THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Why the Future of Advanced Air Mobility Will Be Built on Cross-Industry Engineering

For decades, the aero­space indus­try has been defined by rig­or­ous cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, safe­ty-first engi­neer­ing and long devel­op­ment cycles. Yet the emerg­ing AAM mar­ket is demand­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent along­side those fun­da­men­tals; faster inno­va­tion, light­weight opti­mi­sa­tion, inte­grat­ed sys­tems think­ing and rapid iter­a­tion.

That is pre­cise­ly where com­pa­nies like Hew­land Engi­neer­ing are carv­ing out a unique role.

With a her­itage root­ed in high-per­for­mance motor­sport trans­mis­sions, Hew­land has spent the last sev­er­al years apply­ing its exper­tise to the devel­op­ment of dri­v­e­line sys­tems for elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric air­craft.

Speak­ing on a recent eVTOL Insights Pod­cast, Hew­land’s Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor Mark Ingram says the tran­si­tion into Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty was a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of the company’s engi­neer­ing capa­bil­i­ties.

He said: “The exper­tise that we’ve gained through our her­itage in motor­sport trans­mis­sion design and man­u­fac­ture has real­ly been able to tran­scend into these new sec­tors. We’ve built an engi­neer­ing team that uses a lot of the engi­neer­ing tools to opti­mise trans­mis­sion dri­v­e­line sys­tems, and we can apply that to many dif­fer­ent types of trans­mis­sion sys­tems.”

That crossover between motor­sport and aero­space may seem unex­pect­ed at first glance. But in real­i­ty, the engi­neer­ing chal­lenges share sev­er­al sim­i­lar­i­ties. Both sec­tors demand light­weight struc­tures, excep­tion­al dura­bil­i­ty, effi­cient pow­er trans­fer and high­ly opti­mised pack­ag­ing.

The dif­fer­ence in advanced air mobil­i­ty is the lev­el of inte­gra­tion required.

Unlike con­ven­tion­al aero­space sys­tems, elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric air­craft rely on tight­ly pack­aged propul­sion archi­tec­tures where ther­mal man­age­ment, dri­ve­train effi­cien­cy, cool­ing sys­tems and weight reduc­tion are all deeply inter­con­nect­ed.

“We’re still try­ing to solve the same kinds of prob­lems,” explains Ingram. “Apply­ing torque and speed to pro­pel rotors, but we’re try­ing to do it with­in very com­pact instal­la­tion spaces. We’re try­ing to solve strength, dura­bil­i­ty, heat­ing and cool­ing issues while mar­ry­ing up all the dif­fer­ent sub­sys­tems into one com­plete sys­tem solu­tion.”

That sys­tems-lev­el think­ing is becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant as the indus­try matures.

For many eVTOL devel­op­ers, the ear­ly years focused on prov­ing con­cepts and val­i­dat­ing air­craft archi­tec­tures. Now, atten­tion is shift­ing toward scal­able, cer­ti­fi­able and man­u­fac­turable solu­tions that can sup­port com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

This is where col­lab­o­ra­tion across the sup­ply chain becomes crit­i­cal.

Ingram believes dri­ve­train spe­cial­ists need to be involved far ear­li­er in the air­craft design process than has tra­di­tion­al­ly been the case.

He said: “The soon­er you involve Hew­land with­in the process of engi­neer­ing the whole vehi­cle archi­tec­ture, the bet­ter solu­tion you’re going to get. By col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with the air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er, we can do trade-off stud­ies between the dif­fer­ent attrib­ut­es we’re try­ing to achieve and avoid design­ing the dri­v­e­line into a cor­ner.”

That col­lab­o­ra­tive approach reflects a broad­er trend emerg­ing across advanced air mobil­i­ty: the break­down of tra­di­tion­al sup­pli­er silos.

As propul­sion sys­tems become more inte­grat­ed, man­u­fac­tur­ers are increas­ing­ly seek­ing part­ner­ships that com­bine motors, trans­mis­sions, cool­ing sys­tems and pow­er elec­tron­ics into uni­fied pack­ages.

“Cus­tomers are increas­ing­ly want­i­ng more inte­grat­ed propul­sion solu­tions. By break­ing down the walls between sup­pli­ers, mass can be real­ly opti­mised if we col­lab­o­rate and bring motor, trans­mis­sion, invert­er and cool­ing sys­tems all into one pack­age.”

For the indus­try as a whole, that inte­gra­tion chal­lenge also intro­duces a bal­anc­ing act between inno­va­tion speed and aero­space-grade dis­ci­pline.

The motor­sport sec­tor has long excelled at rapid iter­a­tion — devel­op­ing, test­ing and refin­ing solu­tions under intense per­for­mance pres­sure and com­pressed time­lines. Aero­space, mean­while, brings unmatched exper­tise in safe­ty, trace­abil­i­ty and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Accord­ing to Ingram, the future of advanced air mobil­i­ty depends on suc­cess­ful­ly com­bin­ing both mind­sets.

“I think it’s a blend,” he says. “The speed and pace of motor­sport and auto­mo­tive think­ing, yet the safe­ty and dis­ci­pline of the aero­space sec­tor.”

That hybrid engi­neer­ing cul­ture is already influ­enc­ing how new propul­sion sys­tems are devel­oped and val­i­dat­ed.

Over the last sev­er­al years, Hew­land has invest­ed heav­i­ly in spe­cial­ist test and devel­op­ment capa­bil­i­ties to sup­port eVTOL pro­grammes. This includes rigs capa­ble of eval­u­at­ing ver­ti­cal­ly mount­ed trans­mis­sion sys­tems and test­ing propul­sion archi­tec­tures across mul­ti­ple ori­en­ta­tions and oper­at­ing con­di­tions.

The com­pa­ny has also sup­port­ed cus­tomers through mul­ti­ple phas­es of devel­op­ment — from con­cept eval­u­a­tions and pro­to­type dri­v­e­line sys­tems to demon­stra­tor air­craft enter­ing teth­ered flight test­ing.

Impor­tant­ly, these efforts are being devel­oped with scal­a­bil­i­ty in mind.

While Hew­land tra­di­tion­al­ly oper­ates in low-vol­ume, high-per­for­mance man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ments, the back­ing of Hero Motors Group pro­vides access to larg­er-scale pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties.

That com­bi­na­tion posi­tions the com­pa­ny to sup­port cus­tomers through­out the entire life­cy­cle of an advanced air mobil­i­ty pro­gramme — from ear­ly-stage inno­va­tion through to indus­tri­alised pro­duc­tion.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty also remains a key dri­ver behind dri­ve­train opti­mi­sa­tion.

In elec­tric avi­a­tion, every effi­cien­cy gain mat­ters. Improved mechan­i­cal effi­cien­cy reduces heat gen­er­a­tion, low­ers ener­gy con­sump­tion and can poten­tial­ly reduce bat­tery size — all of which direct­ly influ­ence air­craft range and oper­at­ing eco­nom­ics.

“Every per­cent­age you gain in dri­ve­train effi­cien­cy affects the ener­gy con­sump­tion and reduces the heat gen­er­a­tion,” says Ingram. “Every kilo­gram mat­ters.”

Ulti­mate­ly, the next phase of advanced air mobil­i­ty will not be defined sole­ly by air­craft designs or bat­tery break­throughs. It will be shaped by the abil­i­ty of com­pa­nies across indus­tries to com­bine exper­tise, col­lab­o­rate ear­ly and engi­neer ful­ly inte­grat­ed sys­tems that bal­ance per­for­mance, safe­ty, man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

For organ­i­sa­tions like Hew­land, that means bring­ing motor­sport-style inno­va­tion into an aero­space-cer­ti­fied future.

And as the indus­try moves clos­er to com­mer­cial real­i­ty, those cross-sec­tor part­ner­ships may prove to be one of the most impor­tant accel­er­a­tors of all.

You can lis­ten to the pod­cast fea­tur­ing Mark Ingram, Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor at Hew­land Engi­neer­ing, by click­ing here.