AAM Innovators Panel Launches Inspirational Keynote at NBAA-BACE

The Day 2 Keynote at the NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) continued the themes of inspiration, imagination and innovation established throughout the show’s first day, beginning with a panel comprised of leaders in the air mobility segment.

Panel moderator Cyrus Sigari, co-founder and managing partner of AAM venture capital firm UP.Partners, acknowledged many NBAA-BACE exhibitors are connected to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and sustainable aviation fuel. “How quickly the world’s changed in just a matter of what feels like a handful of years,” he said.

This shift has been driven by companies like Kittyhawk, an AAM developer launched in 2010 by Google co-founder Larry Page. The company’s “Heaviside” vehicle uses 1/3 the energy to travel 1 mile than a Tesla Model 3 sedan, noted CEO Sebastian Thrun.

“The vision was really to make every person fly every day,” he said. “People flying twice a day will make our traffic conditions safer and faster.”

Joby Aviation’s Eric Allison, who previously led the Uber Elevate team that helped launch the AAM movement, cited noise as “one of the differentiators that unlocks our mission to save 1 billion people an hour each day. That has to be designed into it from the very beginning to take advantage of the technologies that we have all been pioneering to make it possible.”

Blade Urban Air Mobility is approaching AAM from the infrastructure side, utilizing existing heliports for short-haul flights in cities across the U.S. “Fuel [costs are] not the driving factor on these short, urban air mobility flights,” said Blade President Melissa Tomkiel. “It’s really the landing fees … I don’t think most people think about that.”

Beta Technologies CEO Kyle Clark believes requirements that enhance AAM efficiency, such as lightweight construction materials and silent electric motors, will yield a “transformative” passenger experience. “It’s just less stuff to push through the air,” he said, “and you can hear the wind noise change when you change direction. Flying [will be] pleasant.”

The panel also featured insights from Overair CEO Benjamin Tigner and Martin Peryea, CEO of Jaunt Air Mobility.