Adam Kress:
Welcome to Aerospace Unplugged. I'm Adam Kress.
Adam Kress:
Hello, and thank you for joining me for the Aerospace Unplugged podcast brought to you by Honeywell Aerospace. I'm your host, Adam Kress. And this is your behind the scenes looking to all things aerospace. On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, I'll be talking to the President of Vertical Aerospace, a company out of the United Kingdom that has its sights set on revolutionizing the way we travel through the air. Vertical wants to help decarbonize air travel by launching the world's first flying taxis by 2024. And a first flight test is not far away. Michael Cervenka has been the President of Vertical Aerospace for the past two and a half years. And it's been full speed ahead since he joined. Michael's background lies in aerospace engineering, where he cut his teeth with Rolls-Royce for many years before joining Vertical. And I'm super excited to ask him all sorts of questions today. Let's welcome in Michael. And I just want to say, thanks for joining us today.
Michael Cervenka:
Thanks very much for having me.
Adam Kress:
Yes, absolutely. Lots of ground that we can cover, flying cars, flying taxis, the future of aviation. These are big topics, but they're exciting ones. Maybe the way we should set the stage for our viewers here a little bit is we'll be talking a lot about urban air mobility, which is a new concept to a lot of people who don't spend their everyday in aviation like folks like us do. Let's start with what urban air mobility really means, and also what Vertical's vision for urban air mobility is.
Michael Cervenka:
Urban air mobility is really a catchall phrase. Actually, it's one I don't particularly like because urban in itself, I think is too narrow definition. I tend to prefer advanced air mobility, but in terms of what we are doing, it's really about taking an environmentally sustainable and friendly electric aircraft and all of the amazing technologies that can give us to just change the way we move around. Today we tend to get on aircraft only to fly long distances, or if we are very wealthy, we might get on a helicopter, but we don't really have a dimension route to beat congestion. With the advent of electrification, really, this is a completely new class of aircraft that as it says in advanced air mobility, can change the way we travel around.
Adam Kress:
Excellent. I think it's representative of maybe where the industry is now that there's all these terms that fly around and there isn't necessarily agreement. Even sometimes within Honeywell on how we're phrasing these things, but advanced air mobility I think is gaining traction as the catchall for the industry. Before we get real deep into all the technology, wanted to learn just a little bit more about you. Tell me first, how did you fall in love with aviation and then how did you end up at Vertical?
Michael Cervenka:
I took perhaps an unusual route into aviation. I've always been interested in how things work, but I didn't even know what engineering was until my late teens. In fact, I spent seven years at a specialist music school, decided that that was a great hobby and I still play, but didn't want to do it for a living. In fact, if you go right back, my grandfather was an organ builder and he had me sorting out screws on his workshop floor when I was less than two. I suppose I've always had that interest in how things work and how you put things together. But really through my teens, got a passion for physics and maths and wanted to find a way to combine those, discovered this thing called engineering. Then, well, if you're going to do engineering, why wouldn't you do aviation or aerospace engineering? I think it's the coolest part of engineering, some really exciting challenges. I ended up doing an aerospace engineering degree at Bristol University and joined Rolls-Royce through that.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Then I know you spent a lot of years at Rolls-Royce. What made you make the leap from big, huge established company into a smaller company that has really the biggest of aspirations with Vertical?
Michael Cervenka:
Yeah, I spent 22 and a half years at Rolls-Royce actually. The reason I got into it in the first place was through university, I really enjoyed two particular things. Or was fascinated by two things. One was helicopters and one was gas turbines. And at the time Rolls-Royce felt a more secure bet in terms of a career within the UK. Most of my career at Rolls-Royce was involved in civil and military gas turbine design development in service support. But most recently I spent the last four years working for Paul Stein, the group CTO, and I led all of the future technologies work in the company and that included all of the future product and concept activities. I co-wrote the electrical strategy. I did a huge amount of work on electric aircraft, electric propulsion systems. I suppose I've been working around the eVTOL space for six, seven years.
Michael Cervenka:
Completely bought into over those last few years at Rolls-Royce, that eVTOLs were a huge opportunity, not just an exciting chance. And for me arguably the most disruptive, exciting thing in aviation since certainly the dawn of the jet agent. In some ways, it replicates more what we saw in the early 1900s. But I think I also formed a view that at least at an aircraft level, it was going to take a different type of company to succeed. And so the incumbents have got really expert at delivering very complex aircraft sort of programs with relatively small incremental performance improvements on mature technologies and actually eVTOL and electrification of aviation completely disrupts that. I strongly believe that it was going to take that powerful combination of a single minded focus startup with all of the agility, pace, without actually some of the legacy thinking and barriers and culture, but combine that with deep companies with deep expertise.
Michael Cervenka:
To be honest, I wasn't looking to move. I got approached. I was really excited by the opportunity to work for a successful entrepreneur. I met the team, at the time we were only what? About 40, 42 people, some incredible engineering talent, very raw in terms of the product and the strategy and the journey the company was going to go on. But I guess I was inspired by the potential to really help shape that and influence it and grow the capabilities, build the partnerships and saw that with some guidance. Actually, there was an incredible opportunity there, and certainly not been disappointed in what we've managed to achieve since and the exciting journey that we're on.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of those achievements in terms of the vehicles themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vertical Aerospace has unveiled two prototype vehicles so far, and right now you're hard at work on the VX4. What's the latest on the production schedule of that one and when are we going to see one of these vehicles up in the air?
Michael Cervenka:
Yes, you're right. We've flown two full scale prototypes already. I think we're one of about seven or eight companies in the world to have done that. They were both flown in the UK under Civil Aviation Authority permit to fly. The prototypes we flew to date were non winged vehicles and very much adhered to the philosophy of learning by doing. And there's no textbook on how you do this stuff. And whilst we firmly believe winged vehicles are fundamental to have a successful product that's competitive, non winged vehicles are an incredibly useful learning platform. How you integrate flight controls, electrical power trains, the structures, even the processes required to undertake flight tests on what are pretty big vehicles. I mean, our second one was over a ton in weight, could have carried 250 kilograms or what? 500, 600 pounds of payload, flew at 50 miles hour.
Michael Cervenka:
This was already a big vehicle, but the X4 that we are now developing is a complete step change. It's a winged vehicle. Ultimately it'll be capable of flying up to a hundred miles plus, cruising at 200 miles an hour, carrying a pilot and four passengers. This is a big step up in the capability of the vehicle. Again, we're taking a stepwise approach to this. The prototype that we are building at the moment is really, again, a de-risking exercise for certification. It's proving with Honeywell's flight controls, that we can really optimize the handling qualities in the behavior of the vehicle. It's using a mix of, in the case of Honeywell, obviously a very bespoke, highly sophisticated technology and hardware. In some other cases, we are using commercial off the shelf, modified hardware to get us that demonstrator in early. The vehicles actually, you asked where are we on the timeline, it's well through manufacture. We've got all the major components already completed.
Michael Cervenka:
We're looking to be flying the aircraft around March, April time this year, and then with Honeywell's support, we'll build up the envelope of that vehicle through the rest of this year. We start with the classical tethered hop vertical or thrust borne flight. And ultimately we transitioned to the full flight envelope. And one of the really critical bits in that is the transition phase. It's taking off vertically, transitioning to winged born flight and then back and landing. And we'll do that in the latter parts of the year, but really on a solid foundation of all of the flight controls expertise to do that really robustly.
Adam Kress:
Okay. You have your prototype vehicle at your location in Bristol, is that right?
Michael Cervenka:
We're actually using some partner companies capabilities for some of the final assembly. We've got elements in our Bristol facility. I think very deliberately, we based ourselves in the UK's aviation cluster. For those who are not in the UK, Bristol is a bit over a hundred miles west of London, but it is the aviation heart. There's about 270 aerospace companies. One of the partners is GKN and they've got their global technology center, literally just up the road. Actually we're doing quite a bit of the aircraft assembly at their facility. We've been using the National Composite Center. Then of course we've had major subsystems built out in the suppliers. The intent is the initial flight will be in Gloucestershire, not that far from where we are. Then we'll probably do some of the transition flying later in the year in a bigger airfield nearby.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. Well, one reason I ask is I'm curious just when people who haven't seen it before, walk in and catch their first glimpse of it, what are some of just the gut reactions that people have? Because it's really, it's a brand new type of vehicle that no normal person has been on before.
Michael Cervenka:
I think one of the observations I've got is when you develop the right kind of vehicle, there's something about it looks right and it feels right. And clearly that's helped by if you've got a really strong aerospace engineering background, you know a lot more of the details, but this doesn't look like some crazy idea sketched in someone's back studio. This looks like a real proper aircraft. It's a winged vehicle. High wing means the wing is above the fuselage, gives us fantastic access. For us, it's really important to have a really good passenger experience. This is quite a large vehicle that's got to carry five people, ultimately, batteries are still pretty heavy, but this looks like a real aircraft. I think one of the reactions when people see it, of course is, "Wow," because it's a stunning aircraft and it looks very impressive.
Michael Cervenka:
But actually I think there's a realization that this is not some pipe dream that's still decades off. And clearly people talk about the Jetsons and flying cars and why now, but actually we're in a phase where this is becoming very real and I don't think it's a winner takes all market. There are clearly a few credible competitors out there. The market's consolidated quite a lot, particularly over the last one or two years, but undoubtedly, we're going to have a few successful companies developing these aircraft and going in service in the next few years.
Adam Kress:
Okay. You touched on it a few minutes ago, but what are some of the more groundbreaking technologies that you'll have on this aircraft that maybe don't exist in typical flight today?
Michael Cervenka:
I think if we stand back, perhaps I'll answer the question why now from a technology point of view, because obviously we've dreamt of flying over the congestion for a long time. Helicopters of course are amazing, but they're never going to be a mass transport mode. They have real challenges over noise, which prevents them being operated in lots of areas. They also have a big safety challenge, so they have inherently single point failure. If you have a failure in certain components, like the main [inaudible 00:13:59] to the gear box, the aircraft can't maintain safe level flight. They have clearly an environmental challenge. They're not very efficient and polluting and they're really, really expensive to fly and to operate. Partly because of some of those safety challenge that drive a lot of complexity and maintenance into the vehicle. We've wanted to go past helicopters, amazing though they are, for a long time. We are just now reaching the tipping point where it's possible to conceive of an electrically powered aircraft that can do a commercially useful mission.
Michael Cervenka:
And really, I suppose there's three things that have enabled that. The first is we are very lucky in that the automotive industry has spent the last 20 years pumping billions into electrification and along with power industries and others, that's translated into batteries that are just about light enough. Motors similarly, electric powertrain circuit protection. That whole electrification technology suite has still got a way to go, still going to continue improving, but now starts to enable a viable aircraft. We've seen big improvements in lightweight composites. Again, that drives down the weight of the vehicle and then the other area is in all of the flight controls and electronics and the miniaturization we've seen in digital systems. If you imagine we've got a vehicle that in our case has got eight propellers, four of them in fact tilt. There's no way a pilot could control all of that and we need a vehicle that's actually really simple and safe to fly.
Michael Cervenka:
If you look at the legacy products, the size and the weight and the cost of flight controls, it's just not viable for a vehicle that's going to carry four or five people with this level of sophistication. If you take all of those three things together, we'd love to be flying much bigger aircraft, much, much longer distances. The reality is we are constrained to round about five people with a pilot, if you get good utilization. Because we can fly so fast at 150 to 200 miles an hour, actually that offers a really compelling economic case.
Michael Cervenka:
Where operating costs of just over a dollar a passenger mile. If you think major airport, city center missions, that's typically going to be 30, 40 bucks. Very affordable. It's about a fifth of the cost of a helicopter. We're zero emissions. In our case, we're going to certify to the same safety levels as a commercial airliner. A hundred times safer than a helicopter with no single point failures. We're also between 30 and a hundred times quieter than a helicopter. It's [inaudible 00:16:44] disruptive on all of those costs, noise, environment and safety aspects compared to a helicopter.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. Let's think about it a little bit from the consumer or the user experience. Once these come online, can you talk through what the flight experience is going to be for travelers? How people will use the vehicle and where they'll find them.
Michael Cervenka:
I think the first thing to say is we've taken very deliberately the approach of an OEM plus services. Basically we are developing the aircraft and then the wraparound maintenance and other services that go with the aircraft. Then we very deliberately are partnering with a whole range of companies in terms of putting these aircraft in service and then flying them and operating them. And from that, I think the first thing to say is there's a wide range of different mission opportunities. I think we have the highest order book in terms of value of any eVTOL company. We've sold over $5 billion worth of aircraft. We've sold them into some of the most prestigious and biggest airlines in the world. American Airlines, biggest airline in the world, Japan Airlines, Virgin, really top end brands. We've also sold into Avalon, which is the second biggest leasing company in the world.
Michael Cervenka:
And many of of those airlines initially will be looking for how do they better connect airports to not just city centers, but the surrounding area? How do you increase the catchment area if you like, of the major hubs and some of the major airports? And I think in that respect, it's really just offering a much better seamless passenger experience where actually you'll book a single ticket that will take you from not necessarily your backyard, but somewhere much closer to your home or your final destination or the center of a city. You'll land, in some cases air side, in some cases not air side into the big airports, but then have a much more seamless transfer. And we all know the congestion challenges of getting around cities and into airports. That's a very natural extension to what airlines do today.
Michael Cervenka:
They already have huge customer base. The ticketing systems will be essentially an extension to how you already book a ticket. Realistically, I think that's going to start as more of a premium service, and this is typical with new technologies. Clearly it's going to kick in initially in the first in business class areas, but the potential operating costs mean it's going to come down and be more pervasive. We're seeing other operators. Bristow, one of the biggest helicopter operators in the world has brought a number of our aircraft. They're going to use it for all sorts of different types of missions.
Michael Cervenka:
Goal is a big tourist operator out of Spain. I think they're going to do all sorts of trials, linking hotels to airports, to tourist flights, et cetera. Then in some cases like Virgin, Virgin of course will look hubs like Heathrow, but they're also looking at regional opportunities. This is where perhaps the urban air mobility breaks down in particularly perhaps more in Europe. There are huge number of cities, best part of 250 cities that have got a population of 300,000 people that are within a hundred miles of each other, that in many cases are really poorly connected today. I think there's a real opportunity to not just extend the typical aviation world, but also start competing with trains and ground transportation to better link regions and better link cities.
Adam Kress:
Okay. When approaching these airlines who it sounds like that's primarily who you've sold to thus far, what is the sales pitch when you walk in? And what makes Vertical's offering different and unique from some of the other similar companies out there that are trying to do this with an electric aircraft as well?
Michael Cervenka:
I think there's a few things. The first actually is from an airlines point of view, it's a really simple conversation that we are an OEM. A number of our competitors are trying to develop their own ride sharing businesses, and airlines get really nervous about that because, "Hang on, how do I know you're not going to be on the one hand offering me an aircraft and on the other hand, competing with a competing ride sharing service?" We are a straight OEM. The conversations we have with airlines are very familiar to them in terms of how they would normally buy an aircraft. I think the second big factor is both the capability of team and the amazing partners that we've got. We've got the most developed partnership ecosystem. I talked about partners in terms of the go to market strategy, but we also firmly took the view very early on that we wanted to combine that pace and agility and expertise of a startup with the deep experience that we've got in the best aerospace tier one companies in the world.
Michael Cervenka:
We've got Honeywell doing flight controls and avionics, we've got Rolls-Royce doing our powertrain electrical architecture. We've got GKN doing the wing and the harnesses. We've got Solvay doing all of the composite materials, other suppliers that we've selected yet to be announced. We've got amazing tier one partners that have a proven track record in aerospace, and those companies don't choose their root to market in a novel market lightly. I think it's a fantastic endorsement of Vertical and the team that we've got that we've managed to get those companies on board. And it gives the airlines really a huge amount of confidence that we are not only developing a class leading aircraft, we have access to just an incredible breadth of technology. And we have access to companies that are really sharing that certification burden, and that ultimately we're going to develop an aircraft that's really safe.
Michael Cervenka:
I think the final bit, as well as all of that, and just as much as that is we've now got a team of about 300 people in Vertical. We've got over 160 engineers. We've predominantly hired people with huge certification and aerospace experience. That adds to the partner bit. I think the other one is our approach to certification. And this is something that is not often talked about in this space. We are used in aviation to having the rules set by the FA, Federal Aviation Administration in the US, and the EASA the European Aviation Safety Agency in Europe. If you look at most classes of aircraft, there's a real convergence and alignment in the regulatory regime set by those two authorities. In eVTOL, curiously we've seen a real split.
Michael Cervenka:
And I guess for me as an aviation veteran, if I can call myself that, is slightly curious, but we've got two different philosophies. The FA's taking the view of this is a new market. They want to try and accelerate it. They want to try and enable new companies to get into there. They're starting basically from a rule set that is based off part 23 and part 27. What that really means is smaller fixed wing, below 19 seat, regional aircraft and smaller helicopters. They're allowing for single point failures and some other safety conditions that you would typically see on those aircraft. EASA's taken a very different view, which is this is ultimately going to be a mass market. Therefore when it becomes a mass market and we're flying lots of people over cities and over built up areas, actually that safety stringency level isn't good enough.
Michael Cervenka:
They've started from a premise of eVTOL are the same stringency levels that you would see on a large commercial airline and Vertical's one of the few companies in the world that is very, very deliberately targeting the EASA standards. That gives us I think a real differentiating selling point into the airlines. The fact we're striving for the higher safety standards globally gives them comfort. I think the fact we're doing that in conjunction with those tier one partners gives them confidence that they can do it, but it also gives us a global portability. Having certified to EASA, it's much easier to then cross validating into other jurisdictions. Whereas if you've met the FA requirements, there's a good chance you'll have to redesign the aircraft and certainly do a huge amount more demonstration work before you can get that EASA ticket.
Adam Kress:
Especially among some of the critics in this area who say, "Oh, it's still going to be a long time" or, "This is going to be harder than people think to pull off, to have this concept of urban air mobility or short hop electric flights," certification is often cited as the toughest hurdle. And as you explained, that there's big differences between the FAA in the states and the EASA in Europe. But I guess my question is what actually gets you over the hump when it comes to certification and what's a little bit of the process there? And then what's a timeline for trying to achieve that?
Michael Cervenka:
I think the first thing is what is the hump? How difficult is it and what are the requirements? And in this regard, I think we're quite lucky and post Brexit, we have to go through the UK Civil Aviation Authority, but they're showing strong alignment to the EASA rule set. Over the last two, three years, EASA with the the wider industry has made huge progress in defining the regulatory requirements for the aircraft. And in fact, there are a number of working groups. We chair the battery working group, which is really helping define how do we demonstrate that the aircraft is going to be the same one times 10 to minus nine or one in a billion failure rate and those things? I think we're in a position where at least at an aircraft level, there's a really solid foundation in terms of the requirements.
Michael Cervenka:
For us, the big deal really is that we are not trying to do this all on our own. Honeywell was the first strategic partner that we selected. We took the view very early on that one of the most challenging to the aircraft certify was the safety critical flight control system. And you only have to think in the context of the 737 Max, all the regulators globally are going to be highly demanding and highly scrutinizing of that area. And so I think in that respect again with Honeywell, we've been working with EASA over the last two, three years in firstly making sure we have the right set of regulatory frameworks that will achieve those safety levels, but also that we have systems and solutions and technologies and processes and so on that can meet those. I think this is the real advantage of working with these partners with deep aerospace expertise.
Michael Cervenka:
There's just a lot of embedded knowledge and proven technology that sits behind it. And we are not having to create all of that from scratch. In terms of steps going forward, in the UK, we will get our design organization approval, which is effectively the approval that says Vertical has all the capabilities to design and develop at these aircraft this year. Clearly the prototype's are a learning vehicle, but then we go through the full blown certification program. There's a lot of simulation work that we are doing, including with Honeywell and with others. We've already got all sorts of rig tests, ground tests and so on, and that builds up a body of evidence. Then even things like the materials, we've got Solvay doing a huge amount of work to validate all of the materials properties for the composite materials, so that actually we have qualified materials and that demonstrates the structural capability of the vehicle, ultimately leading to component and then full aircraft testing.
Adam Kress:
The certification work along the way, there are some of these validating moments for the industry as it progresses and gets toward becoming a real, everyday reality. But on the financial side of things too, I know there's been some breakthroughs and some big milestones for you guys. Late last year, you were listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And I'd have to imagine that that felt like one of those big validating moments, like, "Hey world, we're here, here's what we're trying to do."
Michael Cervenka:
Yeah, and I think last year was a really defining moment for the company in a number of ways. We grew from 95 to 280 people. We announced several other partnerships. Frankly, we didn't have a commercial team at the beginning of the year and we've sold 1,350 aircraft over $5 billion worth of orders. We actually did a private fund round. The history of the company, we were founded by a successful British entrepreneur, Stephen Fitzpatrick. He got into it, securities route through Formula 1. We were essentially funded by Stephen plus some government aerospace research money until the beginning of last year. We managed to do a private raise for about $50 million with Microsoft's ventures, M12 and Rocket Internet. They're a big European venture fund. Then candidly, Archer went and did a SPAC. And at that stage, I think we felt we were several years ahead of Archer.
Michael Cervenka:
We'd got a certainly much more competitive product in our eyes. We were more advanced on key areas like battery technology development. We got all the fantastic tier one partners. And so if we were going to compete in this world, clearly it wasn't going to be viable us raising $50 million when a US competitor was raising hundreds of millions. And so that made us change tack and ultimately led to the successful listing on the New York Stock Exchange. And I was there on the balcony when we did the bell ringing. In fact, we did it on, I think the hundred 18th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight, which was a little special moment for the company and being able to stream that back to a lot of the employees in the UK.
Michael Cervenka:
I think that's clearly a big stepping stone for us. It gives us a really clear runway. We have a very different strategy as you've gathered, some of the competitors in that we are very focused in what we need to do. And we are leveraging partners, both in terms of the aircraft certification, the industrialization side, on the supply chain element, and then partners on the airliner operating side. We don't need to raise the billions that others do, but we're in a really good position to really make some good progress.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. I wanted to get into this. What were some of the fundamental reasons why you guys seemed to have consciously decided, "We are going to strongly leverage partners and some established names," Honeywell being one of them, but like you said, not everyone in the competitive landscape has gone that route. Why did you guys decide to lean so heavily in partners?
Michael Cervenka:
I think the first thing to say is all strategies have got pros and cons. There is no strategy that is a clean wash over any other option. Other companies have gone down a very heavy vertical integration approach. The potential benefit that gives you is you are in control entirely of your own destiny. You are not dependent on suppliers and whether they can keep up with you, et cetera. These are very novel vehicles that are really highly integrated. If you go and design a perfect motor in isolation, you will not get the right answer compared to doing it in a highly integrated approach with the vehicle. Joby for us has got a really compelling aircraft, at least as a prototype. They've done a really good job in that vertical integration and coming up with a high performing vehicle. I think when we step back, it's one thing to do a prototype, it's quite another to do a vehicle that can meet the certification requirements that ultimately translates into having to have additional redundancy and safety margins and so on.
Michael Cervenka:
There's just a huge challenge you take on by trying to develop all of the technology and certify on your own. We felt that it was a much, much lower risk route to certify, to bring in strategic partners that have got real pedigree in doing that. I've already touched on why flight controls I think's a particular element of that. I think the second thing is it also in the long run, I think gives us a real opportunity to leapfrog. Because if you try and do everything yourself implicitly, you need to be best in class in that. And you need to stay best in class in everything you are doing. And that's a really tough ask. Our feeling was by selecting really strong partners, they've got huge technology pipelines that are going to continue delivering upgrades and improvements over the coming years.
Michael Cervenka:
I think all of that capability is really powerful. It means when we come to industrialize the vehicle, a huge amount of the manufacturing capability and expertise and so on, again, we are able to leverage the supply chain. And I think this is in this space of the industry and the cycle that we're going through, actually we've got a real advantage. Unfortunately the consequence of COVID has been a real impact on the mainstream aviation world. For us, perversely, that's an advantage because we are seeing a lot of our tier one suppliers have actually got spare capacity in their supply chain. When we think about how do we get through certification and low rate production, we don't need to build a brand new state of the art facility to do that. The level of investment we need to get through until 2026, 2027 is very, very different.
Michael Cervenka:
Then as the industry, if you'll forgive the pun, takes off, as we demonstrate that we've got a certified vehicle, as we ramp up our production levels, at that point, we are able with our partners to invest in additional bespoke manufacturing capability for that higher rate. And not only are we therefore delaying the investment decision, which is helpful for all of us, but also there's a whole load of technology development in terms of manufacturing technologies that we can pull through. We got very much that two step approach of low rate, initial production through certification, and maybe the first couple of years in service, as much as possible leveraging existing capabilities and facilities, and then bringing on board something that is unprecedented for aviation. We're going to be looking at up to 1-2000 vehicles a year. That's not been done in peace time. I think to try and do all of that in one go feels a big risk and a big ask, but phasing it that way I think is ultimately going to give us some real advantages.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. When it comes to technology in the vehicle, I know Honeywell and and Vertical have worked closely together. You mentioned avionics is a big part that Honeywell will be supplying. The new Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck was announced in the fourth quarter of last year. And I know that will be on Vertical's aircraft. Can you talk just a little bit about some of the technologies that Honeywell will be providing with Vertical and how that development has come along?
Michael Cervenka:
I think one of the things that's really important for us is this is, when you talk about the potential performance capabilities of the vehicle, this is a real mass market opportunity. Even if we displace helicopters, it's 20-30,000 vehicles. And yet we've got something that is just so much better for the kind of missions that we want to do. Clearly a constraining factor is our ability to certify the aircraft and then ramp up production. And I've just talked a bit about that. And in that world, actually, it's also how do we leverage some of the high end automotive? This isn't like a mainstream automated car, but some of the high end automated companies produce maybe a few thousand vehicles a year, and there's certainly some lessons we can learn from that. One of the other factors is going to be around the pilots.
Michael Cervenka:
We have a strong view that these vehicles are going to need pilots, both from a regulatory and also a public acceptance point of view well into next decade. If we are going to enable a really big mass market opportunity, there are a couple things that are absolutely fundamental. We've got to have a vehicle that is really, really simple to operate and to fly and really safe. And we've got to do that A, because if we don't, then as we get to higher volumes, just statistically, we're going to end up with unacceptable issues and potentially, God forbid, accidents. But also we're going to have to prime this pilot training line. And we couldn't do that if all the pilots had to have the same skill and level of training as a helicopter. When I think about these things, Honeywell and Vertical are very aligned around this simplified vehicle operations concept.
Michael Cervenka:
And that's all around the flight control system, meaning it's really simple to fly. And I've been out in Phoenix and I've flown the simulators in Phoenix. We also have our own fully now certification grade simulator, full wrap around high definition capability in our facility in Bristol. And it's leveraging a lot of the experience from the F-35, which is the world's only supersonic VTOL aircraft, but frankly, my six year old daughter could maneuver the aircraft. It's that easy to take off to fly it forwards, to maneuver the aircraft around and to land it's really, really simple. And all of the flight control system does all the hard bit of that, but it does that, not just when the aircraft's fine and in still weather and when everything's working properly. It also does that when you're in much more challenging circumstances, if you have a, I don't know, a motor failure or something like that, automatically the flight control system handles that.
Michael Cervenka:
It's really simple to fly. Then the avionic suite, Anthem really is about making the vehicle really simple to operate. Almost the analogy and Stéphane in Honeywell uses this, Stéphane Fymat, is if you rent a car, the basics of how you operate the car, you already know, and it takes you about three minutes to work out where are the lights? Where are the windscreen wipers? Where are the indicators? Where's the gear shift? Or whatever, and then you're off. And I think we need that same philosophy in these vehicles, which is, we're only telling the pilot really what he needs to know when he needs to know it.
Michael Cervenka:
And as much of the decision making that we can safely automate as possible, we want to do so. We result in a much, much lower pilot workload, a much simpler vehicle to fly that ultimately translates to a safer vehicle because the pilot now has got a lot more bandwidths to deal with issues and arisings, and a lot of the decisions that can easily be automated. He doesn't have to worry ... He or she doesn't have to worry about. Then over time, we would expect that to translate into a much faster and cheaper training cost for pilots that will really enable the growth of this market.
Adam Kress:
From a traveler and a consumer perspective, how much do you worry about just general acceptance and uptake of saying, "Sure. I'll get on these vehicles?" I mean, you see some polls and things and stories that have been written out there around there's a certain level of hesitation. I mean, it's one thing in an electric car. Okay, I'm not leaving the ground, but there's plenty of nervous flyers out there already who begrudgingly get on commercial aircraft, but I just ... Are you worried that this may be too far a reach for some people who might just be a little afraid?
Michael Cervenka:
I think you're always going to have some people who this will be too far of a reach. Really, I think there are a number of ways we're tackling this. Firstly I think we design an aircraft that just looks like a proper aircraft and that impact of perception when you see it, we can talk words all we like, but actually there's nothing like really seeing one of these vehicles up close and it's a real vehicle and it's got real presence about it. Clearly I think from our end, the fact we are leveraging Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, some of these other world class names I think is helpful, but then we're also operating these through airlines who become trusted. We don't have to build a brand around Vertical as an operator, because we've got American Airlines and Virgin and JAL and et cetera, et cetera, doing that for us.
Michael Cervenka:
I think those are all important factors. Clearly the fact it's piloted and you'll have commercially trained pilots I think is a really important factor. But then I think the other big driver is going to be around that kind of benefit impact. If you look at helicopters, everyone supports the use of helicopters for medevac and emergency services because they can see there is a big picture societal benefit for that. What they don't support is billionaires flying over their heads, generating a lot of noise and pollution and all the rest of it. We actually took our second prototype into London. We stuck it outside Canary Wharf right in the center of London next to one of the busiest tube stations, right in the heart of the financial district, surrounded by all those major global banks.
Michael Cervenka:
And we had an amazingly positive reception, right the way through. And it covered the whole spectrum of age, diversity in every form. And I think the first thing was, people were amazed just how this is a real aircraft and this was even before we got to the winged vehicle, but they could really buy into is not some fancy render. This is happening. It was particularly interesting seeing their reactions as the inevitable evening commute piled up into queues, trying to get into the station. I think that tipping point of this starts to become something that just has a much lower impact on the communities from a noise perspective, it's very, very different from a safety perspective, it is going to be really important, but we'll take time as we build up the aircraft and people see them operating to realize. But then to realize that actually this can be something that people will benefit from.
Michael Cervenka:
And at 30, $40 from an airport to a city center, that's something that most people in most cities can afford. It's not to say necessarily all the population's going to be flying on one of these every day, but maybe a few times a year, a few times a month, whatever, people will start to use these vehicles. And so I think there is a really interesting tipping point around that impact versus benefit. The fact that this can benefit me as an individual changes the mindset I have over acceptance, but clearly that's going to take time. That's going to vary in different parts of the world. Some parts of the world are a lot more sensitive to noise and other things than others.
Michael Cervenka:
I don't think this is a suddenly you turn on a switch and the whole world is accepting of these vehicles. You will always have some, the early adopters who are just going to given half a chance race to get on the aircraft. And you're going to have other people who are going to be even decades from now probably reluctant to do so. And I guess our aim is that we get past the initial early adopters into the fast followers and the wider acceptance as far as possible, and things like public demonstration and seeing the vehicles for real, I think is a big factor in all of that.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Well, Michael, I want to thank you for joining us today. We've covered a ton of ground, and it's a fascinating topic that I think a lot of people, the more they think about it in the future of what flight can become, it's really exciting to learn more about it and understand the possibilities. I have one more quick question for you. We call this podcast, of course, Aerospace Unplugged. When you're not thinking about these vehicles and the future of life, what do you do to unplug?
Michael Cervenka:
Well, as you gathered, I have a six year old daughter. I also have a one year old daughter. I guess quite a lot of my time when I'm not working is spent with them. I still play the piano, although not as often as I would like. When I can, I like to go skiing. Lucky enough to live in the countryside, so getting them around, but yes, clearly Vertical takes up a lot of my time. And I would say the kids and my family takes up probably most of the rest of my time.
Adam Kress:
Excellent. The challenges of a one year old and a six year old probably outweigh the future of flights. You have your hands full.
Michael Cervenka:
[inaudible 00:46:52] in good fun.
Adam Kress:
Yes. Excellent. All right, well, thank you again to Michael Cervenka from Vertical Aerospace, and of course, to everyone out there listening at home, we'll catch you next time on the next episode of Aerospace Unplugged.