In this episode, Jason Pritchard is joined by Austin Spiegel, CTO and Co-Founder of SIFT, to explore how better data infrastructure is accelerating advanced air mobility development.

Austin explains how SIFT’s hardware observability platform helps OEMs capture, organize and analyze vast volumes of telemetry generated across the entire aircraft lifecycle—from simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing to manufacturing and flight operations.

With certification programmes placing increasing pressure on traceability and auditability, he highlights how fragmented data systems, siloed workflows and manual reporting processes can create costly bottlenecks for eVTOL developers.

The conversation dives into how SIFT creates a unified, structured “digital thread” that links telemetry to specific assets, sub-assemblies and manufacturing processes—enabling clear, regulator-ready evidence paths. Austin also discusses real-time flight test monitoring, automated pass/fail reporting, anomaly detection through “family” data comparisons, and the growing regulatory shift toward digital-ready, interactive evidence rather than static PDFs.

With SIFT recently announcing a $42 million Series B raise, Austin shares how the company is scaling its team and capabilities to support the next phase of growth in aviation and beyond—building toward a single source of truth for hardware data that helps OEMs reduce late-stage surprises and move more confidently toward certification.