The Allplane Podcast

Of the many startups that are pursuing the goal of building an electric airliner, Wright Electric stands out. Instead of focusing on light or regional aircraft, Wright’s founder, Jeff Engler, has decided to aim at the core of the industry, the mid-sized aircraft market.

Wright Electric is currently working to retrofit a 100-seat BAe 146 airliner with 2MW electric motors, but if all goes well, the idea is to scale this up and come up with an electric alternative to the A320/B737 models that currently dominate the skies, well…at least for the shorter, under 800mi, segment of this market.

How is Wright Electric going to do so? With which technologies? Which batteries are they evaluating to get to this so-far elusive goal?

We’ve got Jeff on the podcast to tell us all about Wright Electric, his views on the electrification of the mid-size airliner market, the pros and cons of different propulsion systems and their collaboration with airlines such as Easyjet and VivaAerobus, as well as with several research agencies and organizations, including NASA.

Tune in for an overview of one of the most daring electric aircraft programmes out there!

Widerøe is a Norwegian airline that decided to proactively become a world pioneer in the field of aviation decarbonization.

In line with Norway’s goal to decarbonize aviation as fast as possible, Widerøe started researching options to electrify its fleet. The intricate and beautiful geography of Norway plays in its favour, since many of the routes operated by Widerøe are short hops linking small communities, the perfect stage length and capacity to switch to electric aircraft that could be powered by the country’s many hydropower plants.

So, Widerøe has teamed up with Rolls-Royce and Tecnam with the goal to be a true pioneer in the field of electric flight. But it doesn’t stop there, Widerøe is also evaluating the use of eVTOLs to complement and capillarize its route network and it has also spun-off an entity, Widerøe Zero, to channel and support additional projects in the field of green aviation.

On today’s episode, Widerøe’s head of strategy, Andreas Kollbye Aks, talks about all these exciting projects, their status and future prospects and, more generally, how this Norwegian airline wants to lead the world in the path towards decarbonization!

Frédéric Aguettant is the founder of Helipass, a digital platform, based in France and operating worldwide, that lets people book helicopter rides at the tip of a click.

The helicopter operator business is very local and extremely fragmented, so when Frédéric tried to book helicopter rides at various places around the world, he found the process extremely messy and frustrating. This led him to think of the idea of creating a sort of “AirBnB of helicopters” by capitalizing as well on this prior experience in the helicopter industry.

Since it launched in 2014, Helipass has intermediated more than 67,000 helicopter rides and, despite a temporary blip in demand due to the pandemic, it has set its sights in future areas of growth.

Helipass has, thus, become a partner of the advanced air mobility research hub being developed by the region of Paris right outside the French capital and it has also signed a deal with Embraer’s eVTOL arm, EVE, to commercialize flight hours on this platform as soon as it becomes available towards 2026.

This four part series has been done in collaboration with SITA for Aircraft, a technology company that, among other things, helps airlines fly more efficiently through its suite of software products for airlines.

If you have ever flown through an area of turbulence or an active storm you are already aware of how much of a hazard weather can be. At the very least, foul weather can mean a miserable journey and, in some cases, extra fuel and maintenance costs for airlines.

This is a topic we have dealt with in this podcast before, although we had not spoken, so far about the weather. And, while weather forecasting has become increasingly more accurate, in an aviation context, adding additional layers of information and analytical tools delivering actionable recommendations can make all the difference.

Today’s guest is Victor de los Santos, product manager for eWAS Pilot, a SITA for Aircraft technology that helps pilots and airlines optimize their flight plans to cope with all sort of weather conditions, even those that can be trickier to monitor, such as high altitude ice crystals.

Victor is an experienced engineer that knows this space inside out, so this conversation really helped me understand better how airlines and pilots prepare for different weather events, which tools they have at their disposal and how this translates into a smoother ride for passengers.

Listen to this episode for a masterclass on weather and aviation!

What is happening in the world of advanced air mobility is simply fascinating, in some ways reminiscent of the early days of aviation: new technological possibilities that promise to completely transform the way we travel around.

After decades of incremental change, one may be tempted to say we are on the cusp of an entirely new era of air travel…or are we? It looks like the advanced air mobility revolution is really around the corner, but first there are some challenges it needs to sort out.

On this episode of the podcast we are going to talk in-depth about all this with two experts in the field of eVTOLs and advanced air mobility.

Chris Fernando and Basil Yap have been deeply involved in a number of projects and ventures connected to the upcoming advanced air mobility industry.

They are both partners at Hovecon, a consultancy firm that works in the eVTOL space, and co-hosts of the No U Turn Podcast, that deals with innovation and disruption in the transportation industry.

Chris is also a principal for Aviation and Emerging Technologies, at Quantitative Scientific Solutions, a big data firm, and adjunct professor and a member of the Aeronautics Advisor Board at the Florida Institute of Technology and expert in residence at Advanced Mobility Collective, a non-profit that promotes the adoption of advanced air mobility technology.

Basil, in turn, is the president of AeroX, an organisation that channels different initiatives aiming to develop an eVTOL tech hub in the state of North Carolina, and co-founder and general partner at Aero-X Ventures, a venture fund focusing on advanced air mobility.

So, tune in for a comprehensive discussion about the state of the advanced air mobility industry with Chris Fernando and Basil Yap!

Things we talk about in this episode:

-Jonathan’s background and experience in the sustainable fuels industry

-What is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)

-What processes exist to produce sustainable aviation fuel

-What are the pros and cons of each of these processes

-What feedstocks does each process need to produce sustainable aviation fuel and how to source them

-What are synthetic fuels and how are they different from biogenic fuels

-What is the current situation of the sustainable aviation fuel industry worldwide

-Why is SAF more expensive than conventional fuel and can this change in the near future?

-What % of the total jet fuel consumption is sustainable aviation fuel?

-How do the logistics and supply chains of sustainable aviation fuel work?

-What are Neste’s plans to increase SAF production

McKinsey is considered by many the top strategy consulting firm in the world, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it is keeping an eye on the fast-evolving air mobility space.

Robin Riedel is a partner at McKinsey’s and global leader at the firm’s Disruptive Aerospace Sector, which is part of McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defence Practice.

From this vantage point, Robin, who happens to be also an aerospace engineer and a commercial jet pilot, has a rather holistic view of what goes on in this very dynamic industry.

Robin’s team at McKinsey has also been digging into some of the most promising and innovative segments of the new air mobility landscape that is just taking shape. They produce, on a regular basis, a number of reports and very informative content that aims to quantify some of its most relevant aspects, separating hype from reality and presenting a number of prospective scenarios based on hard data and the thorough analysis that characterizes McKinsey’s work.

Tune in for a conversation with one of the leading experts in the field of air mobility innovation!

Things we talk about in this episode:

-The historical background of aviation in the Balkans:

-How Serbia had one of the first airlines in the world

-The interesting story of JAT, Yugoslavia’s national airline during the Cold War

-The breakup of Yugoslavia and JAT’s successor airlines

-How Air Serbia reinvented itself after a deal between Etihad and the Serbian government

-Why is it so difficult for national airlines to thrive in the region

-The role of low cost carriers in the Balkans

-Air traffic trends in the Balkans

-The South East Europe Aviation Summit that Petar’s company (TangoSix) organizes

Californian battery startup Cuberg made headlines in March 2021 when it was announced that it has been acquired by Northvolt, the large battery manufacturer from Sweden.

What did Northvolt see in Cuberg?

Mainly the Li-Metal battery technology that Cuberg is developing, that is expected to deliver a 70% performance improvement over the current generation of Li-Ion batteries. This makes of the batteries that Cuberg is currently developing particularly interesting for the nascent electric aviation industry.

Today on the podcast we are going to talk about all this, as well as about the current state of battery technologies for air mobility, with Richard Wang, the founder and CEO of Cuberg.

Together with Richard, we are going to review the current state and prospects of the battery industry for air mobility purposes. He is also going to share some details about the Lithium-Metal technology they are developing at Cuberg and their plans to move into industrial-scale production in order to power the new generation of eVTOLs that is expected to (silently) buzz the skies of our cities in the near future.

Tune in for a chat at the very edge of the science of batteries!

Things we talk about in this episode:

-What is Falcon Electric Aviation

-How a student-team developed this project

-Who supports Falcon EA

-What are the next stages ahead for the Falcon Electric Aviation Team