HAI Heli-Expo 2018
The HAI Heli-Expo 2018 in Las Vegas last week was a great opportunity for NexAvian to network with some industry leaders in the VTOL business. Although not many exhibitors in this event promoted personal air vehicle products, their involvement and influence on the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) community is one of great importance.
There’s a growing network of VTOL and eVTOL manufacturers and suppliers contributing to the UAM landscape as it continues to evolve towards autonomous personal air travel for daily commute. Among the notable players at the event, Bell captured most of the attention with a static display of their future urban air taxi concept. We had a chance to sit in the capsule and take a virtual ride in their new design getting a feel for what the future will be in terms of personal air taxis. Very exciting times for everyone involved on this front!
Scott Drennan, Bell’s Director of Innovation spoke about their new design and vision. It was great to hear the enthusiasm he has for the concept, but also be honest about the challenges this industry faces. More information on their urban air taxi can be found on Bell’s website (http://www.bellflight.com/company/innovation/air-taxi). They go on to describe the possibilities of their concept as:
“The future of urban air taxi is closer than you think. A class-leading comfort compliments a tech-forward cabin to deliver the seamless, connected experience far exceeding your typical ground-bound rideshare. With a full suite of connectivity technologies such as video calling, wifi, artificial intelligence and wireless charging, passengers of Bell’s Urban Air Taxi will have the option to fully maximize their airtime – already a fraction of their ground-bound commute – or to just relax and enjoy the view of the world below.”
I had a chance to meet Scott and members of his team to discuss some of the challenges of this ambitious project as well as the UAM market. It’s evident that resources are among the biggest challenges for no only Bell but most of the OEMs. From a technical point of view electric power and battery technology are still the number one challenges faced with most designers of air taxi vehicles. With anticipation of better performance characteristics, there’s a reluctancy for many of them to elaborate more on the details of their designs. This makes it especially difficult to predict the timeline of air taxi entry to market.
Another notable air taxi company is Terrafugia. Now backed by investors they’re actively hiring and building a team to design and manufacturer one of two possible models, which they presented at the expo. I had a chance to speak their CTO and co-founder Carl Dietrich who elaborated on their challenges and strategy for these two concepts. Consistent with many of the other OEMs battery technology is among the top. Discussing the air taxi industry with him was very inspiring! We look forward to their next developments and hope to see great success for this passionate team!
As future operators aspiring to one day provide these vehicles for customers, NexAvian remains cautiously optimistic on its future investments and will continue to evaluate the UAM landscape for the right opportunity.
As for our recreational human flight experience side of the business, we had a pleasant surprise when meeting with Chris Ryan from Ryan Aerospace. His HELIMOD MARK III helicopter VR flight training simulator was attracting consistent crowds in the back section of the hall. Although the VR simulator is primarily used for helicopter flight training, NexAvians is very interested in adding it to our existing VR fleet for everyone to enjoy! Like our Birdly flyer, the HELIMOD could be a great way to share the feeling of human man flight and allow our customers to fly the skies like a real helicopter pilot. We look forward to our future endeavours with Ryan Aerospace.