The Vertical Space

In today's episode, we sit down with Uma Subramanian, a seasoned aviation expert with a wealth of experience in the industry. Having known Uma for many years, we've been really eager to bring her insights to our audience. From her time as an engineer working on F-18s, to doing corporate development and strategy at Rolls Royce, to leading the urban air mobility network Voom, an Airbus com...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space and a conversation with Andrew Hately - a senior researcher in the Drone unit at the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub in France - about U-Space, UTM, and ATM.  Andrew emphasizes the necessity of radical steps to integrate the airspace for UAS traffic management, suggesting that without such integration, UAS operations may not be economically viable. He particularly foc...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space for a conversation with Eric Leopold, a long time veteran of IATA, the International Air Transport Association. We start the conversation talking about the state of the airline industry and its current priorities such as the post COVID recovery, digital transformation and sustainability. As most of you know, there are large regional differences in the maturity of...

Welcome to our conversation with Eric Watson from Zipline.  You can’t help but be impressed with the inspiring and important work that Zipline has done with their partners in Africa – with medical and healthcare outcomes that are remarkable. So, you will really enjoy hearing about Zipline and their first platform in Africa – Eric gives an excellent overview.   We then transition to their work in t...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space and a terrific conversation with John Langford, CEO of Electra.aero. We talked about the key drivers for advanced air mobility, and how factors such as market acceptance, use case, certification, tech readiness, and infrastructure requirements dictate what type of vehicles will fly first with commercial relevance. We extensively discussed eSTOL - its advantages a...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space and our conversation with Kara Kramer, Director of Business Development at AeroVironment.  This is a discussion around the evolving role of UAS in warfare, including in Ukraine, the critical role of the supply chain to ensure we can properly engage in those wars, and the recent announcement of the U.S. DoD Replicator Initiative.  Kara immediately jumps into the f...

Welcome to our conversation with Dr. Valerie Manning, Chief Commercial Officer of Overair. This is a discussion around the value of advanced air mobility, of eVTOLs and Overair's unique value to meet these requirements. We've had this discussion many times, on the value of the advanced air mobility and eVTOLs, but it changes over time and of course, based on the experience, education and...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space and our conversation with Robert Rose, co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics.   This is a conversation about autonomy. We discussed the arc of automation and, what evolved in the conversation, the arc of safety in aviation from its early days to today. You'll notice how Robert will closely and consistently link autonomy to safety in the beginning, througho...

Check out an in-depth and fast-moving discussion of certifying autonomy, next-gen avionics, and multi-core processors with Dr. Yemaya Bordain, President of the Americas for Daedalean. Right out of the gate Yemaya challenges much of today’s established thinking on UAM: Listen to what she says is an area where very few in the industry agree with her on – and where she questions the near-term economi...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space for a deep dive into the medical delivery use case, or I should say another deep dive into this interesting topic. We’ve had guests in the past – notably Justin Steinke from Spright – where we talked about the medical delivery use case from an operator and drone expert perspective. This time, we get to hear from Stuart Ginn who besides having a professional aviat...

Welcome back to The Vertical Space for a discussion with Declan Ryan, one of the co-founders of Ryanair and a serial builder of low-cost airlines. With commercial drone operations starting to gain momentum and the contours of future eVTOL operations becoming better understood, it is important to highlight the evolution of the low-cost airline business model and learn the lessons from this market....

Check out a terrific discussion with Paul Rinaldi, President of Rinaldi Consultants and served as President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).  Paul is the voice of today’s reality and tomorrow’s opportunities. In his crystal-clear messaging, he speaks to “the way it is” in air traffic. And by fully understanding the current state of air traffic, he helps to pave a way fo...

An in-depth conversation with Carl Dietrich, Founder/CEO/CTO of Jump Aero – as he explains everything you want to know about Jump Aero as well as MOSAIC, the proposed Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification rule – what Carl considers a transformational opportunity.  We start with Carl’s professional arc through aviation from the Terrafugia days to Jump Aero, including involvement with...

In this episode we talk about something that has great relevance to traditional aviation, and that will become increasingly important to drone and other AAM concepts as their operations increase in scale and complexity – which is utilization of the most important physical assets in aviation -> aircraft and ground infrastructure. We have the pleasure of doing a deep dive into this interesting to...

Blunt converation with Pete Bunce, President & CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA).  Pete combines a deep understanding of established aviation as well as advanced air mobility. He introduces competence, regulatory understanding, industry knowledge, and knowing how to get things done. Listen to Pete's vision of aviation and AAM - there's nothing superficial h...

Today will be a different kind of conversation. We, the hosts of The Vertical Space, provide reflections on the intersection of tech and flight that were the center point of our talk at Honeywell’s 2nd Annual Advanced Air Mobility Summit.  We first discuss why we started the podcast and its success (thanks to you) – then Luka provides background on what has driven the need for AAM, then we togethe...

Today's talk is with David Stepanek – the Executive Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer of Bristow. So where we talk often talk to those building vehicles in AAM – here we have an industry leader who is committed to the opportunities of AAM – is confident that AAM will improve Bristow’s performance, reduce costs, and improve their position with sustainability.  David describes how...

This episode marks a first for our podcast – it’s the first time that we recorded an episode in person, and we did it during the Honeywell Aerospace Second Annual Advanced Air Mobility Summit in Washington DC, where the three of us also shared insights on the industry in front of an impressive audience of government and industry leaders.  One of the major themes of the Summit was the upcoming FAA...

Welcome to our conversation with Damon Vander Lind, co-founder and CEO of Magpie Aviation, a company enabling long-range flights with zero emissions. Damon and Magpie are offering a solution that is fresh and new – a lot of you will be both fascinated by his vision and at the same time find reasons to challenge his assumptions – and you have to admire his bold approach to the market.    Listen to...

Welcome to our conversation with Thomas Neubauer, Co-founder and CEO of Dimetor. We discuss connectivity using cellular networks and the intersection of cellular networks and aviation.  Thomas discusses the requirement of having a pilot in command – and that you must have good, reliable digital communication to ensure connectivity – to fulfill this pilot in command requirement. We discuss how BVLO...

Today we revisit the topic of batteries with Venkat Viswanathan,  Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.   As someone who relatively recently started his journey in electric aviation, Venkat is massively inspired by the challenge and opportunity of electrifying aviation. We sat down to discuss why he is optimistic about 1,000 Wh/kg energy density at the batter...

Today we introduce the maritime world to AAM -  with a conversation with Billy Thalheimer, CEO and Co-Founder of Regent.  We’ve been hearing such positive news about Regent – as I’m sure you’ve heard as well. But what makes Regent so darn attractive? They’re not just getting orders for their aircraft – as many are – but they’re getting firm orders.    First – Billy makes it clear that Regent is ad...

Our guest today is Brian Yutko, Chief Executive Officer at Wisk, a California-based advanced air mobility company developing a fully autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxi. “Demystifying autonomy” is a fitting title for the insightful and fascinating conversation we had with Brian. He thoughtfully argues that autonomous electric flight for small aircraft, the likes of Wisk’s eVT...

A revealing, important, and meaningful talk with Joby’s Head of Product, Eric Allison.  How often do you get a chance to talk to a person of Eric’s experience and background to hear how and why the designed their vehicle the way they did given the anticipated market demand?  You’ll hear a common theme throughout the podcast – Eric and Joby’s constant focus on minimizing aircraft noise – which they...

An in-depth discussion on UTM with Chris Kucera, co-founder of OneSky, discussing the fascinating and complex world of UAS traffic management, or UTM.    UTM is a rapidly evolving area – it’s done differently throughout the world with various degrees of application and value. Listen to what UTM is, how its formulated, its value, when its needed, and when its not.    Those of you who can understand...