Specialist
Former director, federal aviation administration headquarters, aviation safety at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Agenda
- Competitive landscape and certification positioning in eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) market
- Regulatory challenges – traffic management, infrastructure and aircrafts
- Maintenance costs and timelines across infrastructure build-out
- US regulatory structural challenges and longer-term outlook
Questions
1.
How would you characterise the competitive landscape of the eVTOL [electric vertical take-off and landing] market in the US? How well are players such as Joby, Archer, Wisk, Jaunt and so on positioned? How are you assessing how the market has evolved over the past year?
2.
Joby has, in around 2-3 years, established FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] certification basis and its G1, so it is now currently working for its G2, and then will have its credit testing and so on. How long will that second half of the process take?
3.
How confident are you, percentage-wise, that Joby will achieve that type of certification in 2023?
4.
Do you think that the SPAC merger was the best route for Joby in thinking about the certification process it is going through right now? How big of a setback is this or do you anticipate it’ll create more bureaucratic issues with its resources given that one of its efficiencies is that it is small? What are your thoughts on the resolution for the Archer and Wisk lawsuit, and are you anticipating that that will have further impacts down the line regarding integrity and trustworthiness, especially regarding regulatory bodies such as the FAA?
5.
What do you think is the biggest hurdle in regulation, aside from aircraft approvals, and who ultimately will end up making these decisions? Of course, the FAA is overarching with the aircraft approvals, but will there be an infrastructure unit within the FAA or separately from the FAA for eVTOL and air taxis?
6.
How do you think traffic management will be dealt with, with a city like New York, LA, Miami or Chicago, within the FAA? How does that play out and how long until we expect some structured regulation there?
7.
The FAA is under-capacity in resources. Do you anticipate a need for additional investment or build-out of the FAA in the mid-to-longer term? Will this be necessary with the bounds from the aerospace industry as a whole?
8.
Most of these eVTOL companies so far have discussed at least having some segment of their operation be owner-operated. They will continue to operate them, which includes the maintenance side, and, typically, that’s the Part 145 certification. How long does that process typically take? Is that another hurdle post their actual type certification of the aircraft itself in maintenance? How should we think about any potential hold-ups there for these companies who will continue to operate and maintain these vehicles?
9.
What are your thoughts on the actual regulations that will be going into infrastructure? Especially as you said, you’re building out a sky port somewhere in Miami, but thinking about all of the environmental and the local legislation that will have to be addressed, how are you thinking about the eventual build-out of that? Does it make sense for Joby, who recently partnered with Reef, to retrofit their parking infrastructure around the country? Is that feasible, especially given the national transportation or aerospace system in place?
10.
These companies are a bit smaller and more limited resources compared to Boeing, and they want to do different things in terms of operations and the actual infrastructure. Is it likely that they are able to do these different certifications simultaneously, or do you think it will be an airframe, then we have another 5-10 years, then we have another for all of these extra certifications? What is the feasibility of that for these eVTOL companies?
11.
Something that has been lost now was initially touted by these eVTOL companies, was the idea of autonomy. This has fallen from the focus recently. What is the timeline of the feasibility of eventually getting to these autonomously operated urban air taxis?
12.
Are there any key activities that might be happening potentially with the FAA or behind the scenes to keep an outlook on? How are you thinking longer-term for the players that we’ve been discussing? How many players do you think can ultimately be successful? Do you think there is a cap on that once we have the certifications, given the already limited physical resources that we might have, especially with infrastructure build-out and things like that?
