PODCAST SUMMARY: The Human Element of Advanced Air Mobility panel discussion — key takeaways

The emerg­ing indus­try of eVTOL air­craft holds great promise for future mobil­i­ty. But build­ing out this new trans­porta­tion sys­tem will require a high­ly skilled and spe­cial­ized work­force. In a recent episode of the eVTOL Insights pod­cast, experts dis­cussed the crit­i­cal roles, train­ing needs, and unique chal­lenges involved with oper­at­ing eVTOLs at scale.

Mul­ti-Vehi­cle Super­vi­sor: A New Role Emerges
JC Asen­cio, Ecosys­tem Part­ner­ships Man­ag­er at Wisk, explained the com­pa­ny’s vision for ‘mul­ti-vehi­cle super­vi­sors’ who will mon­i­tor mul­ti­ple autonomous eVTOLs from the ground.

“Auton­o­my in this sense means automa­tion, not arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence or machine learn­ing,” he clar­i­fied. Wisk is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the FAA, NASA and oth­ers to define the train­ing require­ments for this emerg­ing role over­see­ing the safe oper­a­tion of pas­sen­ger eVTOL air­craft.

Lever­ag­ing Tech­nol­o­gy for Main­te­nance
The main­te­nance and repair of advanced eVTOL vehi­cles requires new skill sets. James Rich­mond, Head of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at Atkins Realis, believes tech­nol­o­gy-enabled solu­tions can help address this chal­lenge. “There may be a vir­tu­al ele­ment to pro­vid­ing that main­te­nance and repair activ­i­ty,” he said, hint­ing at remote sup­port tools to assist mechan­ics ser­vic­ing these cut­ting-edge air­craft.

Ground Crew: The Unsung Heroes
While pilots and main­te­nance get a lot of atten­tion, Addi­son Fer­rell, Direc­tor of Infra­struc­ture at Sky­ports, high­light­ed the crit­i­cal impor­tance of the ver­ti­port ground crew. This team will need cross-dis­ci­pli­nary skills span­ning cus­tomer ser­vice to emer­gency response for poten­tial elec­tric vehi­cle fires. “We see a lot of poten­tial for work­force devel­op­ment at ver­ti­ports that could pro­vide a pipeline of tal­ent into con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion or elec­tric ground vehi­cles,” not­ed Fer­rell.

Engag­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Through Demon­stra­tions
Fer­rell also stressed the val­ue of proac­tive com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, includ­ing putting on phys­i­cal demon­stra­tions of eVTOL at Sky­port’s glob­al net­work of test beds. “We want the pub­lic to tan­gi­bly expe­ri­ence what urban air mobil­i­ty will look like in their com­mu­ni­ty and make this excit­ing future acces­si­ble to every­one,” he explained. Demon­stra­tions may also help alle­vi­ate pub­lic con­cerns like those seen in Paris by high­light­ing the ben­e­fits.

Impor­tance of Edu­ca­tion and Coor­di­na­tion
The guests agreed that edu­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion across gov­ern­ment, indus­try, and the pub­lic will make or break the suc­cess of eVTOLs. Clos­ing out the dis­cus­sion, host Jason Pritchard reit­er­at­ed the cen­tral impor­tance of the human element:“We not only need to make this new form of trans­port acces­si­ble to all pas­sen­gers, but also invest heav­i­ly in skills devel­op­ment to build the sus­tain­able and spe­cial­ized work­force and make AAM a real­i­ty.”

Through coor­di­nat­ed efforts to devel­op new roles, lever­age tech­nolo­gies, engage com­mu­ni­ties, and invest in edu­ca­tion, the eVTOL indus­try can cul­ti­vate the robust and skilled work­force need­ed to take mobil­i­ty to new heights in the years ahead.

The tech­nol­o­gy is advanc­ing rapid­ly, but the human fac­tors dis­cussed in this insight­ful episode may ulti­mate­ly deter­mine the pace and scale of eVTOL deploy­ment around the world.

You can lis­ten to the full pod­cast episode by click­ing here.