VTOL 101: Where We Are Today & Where We Need to Go Pt. 4
This is our 4th and final part in our VTOL 101 Series.
Over the last few years, national governments and leaders of industry — including the United States military, the government of the UAE, and ride-sharing titan Uber, just to name a few — reignited the call for the widespread deployment of advanced VTOL technologies. This surge in interest raises a number of questions about the current state of the VTOL ecosystem. After all, a variety of VTOL models are already deployed across a host of sectors. Where are we lacking?
The answer is that there is an incongruity — a disconnect exists between the potential uses of VTOL aircraft and the rather limited VTOL technologies that are actually in operation today. We need to modify and optimize current designs in order to secure widespread adoption and ensure that all industries, and all people, are able to enjoy the benefits of point-to-point aerial transportation. Here are the primary areas in need of improvement:
1. At their best, VTOL technologies allow us to soar unnoticed above congested cities, desolate countrysides, and sensitive military air zones; however, current configurations are intensely noisy. As such, they bring undue sound pollution into our cities and villages, and they put our soldiers in harm’s way. We need to adopt new systems that meet rigorous noise and safety standards to ensure that VTOL aircraft have a positive impact on our communities and don’t put our soldiers in undue danger.
2. Traveling to isolated areas often necessitates long durations of travel, and an aircraft’s necessary flight time is dramatically increased during complex rescue missions. Unfortunately, current VTOL designs are inefficient, capable of just a few hours of plodding flight. In this time, they can cover, at most, a couple hundred miles. Proprietary blade technologies that increase lift, and simultaneously reduce the amount of energy that is required to power them, will improve the range and, more importantly, the uses of VTOL craft. By coupling these blade technologies with VTOL aircraft that use electric or hybrid motors, we can bring these technologies remarkably close true efficiency and, ultimately, their full potential.
3. Current VTOL options, because they are so inefficient, are also notable contributors to climate change. Helicopters need more energy to keep them aloft, and they travel more slowly than traditional aircraft. Since they burn more fuel per hour and travel slowly, a helicopter’s fuel consumption per mile is much worse by comparison. Based on the current electrical energy storage technologies in development, it appears that a fully electric VTOL model will not be feasible, in terms of endurance, for at least another decade. Even once such technologies are developed, it will be many years before the battery technology can be certified for VTOL use. However, we have the ability to introduce an innovative combination of electrical propulsion and traditional combustion-based systems into our VTOL designs today. This will dramatically improve the energy efficiency, and carbon footprint, of VTOL aircraft.
4. This leaves us with the most important metric of all — vehicle safety. To secure the widespread adoption of VTOL transportation, these aircraft must be safer than cars. To date, we are nowhere near that point. Metrics indicate that current VTOL options, such as the helicopter, are 85 times more dangerous than driving. The causes are multitude: air traffic control does not operate in real-time; weather conditions are frequently not what they were projected to be; fatigue, negligence, and a variety of other factors often cause pilots to make poor decisions. To circumvent these issues, we will need to create VTOLs that have autonomous capabilities. Already, the military is using nascent autonomous systems to save lives. We must incorporate similar, if slightly more advanced, technologies into current and future VTOL designs.
A Growing Movement
We recognize that there is an urgent need for new forms of travel to ease the dramatic strain on our infrastructure and meet society’s transportation needs. We also know that there are a number of pragmatic companies working in a variety of arenas in order to bring new, advanced forms of VTOL into being. At Skypod, we stand at the intersection, acting as an industry leader by effectively engaging consumers, policy leaders, manufacturers, and members of the public in the development of on-demand VTOL air mobility.
Practically speaking, this means conducting trial runs and securing the necessary data to create safer commercial aircraft for everyday passengers. It means producing elegantly designed VTOLs that are easy to use in both the autonomous stage and the transitional phase, when an aircraft is deployed in pilot-optional mode. It means reexamining power sources, manufacturing components, and the overall configurations and design by bringing key stakeholders together into conversation and collaboration. But most importantly, it means capturing the imagination of a new generation of travelers. The task before us is large, but it is achievable.
This is our final part of our VTOL 101 series, thank you for reading!
If you have any questions and/or just want to say hello, reach out. We love speaking to enthusiasts, investors, engineers, and anyone who loves flying!
