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Everything Electric Podcast
Have batteries made electric flight real? Can UK's Vertical Aerospace conquer the skies?
01:03:53
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- [00:01]
A
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B
Hello and welcome to another episode of another soaring episode of the Everything Electric podcast. This episode is really, I think, fascinating, particular, particularly, particularly if you have any marginal interest in flight, in aerospace, in future mobility, in what could be happening in this space. And I think it's what's fascinating about this episode and the deep dive we've done on this is how a lot of the technologies that we're talking about in this episode effectively were impossible 15 years ago. They were a pipe dream, they were never going to happen. And now it is really happening now. We went to see the company that, that we're talking about today in 2022, vertical aerospace. They're based in Bristol and they are developing a eight rotor winged vertical takeoff and landing aircraft which when we went to see it was called the VX4 back in 2022. It's now called the Velo or the Velo, I'm not sure how you say it. And it's a more sophisticated, the latest iteration of this. They've been tested. What I tell you what you do when you do cars, make cars and how hard it is to make cars. That's a walk in the park. Making something that is a legally viable, safe, technically capable aircraft. It sounds quite difficult. I wouldn't. Do you know what? I think I'm very skilled, but I don't think I could do this. I'll be honest with you. This is extraordinary. The, the what they've got to go through to do this is, is amazing. But I tell you the thing that really has changed the whole picture and that's happened really in the last 10 years and particularly in the last couple of years is batteries. You know, the most boring looking things that you can possibly imagine. It's just a box of gubbins and it has wires coming out of it. They are, they have advanced to such a huge degree that it is now possible to have the energy density, the power really importantly and the longevity and the lightness and the compactness to make a fully electric aircraft plausible. And that is what we're talking about today. We're talking about Vertical Aerospaces velo and I'm talking to this extraordinary man just, and you're, he's just, just so informative and he's had a long life in vertical takeoff and landing craft, including helicopters, but very specifically in, in, in aircraft that are more like the one he's working on now. And we, he refers to them in, in here and we'll, we, we'll put lots of links in that for people who are interested. You, there's a lot more you can have a look at. The Vertical Aerospace's website is fascinating. Anyway, so I spoke to David King who is the chief engineer at Vertical Aerospace. Really lovely man, really amazing, informative, just just, you know, experienced just understands the challenges that are, are there and it's really, it is fascinating. We talk a lot about helicopters and safety and aircraft and safety and you know, multiple layers of safety. And I have as you will hear and I've flown in a few helicopters in my weird career and I'm still here after doing that. So you know, I'm very grateful for that. We'll go, we'll go into that more in the podcast. But yeah, I think you'll really enjoy this. It's very interesting. Just in case you're of a mind to spread the word about this podcast series, that would be wonderful. We'd really appreciate that. If you haven't subscribed, please do please tell your mates to have a look at it and tell them to subscribe if they haven't. We're not doing, there's nothing contentious in this episode as regards the, the transition to electric ground transport. We're not talking about ground transport, talking about airplanes, things that fly and fly much quieter and much cheaper and much more efficiently and much more sustainably. Sorry, I didn't mean to add that because that's getting a little bit political. Oh, I mustn't, I mustn't. So please do. Welcome to the Everything Electric podcast. David King, Chief engineer at vertical aerospace. Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and clean energy tech are funded by our fun packed test drive tastic events in the UK and Australia. Next up, Everything Electric Greater London and then Sydney. All events include a B2B EV day and commercial vehicles too. Well, David, this is, I mean I am so excited about what you guys are doing and it's so good to have you on the show. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I mean, thank you, Robert.
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C
Thank you for having me.
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B
And I'm really interested to know this is kind of the, the next big step, what you're working on. So, I mean, just for some viewers and listeners who may not know, we went to see vertical aerospace in 2022. I had to look it up to check that I couldn't remember exactly when it was. And we saw the VX4 EVTOL in the flesh and it was amazing. It was a really amazing experience for me because it's just. You can't. I kind of knew what it was before I went in, but when you actually go in a room where this thing is sitting there, you go, oh, my goodness. This is very serious and quite big and quite, you know, I mean, if. I think if you see it on an airfield, it wouldn't have been as impressive. It was just that it was in a. In a space, your space. So can you tell me, so what's happened between then and now? I mean, it's clearly things have moved on a great deal.
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C
Yeah. I mean, it's fun to look back and see all the progress that's been made both at Vertical Aerospace and also for electric propulsion for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in general over the last 10 years.
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A
Yeah.
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C
It was 10 years ago that our company was founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick in 2016.
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B
That was 10. Oh, my goodness. Right, okay.
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C
Yeah, 10 years. It's the 10 year anniversary. And he was, he owned a Formula One team at the time. And that was right when Formula one started to talk about electric propulsion, electric motors and what they could mean to Formula one. And he was learning more about electric propulsion. At the same time he was stuck in a traffic jam in Sao Paulo.
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B
Right.
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C
And so he, he saw that, hey, these electric propulsion systems have enough power to hover this car in the air. And he's like, I just want to reach up and press a button.
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B
Yes.
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C
And hover over the traffic and get the race. Yeah. And not be. And everybody's had that experience, right?
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B
Yes, yes.
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C
Everybody's had that experience where you're so frustrated with traffic, you just want to press a button and go into a James Bond mode and hover. So the technology has matured so much in these 10 years, and it's fun to look back at that. And then it's also now fun to project 10 years forward.
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B
Right, right, right.
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C
And then if you look at where we are today versus where we will be. And so when you came in 2022, that was right before I started.
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B
Right.
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C
So, so I started working on helicopters and tilt rotors in 1989.
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B
Wow. Wow.
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C
And it's been all turbine powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft until the last three and a half years when I joined vertical right at the beginning of 2023. And it has been a fun ride, you know, a learning experience. And it's just so fascinating to see the crossover from automotive. Right. Electric vehicles, electric ground vehicles and everything that's been matured. And then if you go just take a look at energy storage system general, right. The electrification of everything and how much capital has flown to these, these companies and these, these endeavors. And that's just yielded innovation after innovation and improvement after improvement. And it had to get to this certain point of, of energy density and power density. Right. To be able to, to have a, a performance model and an economic model that made sense for vertical takeoff and landing or taxi. And now we're there. Right. We have reached the point where the energy storage systems technologies are mature enough both from density of the energy, how much power you can get out for the vertical takeoff and landing phase, as well as the technologies that protect the safety of the occupants for all of the possibilities of bad things that could happen that are within the realm of one in a billion.
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B
Right.
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C
That's the one dimes ten to the minus nine airliner safety standard that we're certifying this aircraft.
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B
Right. That is, I mean, it's so interesting because I mean we probably need to go back sort of 30 or 40 years where the notion of an electrically powered aircraft, it would be so absurd because you'd have lead acid batteries, you'd have three quarters of a ton of batteries and it would fly for a minute. You know, it just, it was never going to happen then. And how the techno, even then, if you even go back, say 15 years, the cost of the batteries was so phenomenal, the energy density was way less than it is now, so that it's kind of followed that progression. It's very much. I mean, would you say, is it more down to the batteries than the motors? Would you say that 15 years ago the motors had the power that we, you might need, but the batteries.
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C
Yeah, I, I think that it again, the motors evolve so much in parallel, right? It's, it's flying formation, as somebody said. You have these technologies that are flying formation, right. They're all converging to a certain maturity destination in parallel with each other. And so the motors and the batteries are going together. The, the aircraft configuration, the distributed electric propulsion and the propeller systems, those are flying formation with the ability to be able to take this new type of, of aircraft and this new type of operation. Right. Urban air mobility, you know, power lift configurations and train pilots and train maintainers. Okay, so that's flying formation too.
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B
Right.
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C
How do you develop the infrastructure so that you, you can get efficient vertical takeoff and landing operations from a major hub airport without disrupting the Runway traffic? How do you have Runway independent, efficient traffic? So that's the air traffic management technologies. And so that's flying formation.
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D
Right.
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C
And that's maturing at the same time. So you have to have several things come together at the same time.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And, and that's what we're seeing. And then if you look back at at 15 years ago.
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A
Right.
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C
And you've been following this for 15 years at least.
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A
Right.
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C
And so what were people saying 15 years ago about the prospect?
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B
I mean, it's all about, I mean, the one, the one that still hangs around is you'll have to throw the battery away after three years and you know, and they won't last. And they're, you know, all that, I mean, everything. And where the electricity comes from, burning coal, all those. The list is long.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But back to the battery. I mean, that's a really interesting one because people look at that and say, all right, so the batteries will degrade over time. And if you're using this electric propulsion system for vertical takeoff and landing, the requirements in terms of how much power you may need to get out in an emergency situation at the end of a flight, plus a provision for some type of delay in that flight plan, whether it's you have to do a go around or you have to divert to an alternate, you add all of those unknowns together, right. To this worst case, within the realm of one in a billion. And then at the end, you have to have enough power to be able to do a hover landing.
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B
Right.
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C
And so that's what drives the concern that people put out there. The, the pessimists are saying, wow, okay, the battery cells are going to degrade to the point that you no longer have that guarantee of so much power at a low state of charge. Then you have to replace it. And we're like, exactly. But when you build that into the economic model, you'll see that the cost of replacing battery packs, say every year. Right. Every year of a fairly high utilization of an EVTOL of a valo. Every year you have to replace a battery pack and then you run that cost into your total operating Cost per seat mile. You'll see that the replacement parts, you and the maintenance costs are still much lower than the alternate being a mechanical helicopter, right? That is very interesting because the maintenance cost of mechanical helicopters are so high because the turbines and the gearboxes are critical. Meaning if something goes wrong, the aircraft goes down, gravity wins, right? So because it's so critical and it's complicated, right? It's complex. You have a lot of pieces that fit together, precision machined pieces, lubrications, cooling systems, bearings, all those things that wear out, right? They wear out over time and you have to maintain those. And the maintenance burden and the overhaul costs and the overall cost not just being how much it costs to send the gearbox or the turbine back to the manufacturer to rebuild it, but then the cost to the operator because then you have this aircraft out of service, right? And you have to have another one in your inventory to fill that gap for your customers. So if you just do the mass from a total operating cost per seat mile, you'll see that even with batteries needing to be replaced on average once a year for high utilizations, it's still a much lower total operating cost per seat mile relative to a helicopter.
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B
But I mean, there's a couple of things that I really want to pick up on. I mean, one, could we get a bit of your history because clearly you know considerably more about things that fly in quite unusual ways than the average Joe. Because you, you have a history of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft of different sorts. I mean, I want you to talk about the, I don't even know what it's called, the weird one that we've seen fly over our house. And it's got two huge. And it makes a different noise.
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C
It makes a different noise because that's a 60,000 pound aircraft with 6,000 horsepower engines, right? Huge, huge Rolls Royce engines. But anyway, so if you look at my niche, right, My niche being a tilt rotor chief engineer. So a little teeny neck, right? It was a little. He's in the world, right? You had the bell Boeing V22 and you have Leonardo doing some developments on the commercial side, got a whole lot bigger when electric propulsion technology became feasible for vertical takeoff landing. When that happened, then people look at what type of configuration makes sense. You look at the, the state of the art in the, in the motors and you realize that, hey, you're better off with distributed electric propulsion, right, Than just one big propeller. And then if you look at distributed electric propulsion, you look at the different ways that you can control it and the different ways you can optimize its performance for both phases for vertical takeoff and landing, and then for cruise. The tilt rotor configuration comes out advantageous for a few of the variables.
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B
Right.
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C
So. So this niche of being a tilt rotor chief engineer got a lot bigger. And that was exciting when that happened, you know, five years ago. But, but I come from this, looking at the helicopters and, you know, it's kind of a career of frustrations as to why the demand hasn't taken off as much as it could. Right. If you think about all of the potential needs for mobility right now, and if you say, okay, how do I solve this mobility problem in and around, here's an example. Cambridge. So I was in Cambridge a few weeks ago, and they have a plan to increase the number of homes in Cambridge from 25,000 to 200,000.
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B
Wow. Oh, okay.
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C
15 years. That's 2040. Yeah, 2040. That's a, that's a factor of eight if I'm doing my maths.
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B
Right.
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C
So that is a big, big challenge for mobility, for infrastructure, for connectivity in an area that's already difficult to get to.
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D
Yeah.
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C
It took me six hours, six and a half hours to get there from Bristol.
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D
Right.
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C
And that was largely because there was a. There was a train problem, but you have to connect multiple times, multiple times. There's no direct path. And then there was one problem and a hiccup and I had to get somebody to drive and fetch me because the train got stuck.
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B
And.
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C
But six and a half hours. And so people that have to get from Cambridge to Bristol once a week because you have this corridor and Bristol's this big club of small startup companies doing great technology developments. And Cambridge and Oxford are also these, these university towns with all these startups and these tech corridors that are expanding. But you need connectivity.
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A
Right.
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C
You need to be able to go to visit your supplier in Bristol from Cambridge. And right now, when you talk to the people that have to do that, they said, well, it's a day trip out, it's a day trip back, it's one day there, so it's three days. So I said, they could turn that three days into one day. Yeah, right. That's just an example of solving the mobility problems. So back to, back to my point is, for helicopters, there's still all of this underserved demand. So people can't regularly have a helicop helicopter flight from Cambridge to Bristol because you don't have the community acceptance.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And you don't have the infrastructure. And the community acceptance is driven by you know three Achilles heels that, that helicopters have. The first is just the perception of safety.
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B
Right.
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C
The second is just the, the passenger experience. Right. The comfort level.
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B
Yeah.
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C
The third is just to make it compatible from a performance perspective. You got to get a whole lot of power out in a hurry. Then you also have the affordability issue. Then you also have the cleanliness issue. So you look at those five problems. Electric propulsion can solve all five of those.
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A
Yeah.
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C
So it's just so exciting to see that, you know, helicopters that are operating today in around cities are often using the same inventions from the 1920s.
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B
Right.
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C
And it's about time. Right, it's about time that you bend the innovation curve for vertical takeoff landing and it's going to open up all kinds of applications.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, because that's what I, I can't quite envisage yet until, you know, I'm there when one, when I see, you know, one of your machines take off. But I've had the privilege, slash challenge of being in, of flying in a few helicopters in my very odd career.
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C
And how was your experience? What was your passenger experience?
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B
Yeah, I mean, it was fine. I was, I, I'll tell you that I was fine. I, I trusted the engineering, I trusted the pilots. I knew they wouldn't let me go in. An unsafe machine. You know, all those things, though, I cannot lie. And I've flown in loads of weird planes for TV shows and things, and I don't remember ever when I stepped out of that helicopter. I was so relieved that I was still alive. So it was completely psychological. It had not. The flights were completely faultless, no problems whatsoever. Everything was fine. But I have to say, in terms of my experience of flying, that was, you know, I think I was the most nervous in those helicopters.
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C
All right, right now, now you're normal. You are, you are normal. Let me tell you a quick story if, if you don't mind a personal story. So 1989 is when I started working in the, in the helicopter until rotor business. Long time ago. That was the same year I started dating my wife, my wife of 34 years. And just a few years ago, right before I started working at vertical, my wife and I, Robin and I, we were, we were on holiday in Greece and I pulled out my laptop and I'm about ready to press buy. I was about to buy a helicopter transfer from one island to another and I tell her, hey, that's what I'm about to do. She's like, no, stop, stop. Don't do it.
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D
Don't do it.
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C
I'm like, what? Why not? Why not? And I immediately thought that she was concerned about the price, right? And so, hey, Rob, let me tell you, I know it's pricey, but let me tell you why I think the time saving is going to make it worth it, right? We only have limited window on holiday. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I get all that. She goes, I go, then what is it? She goes, I. I hate helicopters. And I'm like, what? I mean, we've been together for 30 some years and. And it's my life's work. Why am I just learning now that you hate algae?
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B
Had the two of you been in helicopters a few times before?
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C
Yes, yes, the two of us have been. And she had not disclosed this until this moment. And she's like, well, you know, I was kind of humoring you because I know it's your life's work and you love helicopters. And I'm like, okay, so what is it that you hate about helicopters? And she was just like you. She said, she goes, well, first of all, she goes, they're just not comfortable. She said, they're loud, they're not comfortable, they smell. She said, they're really expensive. And then she said, she goes, and I just don't feel safe when I get in one. And when I get out, I have this.
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B
I am glad I will say, yeah.
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C
And so I'm like, whoa, that's kind of a strong emotional reaction. So what I've been learning is if you look at surveys and if you just in a, if, if you're in the middle of a presentation, conference room, ask that question, how many people have been in helicopter? Keep your hand up if you love the experience, and you'll see a lot of the hands go down. And so now what we want to tell them is we say, okay, in the2030s, you will all have had an opportunity to step in an electric vehicle aircraft and take a flight. And if I ask this question again in the 2000 and 30s, I'm going to see the hands go up. Mark's a helicopter. We're going to say vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. And how many people loved it. It's going to have all the same hands, because that's the, that's the, the difference maker. That's what's going to allow us to bend the innovation curve, is that we're going to provide a passenger experience that they're going to love.
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B
Because that was. I mean, the other thing I think is critical, which I am Assuming is going to be similar with this I've been in. Oh now I've got to remember the name of it. But a small training electric aircraft, just a, you know, single engine, two seater, very, very small. I can't remember what it is but it's, it's one they use.
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C
Was it a pepper straw?
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B
Thank you so much. And that was, and I was fine. I mean that. And that was quite challenging because it was a very windy day and it's quite a small. So it was a bit bumpy but it was fine. But what was extraordinary was when the pilot then we then filmed it from the ground and he flew, I don't know what, 50, 60ft? I mean low but not, not really, not hedge height but you know, no. And we could not hear it. And then I went that is extraordinary. You know. And when he was at, you know, a thousand foot, there's no way you could hear it. There's absolutely no sound at all. But is that going to be similar? Because that's the one. I live in a. Near the Cheltenham racecourse and every year when it's the Cheltenham races there's a lot of horse owners arrive by helicopter. They fly over our house. You do hear them?
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C
Yes.
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B
Noisy machines.
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C
That is one of the key reasons why this is going to unlock. The third dimension to unlock this demand is because right now the communities just don't want helicopter operations.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And you look at how, how debilitating that is for a community planner. Here's, here's an example. We were in Miami in January, took the full scale mock up of the Velo, which is the production configuration of what you saw in 2022 and had a number of people come and look at it, unveiled it. The city of Miami beach came and the Florida Department of Transportation and spent time with us and tried to learn as much as they could because they are being as progressive, progressive as they can in their community planning and, and one of the challenges they have is that they have these world class hospitals and trauma centers that serve the Caribbean islands.
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A
Right.
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C
Because in the Caribbean islands you will have, you'll have insufficient hospital care if somebody is in, has an emergency situation. So you have to airlift people, you have to get them to Miami. But they said these hospitals are in these residential areas that have a lot of political power and really push back on the helicopter operations. So they limit how many airlifts they can do. And what that means is that they accept some and turn away others. And when you have to turn away a life saving airlift, I mean that's really difficult to do. So the community is saying, wow, how do we solve this problem? How do we get the airlift capability and quiet? And that's why they're so excited about the technology. And you can look at all kinds of examples in, in New York City, in Manhattan, City Council will every year present a bill to try and shut down the, the helicopter operations in and around Manhattan for noise reasons. And every year it loses. Right? It's okay. We still want to keep them because they're, they're beneficial. But it doesn't lose by a lot.
- [26:12]
A
Right.
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C
There's still a lot of people that don't want it. So it's, it's great. Now that within the United States there's this pilot program called eipp and people are going to start to see them operating in urban areas and they're going to get the chance to hear them. And it's one of the advantages of not only the electric propulsion but also the tilt rotor configuration. So in the tilt rotor configuration, the aircraft, the Velo, will only operate in a thrust borne mode for seconds. Less than a minute. Right. So it takes off and it lands vertically with eight propellers, four on the front of pylons that are mounted to the wings, four on the aft of the pylons. And you need that power to take off. And it's just a very quick. In a few seconds, boom, it's up. Then the pilot takes his left hand control incepter and pushes it forward. That just says go faster.
- [27:00]
B
Right.
- [27:00]
C
And then the four in the front start tilting forward in this transition regime. And then when they get to a wingborn condition, the four propellers are forward and the, the four in the back stop and stow.
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A
Yeah.
- [27:13]
C
Into an aerodynamically efficient configuration. And then the four in the front slow down because the power required to fly in wingborn Mode is about 25% of what it is to take off vertical.
- [27:26]
B
Right? Yeah.
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C
So it's much lower. And then the slower they spin and only four spinning instead of eight. The, the acoustic excitations of the propeller spinning goes way down and it stays in as a bit of a blended tone because they're four and the four change their RPMs as a way to control the aircraft.
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B
Right.
- [27:50]
C
In yaw and by changing the RPM instead of having one frequency that you hear like in helicopter.
- [27:58]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:59]
C
Because that's the main rotor pulsing these, these big acoustic vortices instead you have this blend and then the blend is so soft because they're spinning slowly. And you don't have the wine of a turbine and you don't have the. The tone of a tail rotor that you have in a helicopter. So when it flies over top, and we've been doing this at our flight test center in, in the Cotswolds, you say, hey, come in as low as you can.
- [28:26]
B
Right.
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C
And I. And we can't get them to fly too low because there's some regulations, but they'll get down to, you know, a thousand feet over. Over our heads. And it sounds. You just hear the aerodynamic roaring like it's all you hear. And it sounds like a commercial jet at 35, 000ft.
- [28:45]
A
Right.
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C
But it's 1,000ft over your head. So getting into the wingborne mode as a tilt rotor and the electric propulsion drives the sound so that it will not be perceptible in an urban environment. So right now, when you are in an urban environment and you hear a helicopter, always.
- [29:03]
B
Traffic.
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C
Yeah. And it distracts you, oh, what is it? Where is it? How close is it? And you can't see it, but you hear it. And then you finally see it here. You will see it. It will fly over your head. Part your hair and you still don't.
- [29:18]
B
I haven't got enough hair to pop, but I get the point. This episode is brought to you by Hong Kook. The Hong Kong Hong Kook ion tyre is built exclusively for electric vehicles, engineered to deliver what EV drivers need most confident grip, quietness, energy efficiency and long mileage. As the official tire partner of Formula E, HongKook proves its EV technology is at the highest level of performance and brings that same innovation to every ion tyre on the road. I mean, that is really a really exciting aspect of it and I'm assuming that, because that's the other thing, as your wife also knew. You know, I've been. There was a time we flew at sort of wind turbine height through the big wind farm of Liverpool in Liverpool Bay. And so we were kind of. I don't know what. We were to 400ft up, so not very high. And then we could see the turbines standing and they were going above us. You know, it was, it was. It was an impressive sight and that, but the thing was, we all had headphones on and a microphone because it was so noisy inside the helicopter. This was a flash. You. I don't remember what make it was, but there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 seats in the back and the pilots in the front. You know, it wasn't a small, a tiny helicopter, it was big enough. But the noise when we were flying internally was A lot. And I'm assuming is it quieter than hints will it be a quieter plan to be?
- [30:59]
C
It's a completely different. It's a completely different experience. The experience was similar to the experience you had in the Pipestore.
- [31:04]
B
Right, right.
- [31:06]
C
It's that type of experience and, and that's going to be the game changer. And it's interesting. It was probably a twin engine helicopter.
- [31:12]
B
Yes, it was.
- [31:13]
A
It was.
- [31:13]
B
Because I had to fly over part to Liverpool to get out to where we're going. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:18]
C
And one of these interesting. If you look at twin engine helicopter designs, when they're. They're initially sized, they are the powertrain is sized to for two seconds of the flight. Two seconds of the flight is what fundamentally sizes it. And those are the two seconds right around the takeoff decision point. So by procedure, by regulation, these, these transport category rotorcraft, twin engine rotorcraft are operating in category A type operations or Performance Class 1, where they have to be able to show the same safety margin and same fault tolerance that an airliner has. Where if an engine failure happens at any point in the takeoff or approach to landing phases, the critical phases, the aircraft can then either land safely, reject and land safely in a way that doesn't damage anything.
- [32:16]
B
Right, right.
- [32:18]
C
Or continue flying, clear all the obstacles in the airfield and continue flying towards its destination. So you have to do one of those two. So what you struggle with in a helicopter is right when it lifts up vertically to take off decision point, there's a certain altitude that will set that, that tdp. You fail off one engine and then the other engine has to go to an emergency power rating.
- [32:43]
B
Right.
- [32:44]
C
You know, it's typically rated for 30 seconds. So you can go to this really high power, you can't stay there long or else you're going to damage it because it's going to get so hot and it's running so fast and drive so much torque into that side of the gearbox. Then you have to size your gearboxes, your gears, your rotors, your motors, all for this just two second window. Because once you get a couple seconds after tdp, the helicopter has enough speed that it has translational lift, which drops the power off and it starts to climb. So it's just for a few seconds. So if you think about one of the things that stands out the first time you drove an electric vehicle, it's you step on the accelerator and it just goes. Power comes so fast.
- [33:28]
B
Right.
- [33:29]
C
Electrons can move really quickly. Whereas this thermodynamics connected to this complex mechanical and dynamics takes a While, Right. It's, there's, there's a transfer function in there that takes time, whereas the electrons create an electromagnetic torque so quickly that, that is such a great fit for vertical takeoff and landing because it's just this little tiny window that you need a lot of power you need in a hurry. And it is such a great fit. And that's why when the technology matured, was it 15 years ago, you look, I think Joby was one of the first to be founded. And when people saw that and they're like, whoa, Vitol, that's what we got to do. That's what Steven Fitzpatrick saw in 2016. It's like, whoa, this is such a great fit for Vitol. We need to dive in there. Because anecdotally, everybody sees the demand. Right. Everybody sees that. That population centers are becoming more and more populated.
- [34:24]
B
Yeah.
- [34:25]
C
And the mobility problem, the connectivity problems are getting worse and worse and worse. Back to Cambridge. I mean, what are their, what are their options?
- [34:33]
A
Right.
- [34:33]
C
I mean, Rachel Re gave a press conference where she said, yes, we're going to commit funds to helping the community solve their mobility problem. But it's going to take a long time and cost a whole lot of money.
- [34:46]
A
Right.
- [34:46]
C
It's, it's not easy to build more rail lines or more highways. Right. And then you, you really disrupt the communities when you do that. Whereas the third dimension.
- [34:54]
B
Yeah, right.
- [34:55]
C
The birds are pretty accommodating. They stay away. And there's, there's really not traffic jams. You don't get stuck in traffic jam. Look up and you see the birds queuing up in traffic jam. So it, it is the, it is a really, really attractive option to solve these mobility problems.
- [35:11]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [35:12]
B
And I mean, also I can imagine the, you know, one of the real key things, as you mentioned, you know, when you were in Miami, because that's the other, the other one experience I've had is it with a, you know, air ambulance, a helicopter. Air ambulance. And I felt that's many years ago. That was the second time when it ever went in a helicopter. But that, what, that facilitates the, the, the, the, the ability to get medics to a remote location where there's people that really need them.
- [35:43]
C
Yes.
- [35:43]
B
There's no, you know, it's on. And those. You think that is just genius. Well, this technology surely lends itself to that specific role.
- [35:53]
C
Absolutely. I mean, the golden hour. I mean, it's that you, you expand the reach of the golden hour.
- [35:58]
B
Right.
- [35:58]
C
There are certain areas where they do have pretty strong air, medical services where if if you or a loved one was in an accident and needed to get to a hospital inside of that golden hour, they can get you there.
- [36:11]
A
Yeah.
- [36:12]
C
But most communities in the world don't have that type of service right now. And, and there's also a big cost pressure. Right? There's, there's big cost pressure on, on medical systems across the globe and the ability to have a vertical takeoff for landing aircraft that solves the noise problem and can be done at a lower operating cost than a helicopter. It addresses the two big, the two big items holding it back. And when I was in Cambridge, I saw the, you know, the heart hospital there on the biomedical campus that's, that's world renowned. And I asked, I said, wow, I see a, I see a helipad here. I said, how often is that used? It seems to be the weeds are getting a little, little high. It doesn't look like somebody's out there maintaining it every hour and like. Well, not that often, you know, not, not that often because it's financed through charities and so there's only so much money. Right. And so you, you, you're basically tapped out of the, of the budget to, to be able to, to use it. So there's more demand than there is funding available to do it. So it's like, okay, let's say if we come up with a model where you've got an aircraft that can serve the, the same area but do it more cost effectively. Right. If you drive it at half the operating cost and then everyone's like, wow, okay, then you can do twice as many.
- [37:25]
D
Yeah.
- [37:25]
C
Because I mean, okay, how many, how many lives does that say?
- [37:27]
A
Yes.
- [37:28]
B
Yeah. But I mean, in terms of, I mean, my experience now, you know, I'm in a, I think I feel in a lucky position in that I've driven combustion cars for I don't know what, 40 years before I drove electric cars. So I, I have a realistic hands on experience of the amount of servicing of spare parts, of oil, of filter, changes, of gaskets. Go, you know, everything that can go wrong with, with a combustion car, I've been there. Yeah.
- [37:57]
C
And it's especially, especially if you like to keep your cars long.
- [38:01]
B
Yes.
- [38:01]
C
My, my wife's, my wife's car is 20 years old and so she, she lives it every day and enjoys that. She enjoys the manage, the maintenance. I know what I got to do here. I know what I got to do here. Making this trade off to decisions. Yeah. And, and that's why it's just the mechanical elements that you, you Take something that's really mechanically complex, a helicopter, and you replace it with something that's electrically complex.
- [38:25]
B
Yes. But mechanically
- [38:28]
C
is a whole different paradigm. And then if you look at what it takes to develop a new tilt rotor, as I told you, you know, my niche was tilt rotors. And you know, when I look at companies that were developing smaller tilt rotors and looking at demand and saying why, why are startup companies trying to do this? And it's because it is. Takes so long to design and build and qualify and source the supply chain for the gearboxes.
- [38:56]
B
Right.
- [38:57]
C
It's all about the, the powertrain. It takes so, so long and it's so hard to qualify the gears because the gears are critical parts and they have to be heat treated and they have to be coated and they have to be insp. They have to meet really, really high number of significant digit tolerances. And when you look at that, you're like, wow, that's, that's what drives the delays and how long it takes and, and why it's not attractive for a startup company. We're now with electric motors. You know, you look at, you know, how many companies then they start with just drones. Yes. And now we scale it up, and we scale it up, it becomes a paradigm that can be cracked.
- [39:36]
D
Right.
- [39:36]
C
You can be a startup company and you go build an electric aircraft.
- [39:39]
B
Yes.
- [39:39]
C
And get it tested, which would have
- [39:40]
B
been impossible 20 years ago. You wouldn't have bothered, would you? Right, yeah.
- [39:44]
C
Right. With the gearboxes.
- [39:45]
A
Yeah.
- [39:46]
B
But I mean, what. I suppose, I think you've kind of alluded to it already and it's really, I would love to discuss that whole notion of the needing to replace batteries, but the, the, I would assume the general maintenance is reflective of a cut of electric cars. I mean, they need so much less servicing and maintenance. Obviously all the, the, the mechanical stuff, the steering, brakes, lights, wipers, all that is exactly the same. But the, you know, the difference in. I have. What is it now? 16 year old Nissan Leaf. Lots of things have gone wrong with it. It's not a perfect car. It had a lousy range. It still has pretty poor range. But the motor in it, I don't even know where it is. I, I know it's got one because it goes along the road. I've done nothing in 16 years, not one. And it's never been looked at. No garage has looked at it. You know, it's completely different experience.
- [40:40]
C
That's exactly, that's exactly the paradigm now. I mean, if you look at it just quantitatively, a, A Transport category, rotorcraft will have in the hundreds, if you count the piece parts that are critical.
- [40:52]
B
Right.
- [40:53]
C
Such that if they were to fail, the helicopter will go down and result in a catastrophe. Whereas you just have a few.
- [41:02]
B
Yeah, right.
- [41:03]
C
A handful of them on an evtol, you'll still have some. Right. So if the wing breaks.
- [41:08]
B
Yeah.
- [41:08]
C
That's still catastrophic. If a hub comes apart. Right. If your shaft in the hub just shears through and throws all four blades. Yeah, that's. That would be catastrophic. So you, you have just a handful of critical parts that need to go through the inspections and the overhauls instead of hundreds. And so that's the two orders of magnitude.
- [41:31]
B
Yeah.
- [41:31]
C
Improvement.
- [41:32]
B
So, I mean, because with the, so the. I think you've mentioned it, but the running costs, I mean, I've got no idea what it cost to run a helicopter, but I know from working in TV shows and having some idea of the budget that when we did use helicopters, and I'm talking 25, 30 years ago, it was not cheap. It was the special treat for one episode in that series. Okay, we'll use a helicopter to get this because that would really help. You know, it was really unusual. Very, very rare. Whereas now you would you just have a guy with a drone. You know, I mean, all those shots you now do with a drone. I can't. I mean, I, I still find it bizarre.
- [42:08]
C
I said, oh God, yeah.
- [42:09]
B
We actually hired a helicopter to get that aerial shot and there was a cameraman hanging out the side of it. You know. Now it's crazy, but I mean. Yeah. And are they to run? That's the basic gist.
- [42:21]
C
Oh yeah, absolutely. And we're seeing that right now because when we do our experimental flight testing and it's an envelope expansion test, we have a chase aircraft.
- [42:29]
B
Right.
- [42:30]
C
So I don't know if you do. If you Google VALO in flight or Vertical Aerospace in flight videos, you'll see some flights and then you'll see a helicopter flying behind it. So the helicopters flying chase just to. Just to be an extra set of eyes to the, to the test pilot and what we have to pay for that chase helicopter per flight is really expensive. So we can't wait until our next generation. Right. When the Valo, the production versions are coming off the line and then those are flying. We want to use the pre production ones that are mature as chase.
- [43:02]
A
Yes.
- [43:02]
C
Right. So we're chase. That's a lower cost to operate than renting a helicopter.
- [43:07]
D
Right.
- [43:07]
C
And save ourselves a lot of money.
- [43:09]
B
But that. So that's I think, I think people, a lot of people who watch this will know about a fair amount about electric cars, will drive electric cars. So that the, the only way you can sort of equate the two things is if every time you got in your electric car you had to accelerate from naught to as fast as you possibly could.
- [43:27]
C
Yes.
- [43:28]
B
Every time, even if you're just going down the road to get, you know, that's the pressure that you're putting on
- [43:32]
C
the battery every time in a second or two.
- [43:36]
B
Yes.
- [43:36]
C
Yeah.
- [43:37]
B
So I mean, I could. Other batteries you're using now, are they similar to batteries that are in electric cars or are you having specially batteries specially manufactured?
- [43:49]
C
So, so the ESS itself, and I love the fact that we don't officially call it a battery system, we call it an energy storage system. Just to kind of give it that, that, that name that points toward what it does. The energy storage system itself is, is an innovative part of the technology, part of the aircraft because it takes these cells, which are automotive type cells. Right. It takes the automotive cells. Cylindrical cells are the ones that, that we're using, but packages it in a way that, that meets the safety requirements. Safety requirements include vibrations. It includes high impact crash loads. And one thing where we put a lot of time and effort is the, is the mitigation of energy release.
- [44:40]
B
Right.
- [44:40]
C
If a cell catches on fire, if you get a thermal Runway. So, so we have a proprietary approach which has three different levels of mitigation protection. And then we test it and then we optimize those three levels and we test it again. And then we optimize those and we test it again. So just going to show you a little flav of this development process that's been ongoing at vertical for the last 10 years. And, and I've seen it firsthand the last three and a half. It focuses on fast iterations, it focuses on. Let's get to that next level of discovery quickly, right? Quickly, safely, efficiently learn as much as we can and then iterate. So what we're producing in VALO is going to be our third generation energy storage system. We had a different one in aircraft one, and now a different one in aircraft two and three. And production is going to be a third generation. But each of those three generations goes through five formal cycles of design spiral evolution. So we have our alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon. And so at each of those we run specific tests on it and then say, okay, what can we do then to optimize it for this next iteration? And so that gets carefully planned in with the project so that we can still support the integration of that battery into that next level. So, hey, we may not be fully at the, at the Epsilon version, because right now we have a Gamma version that's being integrated with the other aspects of the Baylor detailed design for our critical design review. Knowing that, hey, there will still be a couple of iterations on a couple of these internal things, we expect as we go through some of these tests. Right. You hang it about 60ft above the air and you drop it and you show that it absorbs all the energy and there's no, no hazardous release of energy. And then similarly, you, you light multiple cells on fire at the same time.
- [46:37]
D
Wow.
- [46:37]
C
Just by putting in a little mechanism
- [46:39]
B
that short circuits them, make them catch fire deliberately.
- [46:44]
C
Yeah, deliberately have a catch fire. And then you let it run for 15 minutes and show that you can vent all the hot gas out the bottom of the aircraft and not have the propagation of the fire, create a hazard on the aircraft so that the aircraft can then get to a landing spot, land vertically, get everybody off.
- [47:04]
B
Right.
- [47:04]
C
And then, and then deal with it.
- [47:07]
B
But I mean, yes, because that's the obvious thing is the kind of level of safety equipment you need or safety knowledge and understanding and procedures in anything that flies. I mean, it's not just vertical takeoff. Anything that flies is. Is a very different beast in it. I mean, you've got four wheels that are on the ground and two of them steer. And you want, you know that how. How basic cars were when they started. And, and in fact, you know how. How fairly basic but also very dangerous aircraft were when they started. When you were sitting in a box of wood with some string tied to it. And you hope for the best, I guess. Yeah, But I mean, and so then
- [47:47]
C
if you, if you assess what can go wrong.
- [47:49]
D
Yeah.
- [47:50]
C
And if you look at all the things that can go wrong with a mechanical powertrain.
- [47:55]
B
Yes.
- [47:56]
C
And that mechanical powertrain, then, is the sole source of you propelling forward. Now, in a. Hell, in a vertical takeoff of a landing aircraft, this powertrain is what holds you in the air. Right. And propels you forward. So if it goes out, gravity wins, so it becomes a hazardous situation. So then you, you do your assessment of what are all the things that can go wrong. That's where we get into the hundreds. Right. That's this big long list on a mechanical. Whereas with the electrical system, the ability to improve the fault tolerance by just adding wires and silicon chips. Right, Wires, silicon chips and electric motors, it provides a, a practical way to get a Higher safety level.
- [48:41]
B
Right.
- [48:41]
C
So we're designing and will certify VALO to airliner safety standards as published in our certification by the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority. And they are using the standard that was developed by easa, the European Aviation Safety Authority, and they made a strategic decision when they developed that within the last decade to establish a safety standard that's the same as an airbus jetliner, that 10 to the minus nine standard. And the rationale was that if you project the realization of this demand in the urban areas over the next 10 years, you can forecast a really high utilization of number of sorties, number of aircraft that will be operating in these urban areas over populated areas. And if you use the accident rate for helicopters today and you apply that to a forecast growth in demand, you will see a completely unacceptable accident rate for the public.
- [49:50]
B
Yeah.
- [49:51]
C
You will have multiple accidents in and around populated areas every week. But if you take the airliner safety standard, I mean, which is the safest way to travel right now? Right. It's safer for me to hop on an airliner and fly from Heathrow to Philadelphia than it would be for me to walk to work through Bristol.
- [50:09]
B
Statistically, it is some parts of Bristol a lot safer. Yes. No, Custodians are lovely, but no statistics.
- [50:21]
C
And the buses and the cars and the. Yeah, and so statistically, it's a safer, it's safe, safer way to travel. And so then you will have a fatal accident once every 30 years.
- [50:31]
B
Right, right, right.
- [50:32]
C
Which is acceptable.
- [50:33]
D
Yes.
- [50:34]
C
And so that's the, that's, that's the difference. And so the concern initially was, hey, is that practical? Because it's not practical to take existing single engine helicopters and retrofit them to 10 to minus 9.
- [50:49]
B
Right, right.
- [50:49]
C
You just have too many mechanical elements. But it is practical. With distributed electric propulsion, the technology available today, the ability to take proven parts. And what we did in Avelo was we teamed with Honeywell. Honeywell produces the flight control computer for the Boeing 787.
- [51:07]
B
Right.
- [51:08]
C
And I started as a flight controls engineer working on the B22 Osprey back in 1989, developing the control lines and looking at the safety of the system and how you manage the redundancy. And, and it is a, a long journey. Right. To optimize all those algorithms and how you monitor and how you build in enough dissimilarity so you don't have a bad computer processing unit come off the Pentium line and that can corrupt all three computers at the same time, those type of things. And Honeywell's mastered it over the last 20, 30 years. And so we said oh we're going to use that, right? They've got this high pedigree that's already to the airliner standards. We really, really terrific safety record with, with Boeing. So we're going to just take that and incorporate that. And then Honeywell also came with this proprietary tech which I think is so cool they call it their Mach M A C H control law. And so the controller was originally designed for missiles for flight vehicles that have, that are over affected where it's got more ways to steer the aircraft through the sky then the four degrees of freedom that you're trying to steer too. So it's over effected. And so they have this algorithm which I like the way they call it, they call it the smn. So solve for M equations in N unknowns. So you have a whole lot more unknowns than you have equations, right? You got four equations of motion. But we've got 30 different control effectors. If you count the brakes on the main landing gear which we used to steer on the ground, we have 30. And so you have more ways to control it. So you have a non unique trim solution at any given trim state. So it has this, this, this smarts built into it that allows it to optimize the allocation based on where the aircraft is and how it's sensing the aircraft is performing. And so that is, is such an enabling tech because what it allows the aircraft to do is, is number one is the transition where you actually have to have to go through a change in the aerodynamic characteristics. The fact that you can control the petrol yaw and heave by, by changing the RPM and the thrust of the eight propellers, changing the way that you do it together, right? You can give pitch moments, you can give rolling moments depending on how you, how you change the thrust level with the wing surfaces.
- [53:37]
A
Right?
- [53:37]
C
Right. Multiple wing surfaces and multiple tail surfaces surfaces. And you've got four tilt actuators that can move forward and out and you have the, the ability to change collective pitch on the four props in the front which can allow you to spin at the same RPM and change thrust. So you put all that into, into the mathematics and the computers and you can have some really precise control. One thing that, that I found fascinating coming from a helicopter and tilt rotor world is the ability to take off vertically and just hover one to three feet above the ground. Right, right at the ground and just hold it rock steady. And then you look at the test pilot because he's still eye level with you. And he's not, you know, working right like crazy to do it. He's pretty much just sitting, making sure it's steady, and watch, watching the system do his thing. But if you look at the tilts, you'll see them all moving in high frequency because the high bandwidth control system is working hard, because the aircraft is seeing a whole lot of disturbances because you've got these eight propellers that all have a wake coming off it, and these, and this, this wake effect has a velocity and then it impinges upon the ground, and then it's got to go either outboard or inboard, and it comes in board. Then it joins up underneath the aircraft and comes up like a fountain because it's got to go somewhere. And then it bounces the aircraft left and right, forward and aft. And if you ever watch a V22 Osprey video of it taking off on a ship or on the ground, you'll notice that when it takes off, boom. It jumps up to 10ft above the ground. It doesn't hang out between 10ft in the ground because if so, it'll start to wobble back and forth and, and pitch forward and aft. So the power of the flight control system with the 30 control effectors, the high bandwidth mock control law, allows you to just take off and hold it. And so you get the benefit of, hey, it's smooth for the passengers. It's. As we talked about, the passenger experience is going to be so key for this to take off. Number two, it's not super high workload for the pilot. So the ability to be able to get pilots through the train to proficiency. Right. Instead of it taking six weeks to train proficiency, it may only take three weeks.
- [55:51]
B
Yeah.
- [55:52]
C
So you get them through. And initially the model is to bring pilots already with a commercial pilot's license, they already have that level of experience and, and skill proven on another aircraft. And then bring them in, and then they're trained in a type rating to the velo to train them to proficiency. So it won't take as long because it's not as hard to fly. And then you also get the benefit that when you have this, this effect of the, of the wake hitting the ground and coming back up, it essentially puts a cushion on the aircraft. So you don't use as much power.
- [56:32]
A
Wow.
- [56:32]
C
Okay, so if you then start to accelerate when you're close to the ground instead of when you're far away from the ground, the amount of power that it takes and the amount of state of charge that you burn is lower, then that also helps as you come in and land, where. As you come in and land, you can. You can. You can slow down to a hover closer to the ground and get some benefit of the ground. Yeah. So you also get the benefit of that and. And the performance, as we mentioned before, to be able to still do the vertical takeoff and the vertical landing after any combination of failure is not extremely improbable. That's what sizes the power.
- [57:10]
B
Yeah. Because I mean, the thing that I would love to sort of. I do understand it because I've sort of been in enough aircraft to get stuff, but you go up, you're not moving forward. Let's just say you go up and you're not moving towards. And then you adjust things so you start to pull forwards as you drop the front motors. The wings need. For wings to work, this is the one thing I'm saying. They need a certain amount of wind. You need to be moving at a speed where they have an effect where they get lift. And it's that intermediary period as you go from going up and you're not moving forward to moving forward. I'm just totally intrigued by how that, how that works. I mean, and that's not new to this, is it? In a way, the Osprey has to go through that process as well, presumably.
- [57:59]
C
Yeah. I mean, it's almost magical. And so when I started in 1989 was right when the V22 aircraft1 had its first flight. So I was there when it did its first transition. A lot of it was done down at the Arlington Municipal Airport, Bell's flight test center in Texas. And it was just magical, Right. Because it was seamless. And. And what happens is, as you said, it's Bernoulli's law. Right. As you pick up speed, you get more aerodynamic lift on the wing pressure differential. Air flowing over versus there flowing below. The wing starts to build up, build up, build up. At the same time, the thrust that you're getting in the vertical direction from the prop rotors, the called in the tilt river world starts to come down, right. So lift goes up from the wing as lift slash, thrust from the propellers goes down such that the net is holding the aircraft in the air is equivalent to the mass. And so you can go through several different trajectories of how much power you have in the propellers as long as you've sized it properly and the speed for the lift on the wing. So you have a transition quarter, a conversion quarter that says, here's the combination of tilt Angles and speeds and powers and, and then even flap angles. Right. You can even adjust the high lift surfaces on the wing, give you a little bit more as a function of speed and you can solve that equation so that it becomes routine. If you go look at some published videos, you can see some good videos of Simon Davis, who's our chief test pilot. And SAI will tell you the rigor that we went through as we expanded the envelope from taking off and landing hover. Our first one was, you know, tied to the ground with tethers. And then we slowly get faster, faster, faster, review all the data, correlate the models, go a little faster, he said. You're looking at it at increments and you're balancing your mathematical models and you're predicting, tweaking some software, he said. But then once you get through it, he said, it's just so routine now, right. You just, you take off, you press forward and, and you don't even, you don't notice it from a pilot's perspective, is what he was saying. As you transition. And that's. As you transition from thrust born to wingborn. And that's what I've heard from, from test pilots over the years.
- [60:10]
B
I know presumably then that experience for the, for passengers is, is going to be smooth. They'll feel it going up and then they'll feel it going forward and they won't suddenly go, whoa.
- [60:21]
C
Yeah. And.
- [60:22]
A
Right.
- [60:22]
C
That's part of the optimization. And SAI mentions, he said it becomes, I think he used the word magical. Right around 60, 65 knots, he said, everything just gets really good.
- [60:31]
B
Wow.
- [60:32]
C
As soon as you get to the point that you feel you're, you're in wingborn flight, he said everything just quiets down. You don't feel the propellers anymore. You don't hear the propellers anymore. You, you don't feel the, you know, the, any vibrations or accelerations. He said everything just gets really quiet.
- [60:51]
B
Yeah.
- [60:52]
C
And then that's where the aircraft flies. Except for the last minute.
- [60:55]
B
Yes, yes.
- [60:56]
C
You go back to the rest for. Yeah.
- [60:58]
B
So then, I mean, because we've. You. I've kept you for a long time. But the other thing I'd love to know is, you know, so it can take off like a conventional aircraft on a Runway. Goes along, gets faster, goes up in the air. Is that, is that one of its.
- [61:14]
C
So that's a good question. Our prototype right now can.
- [61:16]
B
Right.
- [61:16]
C
Our prototype. We do. And we're going to do conventional takeoffs on our way to defer the aircraft to farm right. Next week. But in production, we have sized it so that it can do short takeoff and landings up to 40 knots.
- [61:33]
D
Right.
- [61:35]
C
But not, we didn't quote, we're not going to qualify the landing gear to do full wingborn, but we will get the benefit at 40 knots. So at 40 knots you still get half the power required goes down right where you're kind of in this partial mode of wingborn and thrustborn without having to show that we qualify for full takeoff and landing. And that's just as part of this optimization. If we had to qualify the landing gear to a full airplane type landing gear is going to be bigger than we're going to carry all that mass around for, for, for, for something that's not really the use case of the aircraft. So that was part of the optimization
- [62:09]
B
then roughly what size of landing area do you, or take off and landing area does it need? I mean clearly it's a lot of less than an airport and a Runway. It's much smaller.
- [62:20]
C
Oh yeah, yeah. And that, that's a good question. I'm trying to think because you, you can do it just from tarmac. I mean, I'm thinking, you know, Leonardo, when we were, we, we were doing short takeoffs and landings at 40 knots on, on the AW609, it just used the kind of the, the tarmac just outside the hangar and just, just towed it to the one end and it took off at the other end. So it's, you know, it's, it's on the order of. Well, that's not even 100 meters.
- [62:46]
B
But then if it's vertical, I mean, would a landing pad for what you need, where you're literally doing vertical takeoff and landing? I mean, is it football pitch or tennis court? Is it what scale of.
- [62:58]
A
It's.
- [62:58]
C
Yeah, it's, it's a 60 foot diameter.
- [63:01]
B
Right.
- [63:01]
C
It's fine. Right. And so a lot of twin engine helicopters take off from a D of 60ft. Our D is 16 meters. So it's less than that. It's 52ft or so is the, is the, is the rotor tip to rotor tip at the end of the wing. So that's what sizes our, our footprint dimension. And so if you count that as the diameter, it's, it's 16 meter diameter.
- [63:20]
B
So it's rough. It's gonna, I mean you could pro, you could land them where, where, where it's, they've got an H painted on the ground, you know, for a helicopter.
- [63:27]
C
Yes, absolutely. That's part of that. Yeah, that's part of the key. That's part. So I'm getting some messages now that I'm already over.
- [63:34]
B
Yes.
- [63:34]
C
Time. This has been so much fun.
- [63:36]
B
Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed talking to you. It's been wonderful.
- [63:39]
C
Thank you so much, David. Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me.
- [63:49]
B
Really hope you enjoyed that. Please do check out our live events that are coming up soon. One in Twickenham in the beginning of September 11th and 12th, I believe, and then a week later in Sydney in Australia, which is going to be spec. They're both going to be spectacularly big shows, that's for sure. But that's it, really. That's it. Yeah. There'll be another podcast toddling your way very soon, but for the time being, if you have been. Thank you for watching.
- [64:22]
D
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