(Getty images)
This week’s article is sponsored by Aeroclass.
When I was young and my brother wanted to play with gadgets, my father used to say that “anything with too many moving parts was bad news”. They’d all break, and he didn’t feel like replacing them or buying new toys. Working in aviation, that phrase also doesn’t sound great, but we’ve come a long way with incredibly impressive safety records.
That also made me think of Tetra Aviation, who won the ‘disruptor award’ in 2020 at the GoFly personal flight contest for its single-seat eVTOL. In 2021, the company announced its personal eVTOL (‘Mk5’) that it expects to deliver in 2022. It incorporates 32 vertical lift rotors distributed across long, thin front and rear wings, along with a rear pusher prop for cruising. The plane is to be sold as an experimental kit aircraft that requires only a private pilot license.
With 32 vertical lift rotors, in such proximity from each other. Just saying.
For fun, take a look at the Mk5:
(Image by eVTOL.news)
Electric vertical take off and landing vehicles, known as eVTOLs (or “flying taxis”) are a cool rage for those that propose combinations of novel mobility and sustainability.
But despite the rush in start-up funding and enthusiasm, many have already pointed out the technological challenges around the vehicles, such as battery life, heavy landings, and the unlikelihood they will be flown without pilots over crowded cities.
Most of the other unknows are in navigation and air space control, but progress has been made in this area with traffic management concepts being worked out or proposed (EmbraerX, Travelservices Australia, FAA’s ConOps for UAM to name a few).
eVTOLs can move in three dimensions (pitch up and down, roll, and yaw), and can stand still in the air but unlike a car that breaks down, an eVTOL can drop out of the sky.
Depending on where they go, they may want to but cannot fly in straight lines as it is likely that they will face many trade-offs between air navigation, air space and traffic management plus and obstacles to free mobility. Not to mention other eVTOL vehicles.
Will lower-altitude air space (up to 2000 ft) be organized like highways, with waypoints? What will the rules be?
How mobile will it really turn out to be when there’s too much traffic density?
Nonetheless, since they are lighter and more mobile, there are many other things to consider:
Colliding winds (turbulence) at lower altitudes, with micro meteorological conditions
Possibility of and being blown toward skyscrapers downtown
Wind gusts, vortices between buildings or from other eVTOLs between buildings
eVTOLs have no navigation aids from landing pads (yet), like conventional airports with instrument landing aids (ILS)
They are potential targets for projectiles and acts of terrorism, especially over populated areas
They have poor visibility in bad weather, which is risky in city centers.
This brings us to simulators as most of the training to pilot eVTOLs will happen in flight simulators.
Where are the simulators?
The flight simulator market today is estimated to be worth $9 billion per year, and expected to growth between 5%-15% per year (CAGR) especially because of the eVTOL market.
The eVTOLs will come when it’s all ironed out!
Also, SITA and Volocopter just announced an agreement on 14 March, where the IT solutions firm will be the partner in enabling vertiports, the next step.
So, parts of the ecosystem are coming together.
But today, 80% simulator market is still held by 3 non-aircraft manufacturers using legacy technologies (CAE, L3 Harris, Thales) and there is room for others and newcomers. And we need eVTOL simulators.
Specifically when we look at the capability of simulation required.
The most capable (Level D) simulators today are on a moveable (“Stewarts”) platform with structural limits and other restrictions. Most are imported, like in India, a large market, which imports all civil Level-D simulators but is looking for military simulators that are in the “Make in India” program.
A great opportunity.
But the potential simulator requirements for Upset and Recovery Training (UPRT) and Spatial Disorientation (SDO) is high for eVTOLS and is estimated to be 690,000 hours per year.
With a utilization rate of 16 hrs. per sim per day, we need about 125 simulators, increasing by 5%-15% each year.
The size of the civil market alone?
For eVTOLS in just 10 cities it’s about $2.5 billion but globally it conservatively represents over $115 billion.
It is important to remember, though:
That aircraft OEMs like Boeing & Airbus do not manufacture sims, neither do they certify sims (FAA, EASA, and DGCA do)
Further, the military does not need certification but the accident rate of Class A events in the USAF alone can be reduced by 50% with better simulator training.
Finally, aircraft flight control system software is different from simulator software, so there is currently no real solution to prepare eVTOL pilots for commercial flight.
There are a few that are focusing on this segment, such as Legacy FFS, Nova 360, Red 6, Static VR, Legacy Dome and Motion Systems, and Axial Aero. But unlike Axial Aero, another startup, they don’t have the full 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) and spatial disorientation (SDO) training capability that will be crucial for eVTOLs.
eVTOLs require more sophisticated sims because:
12% of fatal accidents are caused by spatial disorientation (SDO)
SDO is agnostic to experience
Typical pilot profile of SDO fatal accident is 30 yrs old, has 10 yrs of experience and 1500+ hrs of service
SDO is more likely in a single seater
SDO is the cause of 81% accidents at night
90%-100% pilots experience SDO in their career
There has been no major reduction in SDO accidents in the last 50 years
eVTOLS will encounter more adverse weather flying around obstacles but also over water, like lakes and open seas.
One of the key requirements for eVTOL sims is that they will need to simulate high degrees of yaw and upset due to helicopter-like aerodynamics and at low attitudes where winds are not calm, all of this with a single pilot.
The technical feasibility of eVTOLS is proven. The commercial feasibility will depend on (1) accessibility including price, (2) service infrastructure, (3) network density, and (4) level of true mobility, and especially (5) air navigation regulation.
Those are a lot of moving parts. And unlike the toys that had to many moving parts, you do want as much mobility to simulate reality when flying eVTOLs, which is why I believe startups like Axial.Aero have taken the right approach with their full 6 degrees of freedom and the only network-capability simulator.
Watch this space, this eVTOL sim market is a real opportunity.
Wishing you all a wonderful day, and greetings from a Club Med, somewhere sunny and warm. I’m off scuba diving today.
Ricardo
Montreal, Tuesday, 21 March 2023
Feel free to contact me for questions, comments, or a chat:
ricardo(at)pomonaadvisors(dot)com
my general email has changed to: info(at)ricardopilon(dot)com