will rely on existing infrastructure, such as the heliport in Manhattan that will be used for the route to and from Newark. “Over time, we will build more infrastructure or work with companies to build more infrastructure,” he noted.

The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, “is very excited about the opportunity to bring a new sustainable form of low-noise transportation,” Goldstein commented. Los Angeles and Miami are two other cities of interest for UAM operations. He noted that the route between Miami and Fort Lauderdale in particular could be a viable option for introducing eVTOL flights.

Archer is first looking at launching routes in cities that are tech-forward, said CEO Adam Goldstein. “They want these solutions, and they want to bring in sustainable forms of transportation. Heavy congestion a really big part of it—where the airport to city center routes make a lot of sense.” (Photo: Archer)

Archer made several big announcements this week. On Monday, the company revealed plans to build its manufacturing facility near the Covington Municipal Airport in Georgia. This site is expected to have the capacity to produce as many as 650 eVTOL aircraft annually, kicking off initial production in the latter half of 2024.

The eVTOL developer entered into a new agreement, made public on Tuesday, with Garmin. Garmin will supply the G3000 integrated flight deck for Archer’s Midnight. “The compact and lightweight system offers both an extensive certification pedigree and the configurability needed for Archer to bring its aircraft to market,” according to the announcement, and “the large format displays and intuitive controls will provide pilots with the situational awareness needed to operate Midnight.”

And yesterday, Archer revealed its choice of a supplier for the battery cells that will power Midnight. E-One Moli Energy Corp., or Molicel, signed a memorandum of understanding to manufacture battery cells at scale that will help to enable a 1,000-pound payload for the aircraft. Molicel was also chosen as a supplier for another eVTOL aircraft developer, Vertical Aerospace, this summer.

The first reveal of Midnight’s interior (Photo: Archer)

In selecting suppliers, Archer uses a concept known as realistic innovation, Goldstein explained. “The focus is on commercialization, so we want to get to market, and we want to choose the lowest risk, most efficient path to do that,” he said.

“A lot of times, that means partnering with great suppliers and using off-the-shelf products that are already flying today on certified aircraft,” he added. “There are some parts where we have not found good enough alternatives that can help us meet our mission.” One of these parts is the powertrain for Midnight, which Archer’s team has been developing.

Archer’s team is focused, at least initially, on launching in the U.S., although they see a lot of opportunity to expand globally once the network in the U.S. is established.

When the first eVTOL developers launch operations, which will start in 2025, confidence in the new mode of transportation will start to grow—both from the public and from the investment community. “I think it will be a great experience for consumers and early adopters because they can take a product that is very convenient and affordable. It’s a new alternative to rideshare,” Goldstein said.

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President of Intelsat Commercial Aviation Shares Thoughts on the Future of Connectivity

“Focusing on the quality of the experience—and the economics of the solution—is how we’re going to drive this in the direction it needs to go in the long term.” – Intelsat’s Jeff Sare, President of Commercial Aviation (Photo: Intelsat)

For many airlines, it is becoming increasingly important to offer in-flight connectivity. The quality of Wi-Fi available onboard an aircraft has a significant impact on a passenger’s satisfaction. The connectivity needs to be both consistent and affordable. IFC is most commonly delivered via satellite, which many of the major service providers use, including Panasonic, Gogo, Viasat, Thales, Inmarsat, and Intelsat.

At the recent APEX Expo, Jeff Sare, President of Intelsat Commercial Aviation, offered his perspective on what the future holds for connectivity. He explained during a panel discussion that Intelsat does not view their constellation as a hybrid network. “It’s a network with different assets and technologies that are all brought together to deliver the end-user experience,” he said. “It’s all about the passenger experience.”

Jeff Sare of Intelsat is pictured above (second from the right) during a panel discussion at the APEX Expo, moderated by NetForecast Director of Business Development – Transportation, Mary Rogozinski. (Photo: Jessica Reed)

While Intelsat currently has more than 60 geosynchronous satellites, Sare remarked that the main focus is on the quality of the in-flight experience. The service is centered entirely around its customers. “At the end of the day, if a passenger on an airplane isn’t getting the service they need, they’re going to complain,” he said.

Intelsat’s 2Ku satellite connectivity solution was recently chosen by Virgin Australia for the airline’s existing fleet of Boeing 737 NG aircraft. The satellite services provider also announced last week that it will be the first commercial customer for Swissto12’s HummingSat product line. Intelsat placed an order for the IS-45 satellite which will provide Ku-band fixed satellite services to customers.

Intelsat’s system enables the correlation of data from an airline on customer satisfaction with particular metrics, such as page load times. With this correlation, it is possible to establish a baseline for the passengers’ experience with the IFC and to determine what improvements will have a positive impact.

Sare also noted the importance of considering costs associated with offering IFC. “All that has to be done in a way that is economically sound so that the passenger can afford to use the service,” he stated.

As more airlines offer in-flight Wi-Fi, it may be a better idea to build the cost of the service into the price of the ticket. “Nothing is free,” Sare said. “It’s about bundling services and how customers want to differentiate from their competition. Focusing on the quality of the experience—and the economics of the solution—is how we’re going to drive this in the direction it needs to go in the long term.”

Intelsat announced a global distribution agreement with OneWeb in August. The companies are partnering to offer a multi-orbit in-flight connectivity (IFC) service. Sare commented on the partnership with OneWeb during the panel discussion, saying, “It’s another set of assets, another set of tools to continue to improve our network, to provide coverage in places where our previous fleet by itself wasn’t able to provide coverage, and to be able to take advantage of the kinds of things that a lower latency, more ubiquitous coverage can take advantage of.”

The service that Intelsat delivers matters more than which specific assets are used, Sare noted. “If it makes the most sense to use the LEO [low-earth orbit] network at a particular time, we’ll use the LEO network. If it makes more sense to use GEO [geostationary orbit], we’ll use GEO. Everything has its pluses and minuses.”

In the near future, it will be necessary to be able to “talk” to multiple satellites simultaneously. It’s increasingly important today to be able to shift between satellites quickly, Sare shared. Intelsat’s approach for the near-term will be step-by-step: “We have our traditional geosynchronous orbits, we’re building the software-defined network, we’re launching software-defined satellites, we’re partnering with OneWeb. We’re creating an electronically steered antenna [ESA] and terminal with multiple modems in it so we can talk to the satellites—initially one at a time—just bringing more flexibility to the system as we go forward.”

He commented that airline customers have been much more interested in the CO2 impact of the network than anticipated. “All of them are approaching these new sets of technologies in an appropriately prudent and thoughtful manner,” he said.

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