James Grimsley, Executive Director, Advanced Technology Initiatives
Blain Newton, COO, BETA Technologies
Bonny Simi, Head, Air Operations and People, Joby Aviation 
Moderator: Jessica Mathews, Senior Writer, FORTUNE


Brainstorm Tech 2022: A New Flight Plan 

Conferences

James Grimsley, Executive Director, Advanced Technology Initiatives
Blain Newton, COO, BETA Technologies
Bonny Simi, Joby Aviation 


Brainstorm Tech 2022: A New Flight Plan 


James Grimsley, Executive Director, Advanced Technology Initiatives
Blain Newton, COO, BETA Technologies
Bonny Simi, Head, Air Operations and People, Joby Aviation 



James bonny. Thanks so much for joining us today. I want to ask you, we've been talking about air taxis, beetles, whatever you wanna call them for quite some time now, when are we actually gonna be able to pull up our phones open an app and summon an electric powered air vehicle to come pick us up and take us to brainstorm tech Bonnie. Why don't you take a sure, sure so yes, if you think back, even back to the jetsons, this has been a fantasy of flying cars. If you will. We're on the homestretch, we're on the homestretch and there's quite a few operators out there that are looking at and building these out. We're targeting service in 2024 and uh, there's other operators as well. I see that this is very very real. We are flying our aircraft now with thousands of flights, so 2024 what exactly will it look like on that in that year? So for us we're, our initial service were operating, were very much leaning into our R. D. O. D. Partners. So we'll actually be operating even next year on military bases here in the U. S. Operating from one side of a base to another will build upon that experience in parallel as we're getting certification from the FAA. Now It is a challenge in working through, we have a lot that we have in control of and then we also have a lot that we don't like going through the certification process right now. We're still targeting our service in 2024 and that will ultimately mean operating our goal is to have that app. So the vision is, you've, you're in downtown L. A. You're in downtown new york and you need to get to the airport so you can pull up the app and you can, you could pull up an app on maybe partners say Uber and you can take a car and it might take you an hour and a half, there's traffic or you could have a multimodal service where a car picks you up, brings you right to the verge report or heliport brings you to write directly to the airport And bring you into the terminal taking maybe 15 minutes at roughly the same cost. That's how our, that's how we operate. So there are other startups, talking about the year 2024 as well. Like the helicopter as an example, James, I would like to hear your perspective, I know that you work very closely with the F. A. A. So based on your conversations with the regulator, the regulator of this industry, What do you think is realistic here? I think, well, first you mentioned the jetsons and, and ironically the jetsons actually did have a theoretical date of the series, it was supposed to be 2061. So actually, I think, you know, unfortunately aviation as public can attest aviation is one of the very regulated industries. We have a few industries that are very regulated and as such, uh, you know, the society has a high expectation for safety and our regulations reflected societal acceptance. I I anticipate. Um I would basically pose it as as when would we have the potential for ubiquity? And I would say the potential for ubiquity would be within this decade. Uh and ubiquity is where it's gonna be possible in lots of different places on on a wide scale uh certification is gonna be the tough part. And uh what has happened is, is I'm an aerospace engineer and historically in aviation, it took a long time to develop a vehicle. So it took a decade or so to develop something and our regulations kind of matched that, you know, it took a long time to do type certification, uh production certification, things like that. Now. We have kind of this new era of aviation, especially with electric propulsion, where we're able to design systems much faster, but our regulatory system has not really kept pace. It's really the, what's dragging us down uh the enormous economic investment and activity that's happened because of the vital and advance their mobility, is putting a pressure on the FAA that has never really existed. We've had a lot of, of uh political pressure for drones and things like that in the past, but we've never had the economic pressure that we have now. So the FAA is trying to react. That's the big wild card for this industry is when will the f a a be able to adapt to how quickly this industry because FAA. Thus far our regulatory system has not kept pace with technology at all. Um And ironically, you know, I work a lot with a lot of the company's doing drone delivery, I predict the same with drone delivery, I think ubiquity in terms of having thrown delivery in lots of locations is more on the scale of 2030. So it's it's it's kind of the questions if if we we made people have some isolated cases but I would say within this decade we have the potential for ubiquity and wild scale operation. Is there anything besides regulation in particular that's keeping these aircraft out of the skies right now? Well, there's a lot of the aircraft, I mean were there and then it's not just jobe we have several. Again, I mean there's an ecosystem. If it were just jobe it would probably be a harder path but because of the ecosystem and the investment that's in it and we have, you know, dozens of operators who are actually flying the aircraft now. Uh And so the certification is one part which we don't have as much control over, although we're well into that certification, we are leading in that space uh and working daily with the FAA on those on the processes. And then it's also just scaling up the operation. So it is a capital intensive business and uh so building out the manufacturing processes. It's great to build one aircraft, but you have to grow dozens and then hundreds and thousands of them to meet the ubiquitous scale there. So for us, we're thinking about that in the long and the long haul as well. I want to circle back to the point about funding a little later, but Bonnie, I do want to ask you. So in february one of your prototypes crashed. Can you tell us exactly what happened? And has that delayed any of your plans for commercial launch at all? So first of all, it has not delayed anything. So I'll talk a little bit about. So in earlier this year, our second prototype aircraft came off the production line. So when you have two assets now that allows you to do a lot more, our first asset had over 1000 flights on it and we operate and although the aircraft are intended to be piloted while we're doing the flight test phase, we, we've built out aircraft so it can be remotely flown. So now that we have two assets were able to take our first one and do what we call envelope expansion. And what that means is the normal, if you think about the normal operating range of aircraft in this, this area here, envelope expansion means operating it far beyond the limits so that you can see where those limits are. And when you're doing flight test, it's possible that you're gonna exceed whatever the limits ends up to be. And that's indeed what happened for that. But we were able to very quickly work through the investigation and we've had our second aircraft flying, we have our third aircraft coming off the production line soon. So we're back back on track and it actually, if anything is, is helping because it helps us see where are those limits and then take that learning and and play it back into our next aircraft James. I want to turn to you to talk about the funding question here. So really, over the past decade, venture capitalist have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into vitale companies. Some of them have gone public, there's been a lot of funding in this space, but we've entered a new kind of market where there's, we're not sure if there's such an appetite for unprofitable companies. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on whether you think these companies will continue to get funding and will continue to be able to put millions of dollars into this technology. I think the big question, um, if we look at another analogy, if we look at drones, uh, my opinion is we're really in the second wave and we had a first wave where there were a lot of failures and the regulatory system didn't keep pace. I think a lot of the business plans and were unrealistic. So we had a lot of failures, big, big failures. But now we have some pretty healthy companies that are part of the second wave that didn't even really exist a few years ago. And so we're seeing a second wave really take off and do well. And I think the big question is, will this first my opinion A. M. Is really in that first wave and it may be the first wave that makes it through. But I think the problem is gonna be, are we gonna be able to sustain that regulatory progress? Um and I do think it will take a lot of political pressure to do that. Um There's a lot of things, you know, we we are still grounded in in the way we we think about aviation in the old ways. A lot of the regulations are based on antiquated ideas of, you know, very mechanical propulsion systems and maintenance cycles and operating requirements and things like that. A lot of those things go away with electric propulsion. But the regulations stay and we could probably share all sorts of funny stories of how we've had to adapt just to accommodate unrealistically expectations. No joke. We, when we first started flying drones, there were regulations part 91. You have to carry your flight manual on board. Well, there's no pilot on board a drone. And so in order to satisfy the FAA, we would put it on a zip drive and tape it on the side of the drone. It was never going to be used. And the FAA would say yes, you have your flight, manual on board, you're good but that's the type of stuff that we're still dealing with. I think in a lot of ways just across aviation we have not really modernized, You know, so I think what what remains to be seen are we gonna be able to maintain because there's tremendous momentum, can we maintain that momentum to overcome that regulatory inertia and and see this first wave actually be successful? I can build on that a little bit. Yeah, so we we started 12 years ago and actually partnered with um the Gamma the General Aviation uh Manufacturing Association and build out and build out new regulations and and and we'll call it part 23 new regulations that will adapt with the technologies and we've been partnering along on building our aircraft on that. There's been some slight change however, the FAA has accepted and realized how far we are along in this process and the electrification is part of it. So you're right, electrification totally changes the game here in terms of operations, in terms of maintenance, in terms of reliability uh and it brings a lot more safety into the, into play as well. So um the regulations are are evolving And those that are kind of in the lead are are helping to move this along. We just, you know, we've been meeting with the administrator had a good um story in 60 minutes recently talking about how the idea, even though regulations are adapting that to not slow down the certification Bonnie. Can you talk more about the funding piece in particular? I know that used to be at JetBlue venture, so you're very familiar with the venture space. Um, this is a very capital intensive business. So I mean what kind of position is job Ian after going public back in 2000 and 2020 last year last year? Um yeah, I started actually and I've been coming here for many years on the venture side. So I worked at ventures and we felt that electric propulsion would fundamentally change aviation just like jet propulsion did back in the sixties. I mean, this was back in 2017, we canvassed the entire uh, electric propulsion and tv tall space and settle on jobe, we invested in joe be back then. And ultimately I've come to believe in how the model is working so much. I, I've come in house And it is capital intensive. Um, but what we've done with that job is because we started 12 years ago, we were able to, you know, build that sort of scrappy, how to work scrappy and keep, keep tight with our, our, our funds. We were able to go public last year. We've got 1.2 billion on the balance sheet as of close of the last quarter and we're very judiciously working through what we're doing in this year and next year and next year so that we can maintain that funding base and give a good balance sheet um until we hit commercial operation. So uh but it does take in this this downturn. There may be some that don't make it, there may be some that don't make it um those that who you think might not look again, I'm going to say that this is a broad ecosystem and we we want multiple players to make it because if it were just only one um they may not be as as accommodating right? They really want to work with multiple players. I'm not gonna say which which ones and who knows right? You just never know. But this isn't going to be an interesting call it three years. It's no secret that there is a severe lack of diversity in the aviation industry and I know that both of you are very passionate about this topic Bonnie, you're a pilot James, you work for the choctaw nation. You're very committed to bringing tribal members into this industry. So can both of you talk just a little bit about your experience and what can companies do to bring more people of color more more women into this industry. So this is an area I'm very very passionate about and when I first looked at at the E. V. Tall space. I said well autonomous aircraft that's going to take a long time for public adoption but a piloted aircraft, we have a pilot shortage And it's very much, I mean many of you, even the aviation system is being stressed as we speak. There's a lack of pilots. So what if you add more pilots? How can we do that? Well then I started thinking when when I became an airline pilot 30 years ago, 2% of airline pilots were female three decades later Where it's six why it's a structural issue. It is difficult to raise a family when you're gonna be gone three or four days a week and in other cities. Well in the vitale space can actually solve that because by design our aircraft don't fly all nighters. They don't fly trans cons or international. So you'll be home every night. So we are very much leaning into and our goal is to is to capture and the imagination of the young women and show the career path And that you can continue this career. So right now 15% of student pilots are female. The current path, they'll drop out by the time before they hit their commercial license. Our goal is to increase the student pilots and then have them come to the orbital space and then grow and learn and learn the craft here and they can move on to the airline pilots later if they wish. And the way we're engaging that is um you know from my own background. I grew up in a very impoverished area. I grew up in the heart of the Chocolate Nation and both of my family go back. I'm actually the first college graduate in my family, uh, paid my own way through school. You know, it wasn't the encourage that you went to college. And so I've lived that it's almost a learned helplessness, you know, why try Because you look around your cousin start doing things and I've seen what happens. And it really takes us working all the way down to the fifth or sixth grade level to build confidence. And especially with young females when I went through engineering school for my degrees, it was not uncommon to have a class of engineering students with a single female and all the risk mail. And I thought surely in 20 or 30 years there's gonna be more balanced and we really have not met that balance and it really goes back to the lower levels. People, young people form the opinion of what I can do, what I should do, What I'm supposed to do early on and what it takes is confidence from adults. They need to have that confidence that you're capable of doing it because there's a lot more people capable of things like engineering, but they're not put in an environment where they get to build that confidence and so we're trying all of the technology things. We're doing the choctaw nation. One of the most important parts is we're working very closely with the schools to try to build that stem pipeline because whether they come back and work with things within the choctaw nation or they go off, we still were m bettering their lives, but it's still a problem. There's still a lot of societal, um, encumbrances and influences that sort of influence young people while they choose. And we, we have to work very hard and, and those of us who are in tech, it's, it's very important for us to help do what we can, to try to influence what people let people know, especially young kids. These are great opportunities, you're capable of it, they need that confidence and that's something that's important to us and it's something as, as a whole tech industry, we have to take on before I keep going, do we have any questions from the audience at this point? Okay, I'll keep going then. So jobe has been doing this for 12 years, how important is it to be the first company going out the gates getting in the air. So, uh, we are leading in the space, we are ahead in both the certification process and the capital and you know, it's a big ecosystem, right? So there's, there's gonna be a lot of room, you know, whether it's in Tokyo and London new york Miami, there's a lot of space for a lot of players, I think being first does open up new opportunities for us, one of the things that Jobe is very passionate about and where we think public adoption is important is around noise and we've designed part of the reason we've spent as long as we have in designing our aircraft is how quiet it is. And recently Nasa, um, did a study to sort of prove our design, um, concepts where when the aircraft flies overhead, it's almost silent. Think of it as leaves in the wind. Uh, and at 45 decibels on the ground. It's 65 decibels, which is about what a conversation will be. So I, when I try to explain what it sounds like, like think of a home air conditioner outside and you're standing next to it. That's what it sounds like on takeoff and so that by getting that into the communities to see that this doesn't have that wagon, the noise or it doesn't have, you know, loud, top, top, top top, like a helicopter that will help with adoption for the entire industry. Well, James, Bonnie, thank you so much for coming and thanks for listening. Get