PODCAST: Horizon Aircraft’s Brandon Robinson On Why Hybrid eVTOL Are Winning the Range and Reliability Race

Our lat­est pod­cast is now live! In this in-depth episode, we were delight­ed to wel­come back Bran­don Robin­son, CEO and co-founder of Hori­zon Air­craft, to dis­cuss one of the industry’s most com­pelling hybrid-eVTOL pro­grams: the Cavorite X7.

A for­mer CF-18 fight­er pilot and expe­ri­enced aero­space inno­va­tor, Bran­don offers a rare com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal clar­i­ty and oper­a­tional insight.

He begins by unpack­ing Horizon’s recent full-wing tran­si­tion flight mile­stone with its large-scale X7 demon­stra­tor — an achieve­ment he describes as ‘beau­ti­ful­ly bor­ing’, mean­ing excep­tion­al­ly safe and pre­dictable. He explains why Horizon’s sim­ple, retractable duct­ed-fan archi­tec­ture avoids the com­plex­i­ty and risk of tilt-rotor and tilt-wing designs, offer­ing a robust plat­form built for real-world oper­a­tions.

The con­ver­sa­tion dives into the hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­train at the heart of the X7. Bran­don details why pure-elec­tric solu­tions fall short for long-range mis­sions, and how the X7’s tur­bine-bat­tery hybrid enables four times the range, twice the speed of com­pa­ra­ble eVTOLs, self-charg­ing capa­bil­i­ty, and all-weath­er oper­a­tion — includ­ing anti-icing and IFR flight, a major dif­fer­en­tia­tor in the mar­ket.

Look­ing ahead, Robin­son shares an encour­ag­ing update on Horizon’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion roadmap, the clar­i­ty gained from mature reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, and the company’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cert Cen­ter Cana­da. He also offers an hon­est assess­ment of indus­try-wide tech­ni­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry risks, and why many com­peti­tors are now qui­et­ly shift­ing toward hybrid archi­tec­tures.

Click on the Play but­ton below to lis­ten to the episode, which is avail­able on whichev­er pod­cast plat­form you use.