If you believe the most bullish assessments from the gold rush of companies looking to bring electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to market, the 2020s will be their breakthrough decade. Ride-share giant Uber would have us believe that as early as 2023 it will be ready to start trial air-taxi operations in the early-adopter city of Dallas and that by the end of the decade what is being categorized as urban air mobility (UAM) will be mainstream in multiple major cities around the world.
If even half of what is projected for this decade is going to come to pass, then 2020 had better be a year in which we see significant progress from the self-declared front-runners among the 200 or so new aircraft programs in contention. In 2019, numerous programs missed timeline dates for achieving key program stage gates, such as first test flights.
In some cases, this seems to have been due to start-up companies (with limited past experience of type-certification campaigns) finding the technical challenges to be steeper than they had imagined. In other cases, it is clear that insufficient funding has slowed the pace at which work can be completed.
Key pointers for those watching this sector in 2020 will be whether eVTOL developers start recruiting to boost the capacity of their largely under-resourced engineering teams. Associated with this could be a flurry of new funding rounds as companies scramble for the financial support needed to get their aircraft to market. From interviews conducted by the new FutureFlight.aero website being developed by AIN, it seems many companies have convinced themselves that new eVTOL aircraft can get through the certification process for a fraction of what it has generally cost “traditional” aircraft manufacturers. A key question now is whether enough investors will share this boundless optimism.
In the 2019 Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies published on August 29, 2019, “autonomous flying vehicles” were deemed to be less than two years away from the so-called “peak hype.” What comes next for companies and their investors, according to this business theory, is the “trough of disillusionment,” followed eventually be the “slope of enlightenment” and the “plateau of productivity.”
Robin Lineberger, principal with Deloitte Consulting, believes 2020 is more likely to be another year of gradual progress, rather than some sort of tipping point for the urban air mobility sector. “There is an opportunity to make incremental change in technology and test new concepts in propulsion, power density, and automation, but I don’t expect to see a step change [in 2020],” he told AIN.
Commenting on Deloitte’s just-published 2020 Global Aerospace and Defense Industry Outlook, Lineberger emphasized that the industry needs to pay more attention to what he characterized as the psychological challenges impeding public acceptance of flying in autonomous aircraft. He also stressed the need for manufacturers to step up their work with regulators in the coming 12 months to establish a more solid regulatory foundation for the new wave of aircraft to enter service. Plus, in his view, there is more work to be done to establish who will be operating the aircraft and how these operations will be sustained in the longer term.
Sidebar:
For those seeking more tangible and immediate evidence that urban air mobility can fulfill the bold promises its advocates have been making, watch for anticipated landmark events, some of which are already overdue, involving new eVTOL designs. The new FutureFlight.aero resource from AIN will help to make sense of this exciting and complex landscape. The news and information service will deliver the following exclusive package to subscribers: daily news and commentary; highly researched, in-depth reports on major trends driving changes in aviation; a comprehensive, searchable database tracking and objectively assessing new aircraft programs with links to company information; news coverage and videos; a weekly newsletter roundup and a subscriber-only community including prospective customers, investors, and partners.
If you believe the most bullish assessments from the gold rush of companies looking to bring electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to market, the 2020s will be their breakthrough decade. Ride share giant Uber would have us believe that as early as 2023 it will be ready to start trial air taxi operations in the early-adopter city of Dallas and that by the end of the decade what is being categorized as urban air mobility (UAM) will be mainstream in multiple major cities around the world.
Well, if even half of what is projected for this decade is going to come to pass, then 2020 had better be a year in which we see significant progress from the self-declared front-runners among the 200 or so new aircraft programs in contention. In 2019, numerous programs missed self-declared timeline dates for achieving key program stage gates, such as first test flights.
In some cases, this seems to have been due to start-up companies (with limited past experience of type certification campaigns) finding the technical challenges to be steeper than they had imagined. In other cases, it is clear that insufficient funding has slowed the pace at which work can be completed.
Key pointers for watchers of this sector in 2020 will be whether eVTOL developers start recruiting to boost the capacity of their largely under-resourced engineering teams. Associated with this, could be a flurry of new funding rounds as companies scramble for the funds needed to get their aircraft to market. From interviews conducted by the new FutureFlight.aero website being developed by AIN, many companies seem to have convinced themselves that new eVTOL aircraft can get through the certification process for a fraction of what it has generally cost “traditional” aircraft manufacturers. A key question now is whether enough investors will share this boundless optimism.
According to the 2019 Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies published on August 29, 2019, “autonomous flying vehicles” were then deemed to be less than two years away from the so-called “peak hype.” What comes next for companies and their investors, according to this business theory, is the “trough of disillusionment,” followed eventually be the “slope of enlightenment” and the “plateau of productivity.”
Robin Lineberger, principal with Deloitte Consulting, 2020 is more likely to be another year of gradual progress, rather than some sort of tipping point for the urban air mobility sector. “There is an opportunity to make incremental change in technology and test new concepts in propulsion, power density and automation, but I don’t expect to see a step change [in 2020],” he told AIN.
Commenting on Deloitte’s just-published 2020 Global Aerospace and Defense Industry Outlook, Lineberger emphasised that the industry needs to pay more attention to what he characterized as the psychological challenges impeding public acceptance of flying in autonomous aircraft. He also stressed the need for manufacturers to step up their work with regulators in the coming 12 months establish a more solid regulatory foundation for the new wave of aircraft to enter service. Plus, in his view, there is more work to be done to establish who will be operating the aircraft and how these operations will be sustained in the longer term.
Those seeking more tangible and immediate evidence that urban air mobility can fulfil the bold promises its advocates have been making should look out for anticipated, and in some cases overdue, landmark events for new eVTOL designs. The new FutureFlight.aero resource from AIN will help to make sense of this exciting and complex landscape. The news and information service will deliver the following exclusive package to subscribers: daily news and commentary, highly-researched, in-depth reports on major trends driving changes in aviation, a comprehensive, searchable database tracking and objectively assessing new aircraft programs with links to company information, news coverage and videos, a weekly newsletter roundup and a subscriber-only community including prospective customers, investors and partners.