STRUCK: An Aerospace Engineering & Lightning Protection Show

In this episode we discuss the recent issues between NASA and Boeing, as the Atlas Rocket and Starliner capsule have had their launch yet again delayed. Boeing has been in the news consistently for quality control issues - is the company simply not what it once was?

Airbus and Qatar Airways are in a new spat, this time with Qatar Air unhappy about fuselage issues on some A350 aircraft. And, the FAA approved Heads-Up Displays last month, but will they catch on, and what benefits do they provide? Lastly, Lilium and Eviation made big EVTOL news, and the Scorpion Hoverbike crash left a test pilot unharmed, but how lucky was he?

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Volocopter recently recorded a fully crewed 4 minute flight, whereas Joby performed an unmanned 77 minute flight. The two flights were very different; what do they say about each company's distance to flying commercially? Plus, we discuss how shape-memory allow can help reduce airplane noise at landing, Airbus and Textron news, and more.

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Jeff Bezos blasted off with Blue Origin, successfully reaching space and returning to Earth safely. What's next for the billionaire? Archer has continued to press for dismissal of the Wisk patent lawsuit--will they be successful? And, might Tesla enter the EVTOL market in the future, given their battery technology, engineering sophistication and manufacturing capabilities?

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Transcript: EP63 - Bezos Reaches Space; Archer vs Wisk Continues; Might Tesla Enter the EVTOL Space?

Heart Aerospace gets a 200 plane order from United and Mesa Airlines, a regional partner. Richard Branson reaches space with Virgin Galactic--what's the significance of this milestone? Reliable Robotics is working on automating Cessna flight--will we have automated, remote cargo flight sooner than later? Plus, FAA fines, EVTOL news and more.

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Transcript of EP62 - Heart Aerospace Order with United; Richard Branson Takes Flight; Reliable Robotics work with Cessnas

Eviation prepares for test flights, and the Leonardo AW609 is back in the news--will it finally achieve certification and commercial success? Plus if a plane emergency lands in water or has its parachute deploy (in the case of Cirrus aircraft's CAPS system) is the plane capable of returning to service? And, we discuss United making a big jet order and big push toward the top of commercial aviation.

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[TRANSCRIPT] EP61 - United's Big Move; Flying a Waterlogged Plane? Plus, Eviation & Leonardo Tilt Rotor Aircraft

0:00This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We support design engineers and make lightning protection easy.

0:14You're listening to the struck podcast. I'm Dan Blewett. I'm Allen Hall. And here on strike, we talk about everything aviation, aerospace engineering and lightning protection.

0:30Alright, welcome back to the struck podcast. This is Episode 61. On today's show, we're going to chat about United Airlines making a pretty big push.

0:39Obviously, they've been a big player in commercial aviation for a long time. But maybe they're really doubling down with a big order from Boeing and some other endeavors. We're talking about a pretty interesting space balloon that challenges what this sort of edge of the earth travel could look like. We'll talk about planes whether they're flyable, again after a water landing, or even the cap system deploying on a Cirrus aircraft, if there's any chance that are ever a chance that they could be flyable. Again, lastly, on our EBT wall segment, we'll talk about aviation Volocopter. And this tilt rotor from Leonardo, the AWS 609, which is not an EBT. Well, exactly, but really interesting and might be coming to fruition soon with certification. So, Alan, how are you sir? What's the deal with United? Are they trying to be the I feel like they've always been a tertiary commercial airliner, but it seems like they're, they're they're done with that image? I mean, is that how you sort of

1:38look at them? Well, I think at the moment, there may be taking the advantage of the market conditions where airline May, while the airlines got infused with some government cash in the United States, even though the travel industry is still down the opportunity to buy your planes at a lower price, if you're thinking about inflationary pressure, and not, particularly in United States and Europe, it may be a good time to buy an airplane and because Boeing is looking for some cash right now, and Airbus also, you may be they may have negotiated a really good deal for themselves, because you never see the published sale prices that is University published prices and sales, right? So yeah, you always see what the list price is. And they always have a disclaimer, any article you read, well, they probably paid a lot less than what the market says the value of the aircraft is, which is fascinating. Every airplane sells at a different price. It's it's kind of like cars, but worse. I think, really, that's that sounds really surprising. You wouldn't think that as a consumer, you'd think that this was very, because of just how how many costs are involved and just how much I mean God to build an airplane, it's such a such a process and so much engineering, you think it'd be much more fixed and original, then then some Yahoo slinging cars on a used use lot, you know? Yeah, well, you got to remember that they have part sales and support sales on the backside. So that they may have signed long term contracts in terms of parts and engineering support going forward. So there may be some cash and that side of it, obviously, to clear up airplanes off your books right now is a good idea. And to get that, that cash inflow, so you may be able to negotiate that a little bit. Now, there's a lot of market forces that play in here, and the business aircraft market has been that way for a long time.

3:37The prices tend to fluctuate a good bit based on quantity buys, and which is what united is doing right and is not united as buying roughly 200 Boeing airplanes and about 70 Airbus airplanes. Yeah, that's a pretty good size order. So you can you can throw your weight around a little bit in terms of negotiating prices and deals and as particularly want long term deals. Yeah. And 100 150 of the 737 Max 10s, which are, they're a little bit bigger than the max eight, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. No more like a 321 neo.

4:11But you know, the 10 is not done yet. Right? So yeah, a little while ago, right. So if you're Boeing, and you've, you're securing orders for that, that's a good positive feeling for the rest of the industry. You know, your your biggest problem not so much on the 737, but on most airplane models is getting those initial buys to show that the market will support it. And if a big airline like united decides to tap into that aircraft production, and that just opens it up for a lot of small, small airlines to think, okay, there's stability there. If united is buying, I'm just stability on that on that product line. I'm not going to make 100 of these and stop soft the production line. I'm going to be stuck with this little bit of an albatross

4:56all by it too, right. So that's that. So it's a lot of

5:00have unique market forces and marketing that goes on on every aircraft model. And united is looking to take advantage of that right now. Well, and so as of 2020, United Airlines was fourth in market share, below American, Southwest and delta. Right. But does buying fancy new planes really give you a leg up on the competition? Do people care? I mean, I'm not gonna book a ticket, because it's on a 737 Max 10. Right. I mean, how does this play out? I think that this drives United's marketplace, in a sense, and I've always thought of the united as more of a business persons airline, they do tend to have nicer cabins. Obviously,

5:47United just meant making a lot of runs to Florida. So unlike Southwest, right, so if you get on a Southwest airline, usually it's you feel like you're going to Orlando or Vegas, at some point, that airplane is going there

6:00on this route on this daily route. So you kind of get crowded in and southwest. And if you're not ready to deal with that, you really can't get any work done on a Southwest airplane, in my opinion.

6:13Particularly unless you're sitting in an exit row seat, you just can't move around enough to do any real work. We're on a united airplane, particularly in the business class section, or first class section, you could totally get some work done in there. And the cabins are nice, and it's clean. It's new. And it has also all those touchy feely things. So

6:31there is a big there has been a bigger market for United. I think the problem with United Is this the base in Chicago, and a lot of the US business community keeps moving further and further south away from them. Right when more towards Delta. What because the weather? Yes, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. And they're definitely I mean, they have a big Chicago hub, obviously at O'Hare. Yeah. And, yeah, okay. Well, I mean, you know, I hadn't really thought about it, cuz I think a lot of travelers, you know, I'm into my 30s now, but in my younger days, you know, you never thought about niceness as a reason you travel when you're, you know, not doing it for business so much, you just think of what's the cheapest ticket within reason.

7:14And that's your only concern. But obviously, as you get older, and your comfort matters more, and business travel matters more than I think you're right, the jet, you're like, Man, that united jet was awesome. And yeah, Southwest feels a little mad By comparison, maybe I'll spend the extra 50 bucks on a ticket or whatever it is, for comfort, I do feel that way about American because I had flown only Southwest for a while. And then I was on an American flight. And it was just a nicer cabin. Clearly, newer seats had an outlet. And just like, right, there are another little perks where it made a difference. And I was like, Oh, this is nice. Maybe if I, if I have a choice, and it's close, like, I'll choose American instead of Southwest. So

7:55if you're doing sales, and you're traveling a lot, you don't tend to fly Southwest, you don't see those, those kind of sales people flying Southwest a lot, you tend to see them on an American Delta united, just because as a creature conference, and you can be, quote unquote, productive while you're on their plane. So you know, there's a lot of press in the news about Jeff Bezos going into the space Richard Branson going to space people, you know, regular folks who want to pony up a quarter million dollars to go up into space on a rocket, but there's this new company called space for site space, per sec perspective. This is an interesting article from Robert port, that this is basically a balloon and they're not going to go out actually in the space, they're going to go about 100,000 feet up. But then you just sort of like, hang around, like you're like a lounge in like a cocktail lounge in the stratosphere. And you see, you're actually be, you know, be able to survey the the entire planet from 100,000 feet up for a couple of hours. Which That, to me seems like a really sensible, cool solution. Because, you know, the obvious thing is, well, you pay a quarter million dollars to be up and up and back really, really fast, right? You're just flying through space, and maybe that's part of the ride, but to be able to survey and have a camera with you and just sort of like have a couple hours up at the stratosphere seems pretty awesome. How do you feel about this idea?...

Can the GE & Safran collaboration produce a viable open-rotor turbine engine, allowing for a greater swept area and increased efficiency? Gogo has successfully tested ground-to-air 5G, recently installed new antennas on ground towers, whereas Starlink's Elon Musk has announced it may take 30 billion USD in investment to keep the company afloat. Archer and Wisk continue their patent battles in court, this time with the tables turning.

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Will Jetoptera's fluidic propulsion system work, and reach new applications of aircraft? SpaceX wants their satellite wifi on planes--can they make the technology work with existing radomes? And, can a 3-winged jumbo jet really deliver on fuel efficiency and lift projections?

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Transcript: EP59 - Jetoptera, 3-Wing Jumbo Jets, SpaceX WiFi & More

0:27Alright, welcome back to the struck aerospace engineering podcast. I'm your co host, Dan Blewett. On today's show, we've got a lot of prototypes to talk through. So my co host, Allen Hall here is gonna kind of pick apart a bunch of these different designs, talk about some of the good things and the bad things. And but we'll start with some news, Airbus, talking about hydrogen starlink, internet, potentially providing fast Wi Fi to planes or something pretty interesting that I hadn't thought about. And then we'll get into some different concepts of trialing jumbo jet, and electric sea plane. And a really interesting what's called a fluidic propulsion system on a flying car concept, as well as one that has the wings, detach and fly home. So again, this would be kind of fun. But let's start with news. Allen. So Airbus has said that the, you know, hydrogen is probably not going to be widely used in planes before 2050. So 30 years off, Does that sound right to you? Well, they're talking about larger aircraft, like in a 328 350 kind of aircraft not being able to switch over to hydrogen, I think that's right. The shorter kilometer type aircraft, maybe propeller driven aircraft will be an easier conversion. And it makes a lot of sense, because there's a lot of short routes in Europe and also in the United States, that could handle a hydrogen aircraft, but it's gonna have to be specifically designed. And that's why Airbus is pushing the back a little bit. I think, early on, there was an impression like we're going to make an Airbus A 350. with hydrogen. That's not where Airbus it. I don't think that's where their intent was. I think eventually, yes. I mean, that's that they did put up some PR about that, right. I mean, we saw the promotional things.

2:10But that that didn't have a timeline, if they're talking about hydrogen aircraft. Yeah, I think they can totally

2:18like an ATR 72, or the dash eight q 400 turboprop aircraft, aircraft would be relatively modifiable into a hydrogen configuration. But after that, when you talk about changing a turbo fan engine to hydrogen, and all the infrastructure involved in aircraft to for the fuel system, that's just going to take a long time, because there's so many, so many pieces to it. Hydrogen is a very small molecule, it leaks everywhere.

2:49Whereas liquid fuel doesn't do the same thing. So all that is all the design elements change, and pressures, and temperatures are all different. Just starting over. It's what's what's what Airbus is saying is like, Look, guys want to start over?

3:05We can't do that overnight. We can't even do it in 10 years. Yeah, so it's definitely they're gonna more all these current planes that use turbo fans to just run their course, essentially. And then, like I said, just start from scratch, like a different designer. I mean, do you see it being like a really wacky, very different looking like futuristic looking? Or is it just gonna be an A 320? That's still pretty normal looking that runs on Hydra? Like, is there a reason that it has to be strange looking to be futuristic and use a different system? Because like, all these renderings You see, like, yeah, so Oh, they always seem very science. fictiony. Right, but right, because it has to be that way, or it might look the same. And 2050, I think the aircraft, essentially, it's gonna look the same, except that the fuselage may get longer because the initial concepts involve putting hydrogen storage tanks of some sort. In the fuselage, the storage is a big one, right, so that the few stores may get longer, which means the wingspan may get a little bit longer also, to keep every aircraft sort of unbalanced. But that's it because the wings will have no fuel in them liquid fuel on them. So you'll completely redesign the way the wings would be, because there's need to maintain their own structure don't have any fuel sloshing around them. So the structural change there too. Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be a basic fundamental kind of Airbus 350 kind of look, I think, but just what the longer fuselage section and tail so moving on starlink, which is obviously Ilan Musk's company with SpaceX is talking about putting starlink internet into airplanes in the upcoming future, with potentially 100 megabyte per second download, and 20 megabyte per second upload, which would be much faster than I mean, Alan, you're a much more frequent more inflight internet user than I am. What do you guess that it is?

4:57It's not great. It's it's not as bad

5:00It used to be it's certainly gotten better, right? But yeah, what do you think they're competing with, as far as upload download speed today, the consensus is they're competing with what is in people's homes. So that's what that's the expectation levels. When you get an aircraft, you have the same speed internet as what you have at the house or at work. And it hasn't been that way. I fly Southwest a lot. And global eagle is the service provider there. And the internet speeds aren't super fast, like you can't stream anything, you can't have huge downloads, you can't stream a YouTube video or watch Netflix live. But you can do pretty much everything else. You can send email, you can download some files, it's it's not. It's not like being at work, or it's not like being at at your house. This is not they're not there. But for most situations, it's reasonably good. It's not even really annoying. Honestly, I I've never tried to do massive internet file sharing while on an airplane. But maybe somebody has. And I know if the if YouTube were offered, or live video streams were offered, people would take it and would use it was just not there yet. But you know, Dan, the the issue with the with, like starlink. And there's a couple others that are going on simultaneously is that you have this geometry problem. Right now, the way the way the situation is the spacecraft are geosynchronous that means they're in a fixed position.

6:34With the earth, they're always in the if you always look in the same spot in the sky, it's always there. So from the aircraft perspective, when it's flying, it kind of knows where it is, for the most part. And it knows generally where to look. And solar, it just takes one antenna to focus on one spacecraft, and just sort of lock in on that hold it. That's relatively simple to do

6:56when you put a lot of low Earth orbit, spacecraft in there moving and spinning around the Earth, so if I look up in the sky, I can actually watch the spacecraft go over ahead of me. Okay, so now I got a moving aircraft and I got a moving spacecraft. And I got to connect data link those two together. Alright, that's doable. So you have an antenna that knows generally what the schedule is of spacecraft, I would assume. Or it's out there just searching for one, and it finds one that links into it. Okay, great. So you're, you're downloading your YouTube video with this one spacecraft as it's moving relative to the airplane. Awesome. Well, at some point that that that spacecraft is going to go out of range gonna go over the horizon, you'll lose it. So you got to get to the next spacecraft and connect with it. So in the interim,

7:49yet one of two choices, you stop with the first spacecraft, let it go, and look around and find the second spacecraft, which means your YouTube video will stop streaming in that time period, train a spacecraft one spacecraft to that kind of sucks, right? People don't like Internet that's kind of spotty, which it would be spotty like that. The other way to do it is have spacecraft one kind of get near its edge of coverage and the antenna be able to see spacecraft to and will link into it and connect with it before you lose spacecraft. One. That's the engineering issue. How do you connect to the Orion you connect with spacecraft to before you disconnect?

8:32That's the issue. Right? So in terms of, of existing hardware, today on that the antennas that sit on the airplanes,

8:41that hardware is not able to make what they call make before break, it can't make before break. If yet, you have to add either more antennas. So you have two antennas looking in two different directions, which is doable, or you have to have an electronic antenna that can look at two different spacecraft or more simultaneously. There's your dilemma right from the engineering side, it gets a lot more complicated to keep track of all this moving stuff in the sky. And walk into it when you're just moving aircrafts going up, down, left, right all over the place and bounce into turbulence and try to keep all this organized. There's a technical challenge. So can starlink provide better data streams? Yes. Does it require more complex hardware on the aircraft? Oh, yeah. And the big the big drawback has been so far on the electronically steered antennas, is that it takes a lot of power. To do this to do the electronic steering, and all the processing stuff that has to happen. The antennas get hot, like really hot, and particularly if you're on the ground, it's not so bad. If you're flying where it's like minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit out there and it's in the sky. That's awesome. It's a big heatsink, it's sucking all the heat out. But if I'm in Dubai, I'm on the ground and it's 120 and I want to stream

10:00a YouTube video,...

In this episode we discuss plane discounts - are used Airbus A330s a viable plane in today's market? The Hermeus team is trying to get a Mach 5 plane to market within five years, and is working with the Air Force on a Mach 5 Air Force One - is this realistic? Plus, Vertical Aerospace is going public with a SPAC merger, and has taken on a significant number of orders lately - are they surging ahead in the EVTOL race, despite no flight demonstrations to date?

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

TRANSCRIPT EP58 - Hermeus Mach 5 a Reality? Vertical Aerospace Orders Surge and Are Used Planes a Thing?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We support design engineers and make lightning protection easy.

You're listening to the stroke podcast. I'm Dan Blewett.

0:18I'm Allen Hall.

0:19And here on struck we talk about everything aviation, aerospace engineering and lightning protection.

Alright, welcome back to the struck aerospace engineering podcast. I'm your co host, Dan Blewett. On today's episode, we're going to talk about used planes, how long do they last? And what's the market like for older Airbus and Boeing aircraft? And is this going to hurt their sales of new aircraft, and our engineering segment we'll talk about Hermeus. They are looking to create a Mach 5 aircraft and they are working in conjunction with the Air Force to develop the next Air Force One Mach addition. So we'll talk about some of the engineering challenges that will come out of them. And then there are a VTOL segment lots on Vertical Aerospace today, which they've been in the news quite a bit. 2 billion worth of orders from Avalon, which entails quite a bit of quite a lot that gets 500 plane orders. American Airlines has also put an order for 250 planes, Virgin Atlantic 150. So there's a lot going on here. And it looks like they're gonna go public with SPAC merger. So lots in the in the news about Vertical Aerospace, and they admittedly have a beautiful looking prototype. I'm into it. But we'll see what Alan has to say. So first, Alan, let's chat about USD plane. So especially popular right now is the Airbus a 330, with smaller airlines who want to save money or startups, and they can be reduced, sometimes up to close to 50% of their sticker price. What are like what's the deal with the a 330? And why is it so it's such an attractive use plane and what what kind of routes can the a 330 fly?

2:07Well, it's a bigger airplane. So it's a twin aisle airplane. So it's it's made for longer haul routes. Similar to what like a triple seven would do. And the but that airplane is much older in terms of when it was developed. The problem with anything as twin owl right now is that there's not a lot of long route flights going on anywhere in the world. Forget about you know, United States, Europe is really hard you still now so there's there's just a depressed market. There's a lot of airplanes, twin, all airplanes that are parked right now. And obviously, the newest ones are going to retain most of their value, but the older ones are gonna have a hard time especially older designs are gonna have a hard time maintaining their value through this just because they're older designs, you can buy a new one for also a discounted or newer one for a discounted price. Why wouldn't I do that? You totally what. And I think a lot of times in these down situations and COVID has been one big downer for the airline industry, airplane models just disappear for the most part or they are they shift where their main focus is they get because they're just less expensive to operate, they can be operated by a lot of airlines that couldn't otherwise afford them. And so you'll you'll see, older airplanes show up in different parts of the world where it just they need something it's a little less expensive to operate and to own. This would be a good buying opportunity. opportunity if you had cash to go out and do it. You know Airbus makes good airplanes buying makes good airplane. So pretty much if you buy one with a good service history on it, and good maintenance records on it. You know what you're getting for the most part. And so, you know, if you have cash and you're an airline may be a good buying opportunity. It just whether the government's will open up enough where you can actually fly those airplanes without all your passengers being inconvenienced with still have making people do COVID tests and all the other things that happen.

4:05Well, if you get a bigger plane like an A 330, cheap enough, does it make sense to fly it at less than capacity? Like could you fly domestic routes and a 330 and never be full? Or does that not make sense?

4:16It doesn't make sense based on fuel prices. Now even though fuel prices have been relatively stable, the expectations the fuel prices are going to start bumping back up again as global traffic starts to increase. And once that does, once that happens, then part of your benefit goes away because fuel prices are so much a driver in profitability. Obviously, passenger load is one part of it and then fuel costs on the other and labor costs on the other. That's going to be the downside. And that's why you see a lot of the airlines more expansive, like a Delta or united or this airport, all kinds of at that level of airlines at that level. really pushing like fuel economy, right. That's why the the NEOs are playing a big, have a big market and great airplane, obviously 737 Max is the same trying to fill that same niche, which is lower fuel costs and still carry the same amount of passengers. So if you can get really burned if you're not careful about fuel prices, so you have to pay attention to that, and the age of the airplane, how much maintenance you're expected to put down on it. But if, if the price is right, yeah, you could do things in the in a different way than we had done them two years ago. First, for sure. For sure,

5:35well, and you wonder what the pandemic will, will hold for all these companies as they're trying to save money and reorganize, or startups are trying to wiggle their way into more roots I was just listening to on Guy razzes how I built this podcast, the story of how JetBlue was founded their founders, and that shows really interesting. But you don't think of like just I'm going to start an airplane or an airline airline. That seems like a huge thing that put airlines do come and go. I mean, they get started by someone with experience in the industry finds a bunch of investors buy some planes get certified, blah, blah, blah, and they're off on their way. It was actually, it seemed way more accessible the way he talked about it. Because after he left JetBlue he started another airline called a zoo in Brazil, which is like, oh, to start other airlines, like, that just seems again, starting an airline seems so big, like it just utility scale. Right? And so, right. But it is it's a it's a real thing, especially probably more so in other countries where maybe the barrier to entry is a little bit less. If you're not in the US, it seems like the barrier for airport space in the US is really, really high. But then again, I don't know the the intricacies of world airliner economics, but yeah, but

6:52you're paying gate fees, I mean, the ability, there's only so many gates, that's the big airports, you need to find a way to get into them. And small airlines are pretty much kicked out that's why you don't see them. A lot of times accepted smaller, more unique airports just for that reason so it's not it's not easy to start an airline it's it's easy to lose money in an airline had that we've seen that time and time again but to make money in an airline is really really hard you have to pay attention to everything and where the money is going and be very careful about it but what and even though the you know that this some of the smallest thing small smaller expenses so to speak, can ended up biting you like if you cut cut maintenance too tight and you have an accident, man, your airlines in big trouble, real big trouble. So you know you It takes a lot of people with experience in an industry even broach it in people with experience still struggle in that industry. It's not easy. It's a very difficult marketplace

7:50and airplanes. They age more so by pressurization cycles. And flight hours. I mean, what is it takeoff and landing screen will tell me a little bit about the pressurization stuff. I mean, the fuselage gets stressed the wings get stressed when it takes pressure. Sure. It but these planes are obviously super well built like they're overbuilt. Right? So, I mean, about what you talked about the maintenance records and all that stuff. I mean, where where would if you were looking through a plane's maintenance record, where would you be like, you know, this one's not for us. This one might be give us trouble, or this one? We're a little uncertain about I mean, where does it go wrong in the maintenance cycle?

8:31Well, if if the airline or the operator hasn't maintained it to the OEM requirements, like it hasn't had regular, it hasn't met its mandated inspections, for example, or it's missed one or it's late for one, or they haven't dealt with some of the service bulletins that may not be met there might not be immediate. So that's sort of Bolton's, or the advisory says you have a year to fix this thing and he hasn't fixed it, those kind of alarm bells start going off like okay, that's that's just adding costs onto me to go off and do all that stuff. So I'm going to ask for a lower price for the aircraft. You know, aircraft are relatively well built. If you're buying an aircraft in certain parts of the world where yo

Will the Boom Overture supersonic jet take off now that United Airlines has placed a future order? Can Boom succeed where Aerion recently failed? The Boeing MQ-25 drone recently refueled an F-18, a first in aviation. Plus, the Ehang 216 takes flight and Joby announces their new, simple flight controls: are they are a game-changer?

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Transcript - EP57 Boom Supersonic, Boeing MQ-25 Refueling Drone Plus Ehang & Joby EVTOL News

0:00This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We support design engineers and make lightning protection easy.

0:14You're listening to the struck podcast. I'm Dan Blewett. I'm Allen Hall. And here on strike we talk about everything aviation, aerospace engineering and lightning protection.

0:30Alright, welcome back to the struck podcast. I'm your co host, Dan Blewett. On today's show, we're going to talk about a new contract between bombard a Learjet and the US Air Force looks like it's worth about almost half a billion dollars, so exciting for them. We'll talk a little bit about more about supersonic jets. So obviously aireon collapse, we'll talk a little bit more about that. There's been some interesting news stories that have come out. And then we'll also talk about boom, announcing a partnership with United united wants to buy a bunch of planes. So we'll see if that comes to fruition. Obviously, that's going to be quite a long game. In our engineering segment, we'll talk about a Boeing mq 25 drone, refueling and FA t fa 18 in flight. So pretty exciting. First time a drone has refueled manned aircraft. And we'll also talk a little bit about airships, and why one maker is betting that passengers will choose comfort over speed. Lastly, in our E VTOL segment, we'll talk about ehang. And some interesting news about flight controls from Joby. So, let's start with mrda. They've got a $464.8 million contract for bombarding a global 6000 aircraft with their Air Force. what's notable about this aircraft, it's just a thing of it as a midsize business jet, which makes the tube section

1:54decently sized. So you can put some humans in it and put equipment in it. So if you're running a special missions aircraft, where you want to put a couple of control centers, in it, monitoring stations, those kind of things, you can, you can fit that all that infrastructure into the aircraft, you have room to do it, there's places to mount all that hardware. And then typically what those aircraft will have is sensors mounted on the top of the aircraft on the fuselage and on the belly to look left or right, up and down and communicate satellite data back to whoever they want to send it to. So there's a you just need a certain amount of size aircraft to do all that and the global 6000 is sort of is really a nice platform for that and that's they've been doing a lot of work in Wichita Learjet, they're on modding and doing military support aircraft for a long time. I mean, I think I can revert back into the early 2000s. They were doing some back then I worked on a couple of those. And I think the the bonus here is that Wichita as a city has been really getting hammered on terms of not having any really new projects going on. Textron has got a couple of derivative projects going on. But in terms of Lear, Jet Lear jets been shrinking and they shut down all production of Lear jet just recently so everybody is left at Lear jet on the west side of town there needs something to work on. And so it's good they earn you know, 400 $500 million project gets some a couple years out in terms of support, and they have a great flight test. And they've always had a great Flight Test Center in Wichita. So all the Bombardier flight test programs, even though the aircraft may be built up in Canada, typically it gets shipped down to Kansas to do all the flight tests, the flight test pilots, all the people that support flight test, the technicians and mechanics, all the specialist engineers that are doing all the all the data monitoring and that sort of thing are all located in Wichita. So there is a like there's little expertise center in Wichita and the military mods are done in Wichita too. So it has this certain niche of expertise and they've been a little bit struggling so this $500 million dollar contracts going to get them going again which is good for the city because it's which was always the center of small aircraft forever and it seemed to lose its luster a lot of as we seen on some of the V tall stuff. It's all these most went to California.

4:29So it's moving out of Wichita, which is sad

4:34because which was a lot of good engineers, a lot of good mechanics and technicians are all there everybody's there but these new programs are starting to do you think it'll completely rebound as a as the hub mode that it once was or, you know, seen its best days but can maybe you still you know, recover and stay here's what's driving the California bit and also beta up in Vermont, not far from us is available.

5:00of cash, it has to do with the investors located there locating these companies where the investors are, and a case of beta, the investors are Vermont based or New Hampshire based. In some cases, there's a couple of different investors there. In the case of like a Joby or an archer and those kinds of companies, this all the Silicon Valley, cash or Google cash investment groups that are there. So there are no moving aircraft companies. So where are the investors are and that didn't used to be the case. It used to be

5:31investors would come to you because you had the infrastructure. That's, that's all gone away. It's crazy. Think about Yeah, which which it makes sense. Like, you know, you hear stories, like if you want to be a writer, like find a place where there's a strong community of writers, so you can bounce ideas off each other, you can be around each other, you can be pushed by one another. So I get that, it seems like you know, the world so connected, that it wouldn't matter where your company is, but you know, when you're down the street, and you can pitch an investor who's really busy, and he says, Yeah, I got, I got 20 minutes, like, stop by this restaurant be here, you know, 140. And if you're in town, you can do that. And if you're in Wichita, and you've got to jump on a plane, you know, that's not that's not a direct flight. I mean, that makes sense, which ties in a weird spot is not a lot of direct flights. So which toy is going to go through Denver or Dallas to get there, so it's not an easy city to get in and out of, and they've been working on that for forever to try to get more direct flights to Wichita, which would I think open it up but the other part of Wichita which is really strange right now, so you know, spirits spirits there. And they make a lot of parts for air Airbus and Boeing aircraft and their their big company, that kind of what was Boeing at one point kind of move to spirit? Not so much in people, but in terms of company format, what it does, yeah. But that they started a kind of a collaborative situation with Wichita State, who, you know, probably 20 years ago, called NIH, our National Institute of aviation research, if I remember the acronym correctly, which was supposed to be that incubator for aviation companies and and and to support the local aviation companies have given them an advantage,

7:09on a technical side, on a testing side on a technology side, and it hasn't seemed to come to fruition, in the sense of all the great work that nyer has done is being sucked up by these companies that are not in Kansas. They're all using that data that nyer provides for free. And then here is funded. Wait, are you saying? Are you saying they're not in Kansas anymore? Yeah, I mean, sort of. So the data all the all the all the if you think about composites technology, and all the all the little bits and pieces, I don't get too technical about composites. But there's a lot of data you need to know about how composite and an epoxy system work together, hot, cold, wet performance data. Now, our does all that, and that data gets publicized in the FAA and the federal government and state of Kansas in some part fund that. And then companies anywhere in the country can use that data, which is awesome, because it stops sort of the repetitive testing, and all these small companies have to do, it's a lot of overhead expense that you don't have to pay for anymore, because you've got this commerce repository for that data. The problem is, is the common repository of data that no one has paid for. So I don't have to be in Kansas to tap that. Tap that resource like me in California, or I can be in Vermont, which is what they're doing or it can be in Minnesota, like Sarah says, or whoever dimond up in Canada, and it doesn't drive those small airplane companies to be in state. So I wonder if they had a chance to rethink that whether they would do the same thing? I would say probably not. And the state of Kansas is probably very disappointed in not so much nyari I don't think they're disappointed necessarily in hierarchy. I think it's a lot of good things. I think what they're disappointed in that's not driving the traffic and the businesses like they thought it would. That's the that's the that's the pinch point. And I can't imagine that hasn't come up. I haven't seen a lot. I haven't seen a lot of articles about that yet. But that's got to come up at some point. Because there's billions of dollars being invested in Joby Archer, whisk beta, you name them it's gotta be

9:16you start counting up there's gonna be three $4 billion between everybody

9:20very little that's in Kansas.

9:22Yeah....

Bye Aerospace lost their battery supplier, as Oxis Energy went into bankruptcy--what does this mean for Bye? We discuss the Alpha Electro, a trainer from Pipstrel, and the use of electric motors in light sport aircraft. Plus, more new EVTOL designs continue to pour out, including a 40-seat design. But are these prototype renderings just a pipe dream? Or will they ever actually fly?

Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverters and aircraft lightning protection consulting services. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Transcript EP56 - Pipistrel Alpha Electro; Battery Woes for Bye Aerospace; Is a 40-Passenger EVTOL Just Science Fiction?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at Weather Guard. We support design engineers and make lightning protection easy.

You're listening to the struck podcast. I'm Dan Blewett.

0:18I'm Allen Hall.

0:19And here on strike we talk about everything aviation, aerospace engineering and lightning protection.

Alright, welcome back to the struck aerospace engineering podcast. I'm your co host, Dan Blewett. On today's show, lots to cover a lot of interesting news in the cycle this week. Number one, and we'll chat about Southwest. There's just way too many flight attendants getting getting punched in the face. So we got a we got a chat about it. EVTOL. Startup Archer is seeking to dismiss the trade secrets lawsuit filed by whisk but that doesn't look like it's going anywhere. That seems like it's getting only increasingly messy. We'll talk about mighty fly, which has been cleared to start autonomous cargo drone service. They've gotten some some clearance from the FAA, which will be cool. And then in our engineering Simon was about pipistrel. They've a light sport aircraft, they got an electric motor and about an hour of flight time with an hour charge time. So pretty cool. Some rough news for by aerospace, their battery supplier oxes energy is facing bankruptcy. So we'll talk about the implications there. And then our EVTOL. Segment lots of interesting stuff going on there. We'll talk about some certification issues, which we've talked a bunch about in the past ehang is unveiling a longer range design, and Kel akona has thrown out a 40 passenger concept, which seems straight out of science fiction at this point. And we'll talk a little bit about that as well as some price controls. So start with Southwest isn't really sad Southwest is calling off plans. Well, the plans to sell alcohol in the plains does not make me sad I I'm neutral to it. But there's just been a lot of incidences with unruly passengers. And more recently, Southwest flight attendant was punched in the face loss of teeth. And I mean, things are getting are getting rough. What do you attribute this to?

2:18Alcohol, alcohol, people being upset about masks, reconnecting with the rest of society after being disconnected for a year, all those all those things are playing into it. I recently flew to Las Vegas and I was I kind of like flying to Las Vegas, because it's just it's different places a little more activity. Most airports, the only place I guess there's more places with slot machines. There's a couple places with slot machines in the country. But that has to have the most. And the amount of alcohol there is says hi right You mean that people can leave in the casino gonna go home? For the most part and I think you see it in places where people have been partying in Florida had a rash of it. Some of the islands had a rash of it. I think that's that's just a big problem with alcohol. People being upset about mass people being overly sensitive about stuff and flight attendants worried about their well being which they have every right to it for a two hour flight. You're going to get to a fistfight and punch somebody punch a flight attendant, which is a federal offense By the way, you're not going to the county jail, you're going to the your big old one of the big house under federal prison if they convict you and that's not worth it. There's no airline flight that's worth that. Does that. Does that make any sense to me? Like, does anybody realize the consequences of that? Maybe they maybe they don't maybe there's just an Avery did enough. They don't realize it.

3:53I mean, he we haven't heard that many physical like, this is a rare one the physical like this woman getting punched in the face. But I don't know. I guess idiots can be idiots anywhere, including in the sky. People are just like less filtered about Yeah, what they're not just not thinking. I don't know. I don't know. It's well,

4:10yep. He finds. Yeah, I think so. And the FAA has

4:14taken a much more aggressive, really expensive fines like $50,000 I saw

4:18for some passengers $10,000 here, $10,000 there and like a $10,000 fine from the FAA. They're not kidding, right? When the feds do that and impose it and lock it in via some sort of court, finding your they'll take it out of your paycheck forever, like that's a debt that's never going away. They will get that money or you're going to jail and then that's that's what will happen in that in that outcome. And I it's just not worth it. I know on some recent Southwest flights that I've taken, they've been trying to lower the temperature down a little bit and some of the initial everyone's It's cold. Yeah, yeah, that's

4:58true. Let's fight. When there's when they're shooting when they're shivering. It's real hot in there. And that's a very real thing. I mean, you wonder if this summer, the first summer back from COVID, where there's still it's still if you have masked here in DC, like some businesses allow them if your vaccines are allowed to mask if you're vaccinated, many are still not many people are still wearing their masks despite being vaccinated and in a business that allows them to not wear one, which is baffling. But if it's like 95 degrees, and people are angry about masks, and are just I don't know, this summer could be like the summer of fistfights. Well, originally,

5:32I hope not. Yeah.

5:33Well, it doesn't make you wonder because wasn't the department transportation over the weekend, said they wanted people to wear masks on airplanes, just because it's the right thing to do. Like, that's not the reason why you wear a mask on an airplane, you're wearing masks on an airplane because there is some health implications. Just like when we started it, there were some health indications want to make sure that wasn't some sort of outbreak that was due to aircraft from people moving around. Awesome. But that is essentially over. At some point, you're going to have to release that. Otherwise, you're going to continue to have flight attendants assaulted. I mean, that's the that is the reality of the situation, you will have flight attendants assaulted and it it the the penalty for it is not connecting to some random person who doesn't read the FAA website about the fines and maybe has a drink before they get on the airplane whammo. those situations can escalate so fast that you just feel bad for the flight attendants who are stuck in the middle. I mean, they got to employers telling them one thing, they got the FAA it's telling them you got to do these certain things and you got passengers that are tired of it to inevitable.

6:42We were all tired of it. But be nice to your flight attendants everyone. Yeah, come on. So mighty fly has gotten FAA approval to start doing some tests test flights with its hybrid electric autonomous cargo e VTOL. Aircraft quite a mouthful. Good reporting from future flights out arrow. But they're going to be seeing if they can deliver these these reasonable payloads, you know, maybe 100 pounds here, they're up to 600 miles. Alan, what what what is what is what's unique about this little special airworthiness certificate?

7:21Well, it's it's part of a program that FAA started a couple of years ago, to apply what they call part 135. Regulations was calling conditions of operating a pay for to pay pay for flight like a air carrier kind of thing. Which has never been envisioned, in a sense in the regulations of the pilotless aircraft. It's not necessarily pilotless as there's not somebody on the ground controlling it, but there's not somebody in the craft and the aircraft. That's the difference. Now, when I looked at when you, when I looked at the pictures online, you're like, this is not your average drone. Like this is the size of a small car. It's it's decent size, anything less 100 pounds and go 600 miles is going to be big. And I understand the rationale why we want to do this, but I don't understand the rationale why we want to do this like what what Can't we carry right now? airport to airport? on an aircraft? I mean, even if it was even if it's a pile unpiloted drone thing? Is it. attempt. This is what I was reading through this is the attempt to basically drop cargo in some random place as needed. And not actually go to an airport and land the thing that bothers me. That part bothers me because the most critical part of any flight is landing, or in some case, deploying cargo. And when something goes wrong there, I'm not sure what, how great that's going to be in terms of people on the ground and property on the ground and what it looks like. Because Can you imagine Daniel order some 99 pound Amazon product, and it comes delivered to your front door? I don't know how that works. I don't know how that

9:22works. 200 297 boxes of macaroni and cheese was a discount from Amazon. delivered to my door looks like. Yeah.

9:31What's the economics of that? I don't think that makes any sense economically to do that when they have the postal trucks going by your place every day anyway. I don't know that makes a lot of sense. And the downside risk is as this craft falls out of the sky or h