“eVTOL Race Requires Warp Speed Push, Not Bureaucratic Brakes”

gulfnews.com pub­lished ‘a spe­cial report’ last week air­ing the grow­ing frus­tra­tion many feel with­in the eVTOL indus­try con­cern­ing “reg­u­la­to­ry cap­ture.” Writ­ten by Senior Assis­tant Edi­tor, Jay Hilotin, he dis­cuss­es six impor­tant points. The main crit­i­cism is aimed at the U.S and Euro­pean reg­u­la­tors, the FAA and EASA.

Using the Los Ange­les 2028 Olympics and the recent news that Archer has been appoint­ed the pri­ma­ry eVTOL car­ri­er as his spring­board, Hilotin doesn’t hold back.

His first point of six is Extreme Cau­tion, where he lam­basts the reg­u­la­tors as being part of “a deeply cau­tious cul­ture shaped by decades of pri­ori­tis­ing zero-tol­er­ance for risk.” Adding, “It’s also dubbed reg­u­la­to­ry cap­ture.” He points out this “delays deploy­ment, even when ear­ly mod­els show strong safe­ty poten­tial, proven by real-time flight test data.

He con­tin­ues, “Rig­or­ous cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and safe­ty stan­dards are being put in place, often sequen­tial­ly — instead of in par­al­lel — like­ly to delay their roll­out where they’re most need­ed, in high­ly urbanised west­ern cities like New York, Los Ange­les and Sao Pao­lo, known for heavy peak-hour traf­fic.” Hilotin then says, “This marks a notable con­trast between Asia’s bold push for air taxi ser­vices and the more cau­tious approach of U.S and Euro­pean reg­u­la­tors.” 

His sec­ond is New Air­craft Cat­e­go­ry.

Point­ing out that reg­u­la­tors had to write new rules from scratch because eVTOLs were not deemed to be in the same cat­e­go­ry as air­planes or heli­copters, Hilotin writes, “Since it’s a new tech­nol­o­gy, it is like expect­ing those who reg­u­late horse car­riages to write new traf­fic rules for cars.”

Not to be out­done by this new red tape, EASA then cre­at­ed not one, but two cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cat­e­gories: Basic and Enhanced ie. where fail­ure con­di­tions would not lead to a cat­a­stroph­ic out­come (e.g. para­chute sys­tems, autonomous back­up); and where eVTOL air­craft are “expect­ed to oper­ate in more demand­ing envi­ron­ments (e.g. urban air­space) with high­er safe­ty require­ments akin to com­mer­cial air­lin­ers.”  

His third is head­lined Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Com­plex­i­ty. Using Joby and Archer as exam­ples, the num­ber of tests that such air­craft must go through can take up to sev­en years, far longer than tra­di­tion­al upgrades of cer­ti­fied planes. 

At num­ber 4 is Bat­tery and Ener­gy Sys­tem Safe­ty. Hilotin points out, “Unlike con­ven­tion­al fuel sys­tems, lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies are known to over­heat, ignite, or degrade.” He goes on, “This is one of the most time-con­sum­ing parts of the reg­u­la­to­ry review. For exam­ple, the bat­tery lifespan/cycle test­ing, involv­ing thou­sands of charge-dis­charge cycles, must be sim­u­lat­ed in a lab.” 

Fifth is titled Flight Oper­a­tions and Pilot Licens­ing. 

Hilotin remarks that even if the air­craft is cer­ti­fied, pilots, oper­a­tors and routes must be approved under Part 135 (FAA) or EASA’s oper­a­tor rules.

At present, there are var­i­ous unknowns includ­ing:-

: Will pilots need tra­di­tion­al licences? 

: What’s the basic train­ing required for each type of eVTOL plat­form? 

: How will ver­ti­port air traf­fic be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing flight cor­ri­dors?

He writes rather exas­per­at­ed­ly, “Months or years of delay resolv­ing such ques­tions could mean make-or-break moments for com­pa­nies fac­ing reg­u­la­to­ry hand­i­cap.”

Final­ly, num­ber six and Insti­tu­tion­al Iner­tia. 

Hilotin believes this is the BIG ONE. It denotes the idea that “bureau­crat­ic red tape dulls inno­va­tion.” He empha­sis­es, “While ensur­ing safe­ty, this mind­set — paired with com­plex, out­dat­ed bureau­crat­ic struc­tures that apply to old-school avi­a­tion — is seen as the ene­my of inno­va­tion.”

The reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies are to blame, unable to adapt and requir­ing “years to accom­mo­date frame­works for nov­el tech­nolo­gies.” He uses Joby as an exam­ple where this month the com­pa­ny stat­ed they had com­plet­ed over 40,000 miles of test flights across mul­ti­ple air­craft, includ­ing more than 1,500 flights with its two pre-pro­duc­tion pro­to­types that cov­er pilot­ed tran­si­tion flights and simul­ta­ne­ous oper­a­tions of two air­craft. If this report is true, how many more **** test flight hours (ed. addi­tion) are need­ed to con­vince any­one the air­craft is safe and works as intend­ed?

While Hilotin realis­es the FAA and EASA require very high safe­ty bench­marks because eVTOLs are to oper­ate over cities, with pas­sen­gers, often in dense urban air­space, he points out coun­tries like Chi­na, South Korea and the UAE are advanc­ing faster because “They stream­line reg­u­la­to­ry deci­sions (less bureau­cra­cy); accept high­er risk thresh­olds in ear­ly deploy­ments; and often deploy with trained pilots first in restrict­ed air cor­ri­dors.”

His con­clu­sions are straight-for­ward.

If U.S com­pa­nies like Archer or Joby are not allowed to enter ser­vice in view of reg­u­la­to­ry iner­tia in the West, they risk falling behind inter­na­tion­al com­peti­tors in mar­ket lead­er­ship, oper­a­tional data col­lec­tion and pub­lic trust.

Hilotin believes, “Delay­ing air taxi roll­outs pre­vents real-world test­ing that could improve mod­els over time.” And adds, “It’s been said: Per­fec­tion is the ene­my of progress, where striv­ing for absolute per­fec­tion can pre­vent you from mak­ing any progress at all.”

He warns:-

: More agile regions could soar ahead in com­mer­cial air taxi readi­ness.

: The eVTOL race should not be left to bureau­crats to set the pace.

: A bal­ance must be found between safe­ty and com­pet­i­tive time­lines.

: A sec­ond look at reg­u­la­to­ry reforms, pilot pro­grams and close col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try inno­va­tors may be need­ed.

Hilotin con­cludes that if the LA 2028 Olympics is viewed as the West’s water­shed moment for the eVTOL indus­try, Archer could be too late to the par­ty.

News Source: https://gulfnews.com/

(Images: Vijith Pulikkal/Gulf News)

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