Aerospace America reports that Electra.aero debuted its Goldfinch two-seat hybrid-electric demonstrator which the company hopes will put “it on the path toward completing a nine-passenger commercial version in time to enter service in 2028.” Electra Founder and CEO John Langford said the commercial version of the aircraft will be able to “get in and out of the Wall Street heliport and have a range of 500 miles with its full payload.” Langford said that Electra will only need 150 feet of runway to take off or land in most circumstances, and never more than 300 feet. MIT Aeronautics Professor John Hansman will pilot the Goldfinch on its first flight from Manassas Regional Airport in a few weeks, where Electra is based. Electra has “planned hundreds of test flights from Manassas and other locations.”
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Tag: John Langford
Life in the F-35 ‘Fish Bowl’
Panelists: Moderator Juan J. Alonso, professor, Stanford University; Jeff Babione, vice president and general manager, Advanced Development Programs, Lockheed Martin
by Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America editor-in-chief
Lockheed Martin’s Jeff Babione challenged the audience of the “Evolution of the F-35” session June 26 at the 2018 AIAA AVIATION Forum in Atlanta to utter the first words that came to mind when they thought of the F-35.
After some minor prodding, a voice in the crowd said “cost overrun.” Another said “schedule.” And a third voice, which was difficult to hear, seemed to say “not as good as the F-16.”
Issuing this challenge was Babione’s way of encouraging people to reconsider their perceptions of the F-35 program as Lockheed Martin seeks to reboot opinions about the multibillion joint and international initiative that has indeed been marked by schedule delays and cost overruns. Since the program’s last re-baselining, Babione said, the company has been rolling out the F-35 aircraft nearly as planned in terms of cost and schedule.
“It was tough, but we got there,” he said.
Babione knows the F-35 program as well as anyone. Before moving earlier this year to head Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, or Skunk Works, he was the general manager in charge of the F-35 for more than two years. For almost three years before that, he was the deputy in charge of day-to-day program management. His speech and a Q&A session moderated by Juan J. Alonso of Stanford University opened a series of “special programming” sessions at the forum planned for June 26 and June 27 to discuss the F-35 program and its history.
Babione ticked off a list of milestones for the audience. Among them, he noted that the system development and demonstration phase, involving numerous test flights, was completed earlier this year, not long after the planned 2017 date under the re-baselining. He said the program is running “just several percentage points higher on cost.” He said initial operational test and evaluation flights are scheduled to begin in August under the program’s strategy of conducting tests concurrently with low-rate initial production.
Pointing to a cost chart, Babione said that today, an A model of the F-35 — the version that will eventually replace the U.S. Air Force’s F-16s and A-10s — costs $94 million. He said the company envisions the cost declining to $80 million per plane by 2020.
Babione said Lockheed Martin has been open about the hurdles it has faced over the years and that there are no shortage of challenges ahead. He displayed a slide showing a goldfish in a bowl surrounded by the corporate logos of CNN, Facebook, Fox News, YouTube and Twitter.
“Do I look at all like that goldfish? Because that’s how it feels to be on the F-35 program,” he said, joking about searching G-O-D on Google and realizing that the F-35 received more hits.
None of that was meant to be a complaint, Babione suggested: Oversight of a multibillion program is certainly “reasonable,” he said, adding that transparency is the “hallmark” of the program.
“You can’t claim we’re hiding anything,” he said.
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Developers Charged With Making UAS a More Trusted and Autonomous System
Panelists: Moderator I.J. Hudson, former technology reporter, NBC4 Washington (WRC-TV); Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences, University of Colorado; Michael S. Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow, United Technologies Research Center; Parimal H. Kopardekar, manager, Safe Autonomous Systems Operations Project, and principal investigator, Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, NASA’s Ames Research Center; John Langford, chairman and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences Corp.; Richard Wlezien, professor and Vance and Arlene Coffman endowed department chair in aerospace engineering and director, Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Iowa State University
by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer
Getting a more autonomous unmanned aerial system to understand what it needs to do with less human direction and finding ways to control it in the airspace are crucial issues for developers, according to a June 15 panel of experts at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.
Sandy Magnus, executive director of AIAA, introduced the panel, “The Changing Face of Aerospace: The Impact of UAS on Aviation,” by pointing out users are helping developers understand what needs to happen in design, presenting a shift in the usual method of product development. Now, she said, it’s up to policymakers and lawmakers to make decisions regarding the limitations of technology and its advantages.
Jay Gundlach, founder and president of Flighthouse Engineering LLC, said that UASs are so early in development that we don’t even know what to call them yet.
Parimal Kopardekar, manager of the Safe Autonomous System Operations Project and principal investigator for NASA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, said that one of the main principles in drone operations is understanding the value of constraints.
“We are talking about managing traffic that has to be as flexible as possible,” he said. “We will be setting up the rules of the road.”
In terms of education for next-generation UAS developers, Richard Wlezien, the department chair in aerospace engineering and director of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium at Iowa State University, said it has been frustrating because drone flights are too restrictive.
“Imagine training to be a physician and not being allowed in the operating room,” he said. “We have long way to go to open up airspace to students.”
Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado, said he sees three growing applications of drones: rescue missions, national security, and climate and weather prediction.
“Agriculture has not been a top application,” he said. “But there is a project underway now about soil moisture management using a small UAS.”
One of the biggest issues panel members discussed was trust.
“As they become more autonomous, software for drones has to have some level of trust that they will make the correct decisions,”Argrow said.
That issue is being worked on now, according to Michael Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow at the United Technologies Research Center.
“We want the UAS system to be able to learn,” he said. “That’s the part of the industry that is going to grow, because we need to be able to operate safely under expected contingencies.”
Panelists all agreed standards are needed but cautioned that when they are made, they are hard to change or adjust.
“We need to be careful what we put in place and be careful about the nature of standards and what the intent is,” Kopardekar said. “We need to ask ‘What could it stop in the future?’”
| All 2016 AIAA AVIATION Forum Videos |
Inventors Hope Investors Give Them Room to Grow
Panelists: Moderator John Langford, chairman and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences Corp.; Joe Burns, CEO, Sensurion Aerospace; Jonathan Evans, CEO, Skyward; Ben Marcus, co-founder and CEO, AirMap; Jason Rigoli, partner, Enlightenment Capital; Richard Whittle, author, “Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution”
by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer
Building the next generation of unmanned aerial systems requires educating investors and convincing them to make the leap into the industry, experts on the panel “Invention, Entrepreneurship and Unmanned Systems” said June 15 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.
Richard Whittle, author of the book “Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution,” said drone development kicked into gear in the early part of the century as the Predator drone transitioned from a surveillance vehicle to an armed offensive weapon shooting Hellfire missiles during the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Today, as the UAS industry hits its stride, investors are beginning to understand and court UAS businesses, said Jason Rigoli, partner at Enlightenment Capital, adding that trusting the intellectual capital inside of the industry is a big part of that growing confidence.
“The investing game is really about backing the jockey instead of the horse,” Rigoli said.
And the evolution of the UAS industry is happening fast.
“We as a business community are providing solutions ahead of problems,” said Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward. “There is a lot of work being done, and we need to keep giving developers the tools to do it. Democratized technology is in the hands of the end user, and we must evolve.”
Raising money is the next challenge, noted John Langford, chairman and CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. Fortunately, the unmanned space is now seeing more angel investors and other investment groups engaging with businesses, he said.
Rigoli agreed, adding, “But having a full ecosystem of development doesn’t mean capital is easy to access. It’s still hard to find an investor. When you do, it’s a marriage, and you’re stuck.”
Joe Burns, CEO of Sensurion Aerospace, said he is ready to take a meeting with every venture capitalist he can.
“We’re at a hockey-stick moment now, where you have to either make it big or have to cash out,” he said.
Burns said it’s important to focus on fundamentals — such as the business plan.
“You have to demonstrate to investors that you can sell the product,” he said.
In regards to whether small startup companies could expect to compete with Google, Facebook or Amazon, Evans said: “I think that those companies are sensitive to anti-trust issues. They seem to have the attitude of ‘Let’s let this startup eco system grow first.’”
| All 2016 AIAA AVIATION Forum Videos |