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Experts Discuss Investment Opportunities for Advanced Air Mobility in Australia

Last week’s Advanced Air Mobility Summit, hosted by the Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems, featured discussions on investing in the growing AAM industry in Australia. (Photo: Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems)

Significant investments into advanced air mobility are required to support a growing sector that will include autonomous vehicles, drones, and eventually electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. These vehicles will all operate in the same airspaces. In addition to an air traffic management system that accounts for unmanned aircraft, investment will also be needed for infrastructure development.

The Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems (AAUS) hosted a summit on advanced air mobility, or AAM, last week. Experts from NEXA Capital Partners, Ferrovial Vertiports, and Swinburne University discussed the unique opportunities for investment into AAM in Australia, along with some of the challenges.

Clem Newton-Brown—the CEO of Melbourne based startup Skyportz that aims to develop a network for eVTOLs—remarked during the AAM Summit that future eVTOL operations will require a very capital-intensive investment to establish sufficient ground infrastructure. “We’re after about 400 sites that we have options on,” he remarked in reference to Skyportz.

Newton-Brown and other industry leaders in Australia believe it is urgent to establish the country as an early mover for AAM and to attract OEMs. “We’ve attracted the Wing [drone] delivery service,” he mentioned. “They came here because it was a better spot for them to trial their delivery service than elsewhere.”

He continued: “The danger for Australia is that the [AAM] industry starts in other cities, and the demand for aircraft will be such that we won’t even get our hands on aircraft [in Australia].”

Investment banking firm NEXA Capital Partners identifies and finances early-stage AAM infrastructure, as it has with other aviation industry technologies and initiatives in the past. They are currently looking at the viability and financial strength of different markets for AAM. During last week’s summit, Michael Dyment, Managing Partner at NEXA, commented on the unique ecosystem that Australia offers for eVTOL operations and drone services. “The market represented by some of the cities in Australia, and in particular southeastern Australia, create the opportunity to get ahead of the industry globally,” he explained.

NEXA’s subsidiary for AAM research, UAM Geomatics, has analyzed the AAM business case for the 84 largest cities in the world and identified the industry as a trillion-dollar market.

“The analysis is driven by some very rigorous tools that give us the opportunity to examine the long-term profitability of this new industry sector in given metropolitan areas of the world,” including Sydney and Melbourne, said Dyment.

NEXA used data from UAM Geomatics to forecast the potential revenue from AAM in Sydney, estimating about $4 billion in potential future revenue. AAM ground infrastructure for the city is estimated to require $136 million to establish a complete network, including charging stations and vertiports. Low-altitude air traffic control for Sydney will cost another $100 million in investments.

Dyment remarked that advanced air mobility can be financed largely through private investments. An industry’s revenue to cost ratio is used to indicate how easy it will be to attract private-sector capital. A ratio of at least 2.5 or 3 generally signals that attracting private-sector capital will be easy, he noted.

The role of the government, in contrast, should be to facilitate the regulatory side of things and then allow private capital to fund AAM development, according to Dyment.

Kevin Cox, CEO of Ferrovial Vertiports, commented during the AAM Summit that Ferrovial has created a sophisticated demand model to predict where the best business opportunities will be in regards to transportation and infrastructure. Cox and the company are confident that some eVTOL companies will achieve certification in late 2024 and early 2025.

During the AAM Summit, Kevin Cox, CEO of Ferrovial Vertiports, shared the above chart of some of the top eVTOL developers, according to the company. (Photo: Kevin Cox/Ferrovial Vertiports/AAUS AAM Summit)

Ferrovial Vertiports, which is planning to build a network of vertiports across the U.S. and Europe, is taking an agnostic approach to the eVTOL industry. “We support and converse with all these companies,” stated Cox. “This industry will not take flight without a lot of people working collaboratively together.”

He went on to explain that there are likely three key business models for eVTOL aircraft:

Intra-City: routes less than 50 kilometers, high volumes of operations in densely populated areas (such as Joby)
Intra-Airline: routes between 50 and 150 km, pioneered by helicopter operators
Inter-City: routes up to 300 km, point-to-point operations (such as Lilium)

Kevin Cox also noted the importance of finding cost-effective locations for setting up vertiports. “Allowing for everybody to utilize our vertiport is absolutely critical; we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” he said. At the same time, it is important to take a more innovative approach in the design of vertiport networks rather than replicating current airport setups. “If it feels, looks, and operates like an airport, then we have failed,” he added.

The Ferrovial Vertiports CEO emphasized the importance of having a long-term vision in mind for innovative concepts before investing millions or billions of dollars into something like the autonomous aircraft that Wisk (and others) are working on.

Advanced air mobility represents a strategic baseline for the future technology economy in Australia, according to Dr. Adriano Di Pietro. He is the director of Swinburne University’s Aerostructures Innovation Research (AIR) Hub, a research and industry collaboration funded by the Victorian government. Dr. Di Pietro remarked that AAM depends on the existing capabilities and ecosystem of the civil aerospace sector. “We have a strong capability here in Australia, and particularly in Victoria,” he said. “We see opportunity in the supply chain, as well as the technology and exports.”

However, he noted, it’s important to look internationally—and particularly from a technology point of view—to ensure the growth of AAM in Australia.

The AIR Hub at Swinburne University developed the AIR Pass program to support prototyping and technology for early-stage aviation and aerospace ventures as well as to provide financial support. (Photo: Dr. Adriano Di Pietro/AAUS AAM Summit)

The AIR Hub supports three main strategies for driving the AAM industry, including creation of a clear policy environment, leadership in key technologies and capabilities, and development and scaling of the market.

The research done at the AIR Hub is industry-led, and designed to benefit industry directly. Some of the partners include Boeing, Quickstep, Cablex, and Marand. “We’re also working with a number of subject matter experts as well as national research partners like ANSTO and Monash University,” Dr. Di Pietro said. They have also formed a partnership recently with NIAR, the National Institute for Aviation Research, at Wichita State University.

“Australia needs coverage and investment across all categories of the ecosystem,” he added. “We need to hone the skills of future engineers and we need a strong supply chain. And we need to fly every day and undertake persistent trials to support AAM here.”

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EASA Safety Report Shows Another Year of No Fatal Accidents for European Airlines in 2021

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published its 2022 annual safety review this week. (Photo: EASA)

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published its 2022 safety review report this week that provides analysis accident rates, causes, and trends across every segment and category of airborne operations. While noting the COVID-related unusual characteristics of flight operations between 2020 and 2021, the agency notes that there was a “slight increase in the overall accident rate” for commercial airlines last year.

There were no fatal accidents committed by airlines registered to operate in EASA member states for the fifth consecutive year in 2021, according to the report. Airborne collision, runway excursion, and collision on runway remained the three top risk areas categorically for airlines last year.

“In 2021 there were no fatal accidents involving European Commercial Air Transport (CAT) AOC holders,” the report says. “Non-fatal accidents reached or exceeded the levels of the years 2017, 2018 and 2020. These figures should be considered in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where air traffic in 2021 was approximately 57% of the 2019 traffic level.”

Another interesting feature included in the 174-page report is the agency highlighting the potential for an airborne collision to occur between an unmanned aircraft system and other aircraft flying in European airspace. EASA described this possibility as an area of “growing safety concern, due to the increasing accessibility of UAS.”

Pictured above is a graph from the annual safety review showing UAS incidents occurring in European airspace since 2017. (Photo: EASA)

EASA tracks these incidents as a “UAS occurrence” or serious incidents where “at least one UAS was involved, and the event resulted in an airborne collision or near airborne collision with an UAS.” In 2021, just one instance of “drone collisions and near collisions” was reported.

Patrick Ky, EASA’s executive director, in a foreword for the report, states that airline passenger traffic in Europe is now back to around 85% of 2019 levels. The agency’s top executive also acknowledged unusually high levels of commercial airline delays at European airports over the summer, attributing them to the industry’s COVID recovery being challenged by the unavailability of qualified staff at “the various key stages in the passenger process, particularly at the airport.”

Ky also advocates for the aviation industry in Europe to take an information-security safety management system (iSMS) approach to improving its industry-wide standardized approach to cybersecurity practices.

“While the system has benefited enormously from digitalisation, the potential disruptive effects of cybersecurity attacks require our constant attention and awareness,” Ky writes. “To further strengthen European aviation against cybersecurity threats, EASA has actively supported the development of the regulatory framework that will introduce an information-security safety management system (iSMS) as an organisational requirement.”

The post EASA Safety Report Shows Another Year of No Fatal Accidents for European Airlines in 2021 appeared first on Aviation Today.

Icelandair Conducts First Flight Test With Passengers in a Fully-Electric Training Plane

The President of Iceland and the Prime Minister were the first passengers to fly in Pipistrel’s electric airplane during a test flight in Iceland. (Photo: Icelandair)

On August 24, Icelandair announced that it has successfully flown a 100% electric airplane with passengers. The airline claims that this is the first flight of an electric aircraft carrying passengers in Iceland. The President of Iceland and the Prime Minister were both onboard this inaugural flight, performed with Pipistrel’s two-seater aircraft.

Rafmagnsflug ehf., or Electric Flight, brought the electric aircraft to Iceland in collaboration with sponsors Isavia, Landsvirkjun, Hotel Rangá, Landsbankinn, Geirfugl ATO, The Reykjavik Flight Academy, and the Iceland Aviation Academy, together with Matthías, Friðrik and Herjólfur Guðbjartsson, in addition to Icelandair.

Electric airplanes could provide opportunities for Icelandair to offer a sustainable form of transportation for short domestic flight routes. The airline has set ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Icelandair is also working to replace older models in its fleet with more fuel-efficient aircraft, and the company is exploring the potential of introducing sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) into its operations. The airline signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Heart Aerospace and Universal Hydrogen last year to evaluate the feasibility of using electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft.

The Pipistrel aircraft that recently performed Icelandair’s fully-electric test flight will now be used for flight training. The Velis Electro is “optimized” particularly for pilot training, according to Pipistrel, and operates with a low noise profile—60 dBa. The aircraft can also operate commercially and is capable of flying in suboptimal weather conditions. Icelandair is also planning to offer sightseeing flights to the public for zero-emission travel.

Pipistrel’s electric aircraft is called the Velis Electro. The Slovenian aircraft maker was acquired by Textron in April of this year. The Velis Electro is the first electric aircraft to receive full type certification from EASA (the European Union Aviation Safety Agency), according to Textron. Pipistrel is also currently developing both a hybrid and an electric propulsion model.

Pipistrel designed the Velis Electro two-seater electric aircraft specifically for training purposes. (Photo: Pipistrel)

The Velis Electro has a simplified user interface in the cockpit to enable easier operation and use for training. The electric aircraft also has a built-in continuous health monitoring system that reduces the risk of malfunctions. It’s powered by a Pipistrel type certified, 57.6kW liquid cooled electric engine that was developed in collaboration with EMRAX and EMSISO.

Pipistrel previously partnered with Airflow, a company that develops electric short take-off and landing (eSTOL) aircraft, towards the end of last year. Airflow’s proof-of-concept aircraft, which used distributed electric propulsion, would integrate motors, motor controllers, and batteries supplied by Pipistrel as part of the partnership. Airflow has since been acquired by Electra.aero, another eSTOL developer.

The post Icelandair Conducts First Flight Test With Passengers in a Fully-Electric Training Plane appeared first on Aviation Today.

Boeing Tests Digital Taxi Time and Clearance EFB Capabilities on ecoDemonstrator

Boeing’s 2022 777-200 ecoDemonstrator program is testing out two new digital capabilities—Taxi Time Information and Taxi Clearance—which are designed to help airlines reduce turnaround times on the ground and eliminate fuel-burning delays. (Photo courtesy of Boeing)

Boeing is testing two new digital capabilities—Taxi Time Information and Taxi Clearance—on its ecoDemonstrator 777-200 program that can improve the way airline pilots anticipate the amount of time they will need to spend taxiing around airports during the pre-departure or post-landing process. In emailed statements to Avionics International, several experts from Boeing Global Services explained how these two capabilities use aircraft connectivity and ADS-B positioning data to calculate estimated required taxi times on a per-airport basis.

The purpose of testing the Taxi Time Information and Taxi Clearance digital capabilities is to give flight crews improved predictability for the pre-departure or landing process by reducing the amount of time they spend taxiing around the airport waiting on clearances for takeoff or to roll into a parking stand for deplaning.

“To implement reduced engine taxi operations and reduce fuel consumption, the flight deck crew must accurately predict the taxi time needed between their runway and parking stand. Pilots tell us this is difficult, because the historical averages used today are insufficient for accurate decision-making in real-life situations,” Marco Gärtner, Senior Product Manager, Boeing Global Services, said in an emailed statement.

Taxi Time Information, for example, is an application programmable interface compatible with the Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro app—or other third party EFB applications—that uses ADS-B positioning data to anticipate inbound or outbound clearance and taxi times for flight crews. This is one of the two tablet-based digital airport mapping capabilities Boeing is testing on its ecoDemonstrator program.

Optimizing the way airlines time their reduced thrust engines-on rollout to the runway in preparation for air traffic control clearance to takeoff has been a major focus of civil aviation authorities, airports, and airlines over the last decade.

Leadership at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands announced a unique approach to reducing the amount of fuel burned by aircraft engines while taxiing there by investing in TaxiBots—special towing vehicles that take aircraft to and from the runway allowing engines to mostly remain switched off.

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rolled out an air traffic system software update to its Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) system that improves the way air traffic controllers calculate the best time for gate pushbacks at busy hub airports to occur so that each plane can roll directly to the runway and take off with little to no intermittent stopping. The FAA introduced the capability at 27 hub airports in the U.S. last year.

Boeing aims to give pilots improved taxi time prediction analysis within their tablet-based airport moving map applications. Using their preferred EFB application with the Taxi Time Information capability, a pilot enters their assigned runway in the application and immediately sees the average taxi time from their assigned runway to parking stand that day, or even a particular hour, according to Gärtner.

The 2022 ecoDemonstrator program is a Boeing 777-200ER, pictured here at the 2022 EAA AirVenture show earlier this year in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of Boeing)

“The capability uses Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) position data from a third-party aggregator, a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation or other sensors and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. This live data, which is usually available within two minutes, is combined with Jeppesen airport maps to produce a record of current taxi events at an airport,” he said.

One of the prerequisite aircraft equipment requirements for enabling Taxi Time, according to Gärtner, is connectivity.

“COVID caused airlines to pause many projects, including those regarding connectivity,” he said. “Now, after the pandemic, flight numbers have recovered and some are even higher than in 2019. Many airlines have mentioned they have revived cockpit connectivity projects.”

The Taxi Clearance capability has a focus on improving airport navigation, by giving flight crews the ability to quickly record their cleared taxi route and view it as a digital guide to the runway within their preferred airport mapping application.

“Today, when pilots receive their cleared taxi route, they often write the instructions down and then mentally create or physically draw the pathway on their terminal chart,” Gärtner said. “With the Taxi Clearance capability, flight deck crew simply touch the taxiways listed by Air Traffic Control (ATC) in their app, and the route is automatically visualized on their digital map.”

BGS’s digital aviation solutions team estimates that airlines spend up to 25% of their operating budget on fuel. The latest FAA data shows that the average time spent taxiing into and out of airports is between 16 to 27 minutes.

Gärtner confirmed that that BGS already has the ability to update the Jeppesen FliteDeck Pro application with the Taxi Time and Information API’s ability to report historical and real-time taxi times. One new capability Boeing is researching is providing recommendations for single engine taxi and other fuel-saving ground-maneuvering tactics for pilots.

“Looking to the future, our next task will be to provide predictive analytics that could even recommend when pilots should taxi with a single engine, when the engines should warm up, and when the second engine should be started, based on the expected time to the runway, actual lineup time and other real-time data,” Gärtner said.

The post Boeing Tests Digital Taxi Time and Clearance EFB Capabilities on ecoDemonstrator appeared first on Aviation Today.

Jaunt and MintAir Partner to Launch eVTOL Operations in South Korea

eVTOL developer Jaunt Air Mobility gained a new strategic partner this week—MintAir, an advanced air mobility services startup. MintAir expects to purchase up to 40 eVTOL aircraft from Jaunt, and both companies will collaborate to launch eVTOL operations in South Korea. (Photo: Jaunt)

Jaunt Air Mobility, an air taxi developer within the AIRO Group Holdings aerospace and defense company, formed a new strategic partnership this week. Jaunt is partnering with MintAir, a South Korean startup developing an advanced air mobility service. MintAir signed a Letter of Intent to purchase up to 40 of Jaunt’s electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, and the startup will also serve as the exclusive partner of Jaunt for the Korean market.

Jaunt’s eVTOL aircraft, the Journey, uses Slowed Rotor Compound (SRC) technologies. Jaunt CEO Martin Peryea remarked on the new partnership with MintAir in the company’s announcement: “The Jaunt Journey’s aircraft design offers the safest air taxi configuration that is operationally efficient, quiet, and sustainable.”

As part of the strategic partnership, MintAir and Jaunt will collaborate to launch commercial AAM operations for passenger transportation in multiple Korean markets. MintAir’s plans include beginning AAM services with a specific eVTOL vehicle design: electric rotorcraft that have a single main rotor.

Some advantages of electric rotorcraft, according to the announcement, include “lower energy consumption, lower operating costs, and a direct, less complicated path towards certification.”

The CEO of MintAir, Eugene Choi, also provided a comment on the strategic partnership with Jaunt. “Our mission is to develop the safest Advanced Air Mobility service in both urban and rural environments based on sound ESG management,” he remarked. “Jaunt Air Mobility is committed to those same principles throughout the aircraft’s lifecycle. And we are confident the Jaunt Journey will transport the public with the highest level of safety.”

Jaunt is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and its design and manufacturing efforts take place in Montreal, Canada. Jaunt’s team is working in coordination with Transport Canada to achieve certification under Chapter 529: Transport Category Rotorcraft.

Jaunt expects to launch its aircraft by 2026. The company is also one of 11 companies chosen by the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX program for a Phase I contract award. The program challenged recipients to design concepts for high-speed VTOL aircraft from January to June of this year.

The Jaunt Journey aircraft uses Slowed Rotor Compound (SRC) technologies. (Photo: Jaunt)

Jaunt merged with the AIRO Group company as a wholly-owned subsidiary last October, joining its six other businesses, AIRO Drone, Agile Defense, Aspen Avionics, Coastal Defense, Sky-Watch, and VRCO.

In late July of this year, the AIRO Group announced that it had completed its mergers with global aerospace firms and had reorganized its business into four divisions: Advanced Avionics, Electric Air Mobility, Commercial Drones, and Training. The Jaunt Journey aircraft falls within AIRO’s Electric Air Mobility division.

Joe Burns, CEO of the AIRO Group, believes that eVTOL operators “are looking for a pedigree of certification and safety as well as robust, dynamic capabilities, efficiencies, and quiet operations,” he remarked in the announcement about AIRO’s successful mergers and business realignment. “AIRO is proud to have received numerous pre-orders as well as multiple US DoD contracts aimed at optimizing eVTOL speed and minimizing acoustic signatures for quiet operations,” he added.

Burns is also confident that aircraft certification of Jaunt’s eVTOL will be validated through the Federal Aviation Administration and the EU Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) soon after Transport Canada awards certification.

The post Jaunt and MintAir Partner to Launch eVTOL Operations in South Korea appeared first on Aviation Today.

ASTM International Publishes New Standard for Designing Vertiports and Vertistops

The standards development organization ASTM International recently published a new standard that provides guidance to states and municipalities for the design and development of vertiports. The unmanned aircraft systems committee at ASTM, the F38 Committee, has worked on this standard—F3423—for the past five years to support advanced air mobility (AAM) infrastructure development.

This comes a few months after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published the first-ever vertiport design specifications, titled “Prototype Technical Design Specifications for Vertiports.” The document provided technical guidance for development of ground infrastructure that enables urban air mobility operations in Europe.

The announcement from ASTM explains that a vertiport can be constructed on land or water and can be used by both crewed and uncrewed aircraft that perform vertical take-offs and landings. Vertiports support a range of operations, from transporting passengers and cargo to performing medical services, maintenance, battery exchange, fueling, and flight instruction.

The F3423 standard also includes specifications for the design of vertistops, which are built for discharging passengers and cargo only—no fueling or scheduled maintenance can take place at a vertistop.

“Everyone involved in the development and implementation of AAM transportation, and its supporting infrastructure, will find this standard extremely helpful,” commented ASTM International Fellow Jonathan Daniels in response to the announcement.

While the new standard was created to support the design of civil vertiports and vertistops, it could also be used for other facilities as a best practice document. However, it does not cover vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft with floats that conduct water landings or take-offs. The ASTM standard also does not include specifications for infrastructure to support VTOL aircraft that weigh less than 55 pounds.

The F38 Committee took into account multiple types of eVTOL aircraft, such as multi-rotor, lift & cruise, vectored thrust, tilt wing, and tilt rotor as the committee considered appropriate guidelines for AAM infrastructure requirements.

A rendering of a vertiport facility designed by Skyports (Photo: Skyports)

According to ASTM International’s announcement, the F3423 standard provides “the foundation for additional working groups supporting automated vertiports and connections through the vertiport supplementary data service provider (SDSP) work item.”

An ASTM International working group volunteer and member, Rex Alexander, remarked that developing this new standard required a balance between safety and practicality. “Without empirical aircraft performance data to rely on, the team’s goal was to develop a practical standard as a starting point that is not only safety centric but provides municipalities with a common-sense path forward,” he stated.

The F38 Committee meets twice a year to address issues related to unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, such as airworthiness and operator qualifications. We recently featured an interview with Phil Kenul, Chair of the F38 Committee, at Avionics International. Kenul noted that certain rules from the Federal Aviation Administration will go into effect on September 16, 2022, outlining requirements for UAS to maintain compliance with Remote ID. As of about a month ago, he noted, ASTM completed the means of compliance that the FAA is expected to adopt for Remote ID.

The vertiport design released by Skyportz this week (Photo: Skyportz)

Other recent news related to AAM infrastructure comes from an Australian startup, Skyportz, which aims to develop networks of vertiports for air taxis. This week, the company announced that it has secured an option to build what would be the first vertiport site in Australia. The design of the vertiport was released by Skyportz during the Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems (AAUS) AAM Summit this week.

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Archer’s Design Team Shares Insights on “Midnight” eVTOL’s Interior and Exterior

Archer recently revealed the silhouette of its eVTOL aircraft, Midnight. We spoke with two members of the design team at Archer to learn more about their approach to designing the aircraft and its unique components. (Photo: Archer)

Archer Aviation recently revealed the name of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Midnight. While a detailed rendering of the aircraft has not yet been released, Archer shared a photo depicting the silhouette of its eVTOL. The company has completed the Preliminary Design Review and is targeting 2024 for achieving certification of Midnight.

Two members of Archer’s design team spoke with Avionics International this week about designing the interior and exterior of the aircraft. Juliette Allegra, CMF (Color, Materials, Finish) Designer at Archer, joined the company a year ago and comes from a background in the aerospace and automotive industries. Erik Saetre is a Vehicle Designer with an educational background in engineering and has been with Archer for about two years. He worked in the marine industry in Norway designing a search-and-rescue patrol boat before getting into transportation and automotive design. He has worked for Land Rover and Porsche as well as General Motors.

Check out our question-and-answer session with Allegra and Saetre about the design process at Archer, the eVTOL’s unique features, and the most important design considerations for the aircraft.

Avionics: What brought you to Archer?

Juliette Allegra: The eVTOL industry is pretty new, but it is about to really change the way people are commuting. We will be able to explore the world like never before, which is pretty amazing. We are also here to save people time in day-to-day life.

Erik Saetre: The main reason I wanted to join Archer was the leadership team. Julien Montousse—and his credentials—was a big draw. I think automotive and transportation on the 2D grid is so “known.” I liked being able to join this new frontier and industry and revolutionize transportation as we know it, taking it into 3D.

What are you working on these days?

Juliette Allegra: Every day is different. I am in charge of the development and application of the Archer CMF strategy for conceptual and production aircraft as well as vertiports and infrastructure. I create digital concepts and renderings, also physical concepts with material samples, panels, and things like that.

I collaborate every day with interior and exterior design, and I work a lot with Erik on material development—specifically the geometry and architecture. I also collaborate with engineering, branding, manufacturing, purchasing, and suppliers to execute design intents. I also source and develop materials to maintain the innovation within our CMF library.

Erik Saetre: I am responsible for executing and designing the exterior of the aircraft along with our other exterior design specialist, Young-Joon Suh. We do manual digital sketching, 3D modeling, rendering, animation. We work with the engineering team and do constant iteration.

There has been a huge emphasis on the design of the seats. We’ve gone through numerous physical and digital iterations, testing to get the most ergonomic, perfect fit. It’s the most comfortable and lightweight seat; it’s really amazing.

Above is Archer’s Maker eVTOL aircraft. (Photo: Archer)

What are some of the most unique design aspects of Archer’s aircraft?

Erik Saetre: Our approach to the exterior design and the architecture itself sets the tone for the cabin and everything else. The architecture is designed and centered around the human being. Positioning of the wing, height, clearances, everything aims to make getting in and out of the vehicle as effortless as possible, and also being comfortable within the cabin.

The team really worked on sculpting the surfaces of the aircraft to reflect the environment around it. In that way, you’re kind of bringing life and emotion into the product. A good example of that in the automotive world is a rear fender on a Porsche—the surfaces are so taut but so sculpted, and it’s reflective; it has so much light. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.

Juliette Allegra: The idea with CMF is not to apply materials, or paint, or colors, it’s really trying to find symbiosis between materials and geometry. We have different requirements than the automotive industry. It’s very different, and it’s very challenging.

Saetre: We put a lot of emphasis on making the aircraft look equally as good in the air as on the ground. A lot of effort and innovation has gone into executing the landing gear, and giving it a solid, stable, and safe-looking stance. It has a very confident look and we think that’s very unlike any other aircraft at the moment.

Allegra: We are really creating a platform here. The idea is to emphasize the customer experience. We are trying to get away from what’s popular in the aviation industry right now. With CMF, we are trying to develop a premium product that will allow people to commute faster, and therefore give them the opportunity to explore and connect with their environment. Everything is studied: geometry shapes, architecture, and CMF, we are really pushing for a great experience for the consumer. We are building around them, actually.

What are some of the obstacles or challenges that the design team faces?

Juliette Allegra: We do face several requirements that are different from the automotive industry. The main one is the weight. It’s basically the main requirement for a CMF designer. There is absolutely no room for ornament or opulence.

Another requirement is taking a sustainable approach. This is very important to us. We are working with suppliers and engineers to implement new materials within the aerospace industry that are lightweight, sustainable, and very durable.

Erik Saetre: Weight restrictions and requirements have also been a massive enabler, I think. We’ve managed to create a very lean and athletic volume of fuselage; it’s become very efficient and very aerodynamic. It’s been a challenge, but it has enabled good design and good function.

Another big focus for us, with regards to the cabin, is the open visibility to the landscape and environment, and this kind of integration. I think that’s something unique that the cabin will offer. It’s such a different point of view—much lower to the ground than you would be in a commercial airliner.

We released the silhouette of Midnight; I think that image speaks to how we’re conveying upward motion. The very premise of the VTOL is the verticality of it. You see the silhouette and outline of the wing—it has this kind of upward pull motion to it.

The post Archer’s Design Team Shares Insights on “Midnight” eVTOL’s Interior and Exterior appeared first on Aviation Today.

Researchers Develop AI Pilot for Navigating Crowded Airspace

New research from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University shows that AI-powered pilots could enable the integration of autonomous aircraft into the airspace. Above is a simulation demonstrating the capabilities of an AI pilot. (Photo: The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University)

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have designed an AI (artificial intelligence) pilot that can navigate an aircraft through crowded airspace using visual flight rules (VFR). The AI pilot has been tested on flight simulators, and it detects other aircraft using a computer vision system and six cameras. It also offers the ability to communicate with air traffic controllers and pilots using its automatic speech recognition function.

There has not been sufficient research conducted on integrating autonomous vehicles into the airspace with manned aircraft, according to Jay Patrikar, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute that worked on the AI pilot project.

“With air taxis, most have been focusing on the hardware—building the aircraft, making it go faster and farther,” Patrikar told Avionics International. “Nobody has talked enough about how these taxis would get integrated into the current airspace system.”

The AI pilot can operate an aircraft just like a human pilot, shared Dr. Jean Oh, associate research professor at the university’s Robotics Institute. She noted that larger airports usually have an air traffic control tower to optimize the schedule for aircraft taking off and landing.

At smaller airports, pilots rely on radio communications and visually observing other aircraft in the airspace to coordinate their actions. According to the Carnegie Melon team, most autopilot controls featured in commercial airliners and other aircraft are designed to operate under instrument flight rules (IFRs). That’s one reason why their team is focused on developing an AI pilot that can interact with other aircraft in the lower altitude VFR airspace where electric air taxis and drones operate.

“We ran a very simple scenario with two airplanes trying to land at the same airport, potentially creating conflict,” said Dr. Oh regarding the simulated flight tests. “They need to plan their trajectories so they avoid collisions safely.”

The AI predicts the future trajectories of other aircraft after observing their movements. “Based on those predicted trajectories, the AI planner chooses a safe action,” Dr. Oh told Avionics. “We compute all the possible cases and then choose the safest path.”

The researchers’ current approach focuses mostly on this trajectory-based intention prediction and planning. They are also working on a proof of concept for using natural language understanding. “We use communication to capture the other pilot’s intentions,” she noted. “When that information is available, the algorithm can use it to refine the planning.”

She remarked that there are limitations with this concept. “We can’t always assume that information will be ready. Communication is not always allowed or supported, and it can be very noisy input from the environment; there could be a lot of errors introduced by doing so.”

Dr. Oh has previously worked on robotic navigation systems for ground vehicles which helped to inform her work in developing an AI pilot. “A lot of the existing robotic technologies that are used for self-driving are developed in a static environment—the autonomous vehicle is the only moving agent in the environment and everything else is static,” she explained.

“The approaches have been developed to detect obstacles and avoid them. What hasn’t been fully addressed is there are many other vehicles and agents in the environment. In such dynamic environments, the research is still ongoing.”

There are also a lot of limitations in the current regulatory approach to allowing operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the national airspace, according to Dr. Oh. “The Federal Aviation Administration and those currently designing the future of aviation are proposing a segregating approach,” she said. Essentially, they designate spaces for UAVs and other autonomous aircraft that are separate from those used by manned systems.

As the number of UAVs and drones grows over the next 10 years, issues will arise. Solutions currently in effect at airports are inefficient, says Dr. Oh. “At the airport, if there is one UAV landing or taking off, no one else can use that space. It is a very inefficient use of these expensive resources.”

She points out that the airspace will quickly become crowded, and not just for commercial use but in other areas as well. The approach of separating autonomous aircraft from other vehicles does not scale well. The AI pilot that the Carnegie Mellon team has developed could provide the ideal solution to these problems.

The AI pilot has not yet been tested on actual aircraft. “We are doing more user studies in the coming weeks to evaluate the AI pilot,” Dr. Oh remarked. “There are difficulties evaluating this integrated AI system, and any type of integrated AI for that matter—there is no good way to evaluate the system using one metric.”

The user studies, she explained, will involve human pilots flying in a simulated airspace with another aircraft controlled by either a second human pilot or the AI pilot. The research team will then ask the pilots how safe or comfortable they felt operating in each environment to evaluate the performance of the AI pilot.

The post Researchers Develop AI Pilot for Navigating Crowded Airspace appeared first on Aviation Today.

PODCAST: How NetForecast Measures In-Flight Internet Quality of Experience

Alan Jones, Chief Technologist, NetForecast, is the guest on this episode.

On this episode of the Connected Aviation Intelligence Podcast, Alan Jones, Chief Technologist for NetForecast, joins to discuss how his company helps airlines generate quality of experience scores for in-flight internet services and applications.

NetForecast is a Virginia-based independent provider of in-depth analysis and reporting on internet performance and user experiences. It was founded in 1999 and has leadership that participated in co-writing the Airline Passenger Experience (APEX) Connectivity Working Group specification “Evaluating the Passenger Connectivity Experience.”

As the company’s chief technologist, Jones is responsible for the design and deployment of NetForecast’s QMap network user experience quality monitoring service. He heads research and development for user experience measurement, data collection, and cloud-based aggregation for terrestrial, mobile, and satellite-based internet services.

Jones discusses some of the basic metrics NetForecast uses to measure in-flight internet network service performance, how airlines can produce in-flight connectivity Quality of Experience scores, and more.

Listen to this episode below, or check it out on iTunes or Google Play. If you like the show, subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get new episodes as soon as they’re released.

The post PODCAST: How NetForecast Measures In-Flight Internet Quality of Experience appeared first on Aviation Today.

Saudia to Start Flying with Falcon 300 GX Aviation Connectivity Service Next Year

Saudia will start flying a fleet of Airbus A321neo and A321XLR aircraft equipped with Falcon 300 terminals—pictured here installed on a 737—to enable Inmarsat’s GX Aviation in-flight connectivity service next year. (Photo: Stellar Blu)

Saudia is on track to start flying Airbus A321 aircraft upgraded with Falcon 300 terminals to enable Inmarsat’s GX Aviation in-flight connectivity (IFC) service early next year. The Saudi Arabian national carrier is ready to start installing and activating the GX connectivity on a fleet of 35 Airbus A321neo and A321XLR aircraft after the completion of a flight trial campaign where Inmarsat tested the performance of the service across “more than 320 simultaneous online user sessions and sustained throughput of over 200Mbps.”

The Falcon 300 terminal has received full type approval for the Airbus A321, according to Inmarsat. Developed in partnership with Inmarsat, Stellar Blu’s Falcon 300 terminal includes a Ka-band mechanical phased array antenna, dual modem MODMAN, and several cabin wireless access points.

Stellar Blu served as the lead on obtaining certification and scheduling installations of the Falcon 300 on Saudia’s Airbus A321s, according to the connectivity terminal provider’s CEO Tracy Trent. In May, during the Future Aviation Forum held in Riyadh, Stellar Blu signed a collaboration agreement with Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries (SAEI) to include the company’s in-flight connectivity installations as one of the modification services offered at a new one million square meter, custom-designed MRO Village to be located at the King Abdul-Aziz International Airport, Jeddah.

“The fact we have reached this stage in such a short timeframe is testament to the talented engineering teams on both sides, who mainly worked remotely over the last two years and rarely met in person. We look forward to seeing the Falcon 300 onboard SAUDIA’s Airbus A321neo and Airbus A321XLR aircraft, followed by many more airline fleets in the years to come,” Trent said in a statement.

Saudia first made the selection of the Falcon 300 for its Airbus A321 fleet in November 2021 to become the first airline customer for Inmarsat’s OneFi portal. Inmarsat launched the OneFi customer experience platform (CXP) last year as a new digital in-flight passenger experience tool to drive more ancillary revenue from passengers last year.

“The results of our flight trials have demonstrated the terminal’s ability to consistently deliver the highest levels of connectivity, even over the world’s busiest airspaces,” William Huot-Marchand, Inmarsat Aviation’s Senior Vice President of In-flight Connectivity, said in a statement. “And with final type approval now in place, we are fast approaching commercial service at the beginning of next year.”

The post Saudia to Start Flying with Falcon 300 GX Aviation Connectivity Service Next Year appeared first on Aviation Today.

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