WEBVTT - A Conversation with Surf Air Mobility 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.479 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey therein 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.560 Welcome to Tech Stuff. My name is Jonathan Strickland. I 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.799 am your host, and how the tech are you. I 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.880 have a very special episode today. It is rare that 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.160 I get to do interviews, and it's more rare than 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.600 I get to talk to C suite individuals in my interviews. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.360 But today I get to do that because I have 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:37.400 Sudan Shahani from surf Air on my show. Welcome to 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:38.080 Tech Stuff. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:39.960 Thank you, Jonathan. It's great to be here. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:42.680 I'm so excited to talk to you because I remember 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.800 hearing about surf Air almost a decade ago now while 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.080 I was just following up on tech and back in 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.960 those days, the business plan and the approach and the 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.080 company mission statement was a little bit different than what 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:58.880 you are pursuing now. So I hope we can kind 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.240 of talk about sort of the history of the company 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.840 while the original vision was and how that has evolved 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.800 over time, because I'm really excited about where you're headed. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:11.080 Yeah. 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.320 Absolutely. So the short version of this is, you know, 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.279 the early days of Surfair, the business model, it started 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.800 to serve business travelers and it started to serve business 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.440 travelers with a subscription all you can fly type product 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.000 for really the frequent flyer that was going on routes 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.800 like La de San Francisco and Santa Barbara de San 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.760 Francisco and wanted to go from a small airport to 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:36.080 smaller airport and get call it, two hours of their. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:36.920 Life back on a day trip. 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:38.800 So don't spend a lot of time in the big airport, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.600 get there five minutes before, get on a small plane, 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.800 hang with other members of like a like minded travelers club. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.000 And people were doing it three or four times a month, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.640 and we were giving consumers back time. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:51.840 It was a great experience. 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.440 It was one of the few times I think people 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.640 actually enjoyed their their their flying experience, or we kind 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.360 of tried to bring that back, if you will, and 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.360 along the way we kind of realized that, you know, 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.680 while that was great to serve a particular audience that 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.560 was paying a small premium to kind of domestic business 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.720 class to get an experience that felt more like a 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:18.200 private flying experience, that was still a pretty limited I mean, 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.560 we could do that on roots like La San Francisco 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.680 and a number of other kind of high traffic you know, 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.160 commercial hubs, on each end, business city pairs with all 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.320 these business travelers. But we realized that if actually there's 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.639 five thousand airports in the country, and if we could 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.360 create something that took away the barriers, like if we 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.960 could make a similar experience affordable to a much broader audience, 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:39.000 that would be great. That would be the big the 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:40.840 big idea, like how can we make this affordable and 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.400 how can we make it greener? Because we look at 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:44.919 the two barriers to entry that people had, they were 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.520 either like, that's still a little bit expensive for me, 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.640 I don't fly enough to justify it, or like do 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.000 I really want to seem like I'm flying on a 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:53.799 private plane? Like that doesn't really go well with my 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.840 carbon footprint. And the reality is we're now entering an 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.400 error where we're moving towards the world is moving towards 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.280 green aviation is that's sort of the way we look 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.040 at it, and regional travel, at least over the next 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.440 decade or two, we think is about to be reimagined 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.600 because all of the innovation in this space is coming 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.360 around small planes flying short routes and that's where our. 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:19.639 Specialty is, that's what we do. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.000 And if we could very simply, if you can make 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.440 smaller planes electric, a lot more people can afford him. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.640 Yeah, and you've covered a lot of ground, which is 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.880 only fair for a company that flies everywhere. But I 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.480 want to dive into a couple of those things. One 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.760 of them is, you know, we're starting to hear about 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:43.680 this concept of regional air mobility, this ability to travel 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.920 to relatively short distances, far enough where driving would still 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.280 take several hours, but short enough so that smaller aircraft 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.280 can make that in a single leg as opposed to 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.280 multiple hops. And this approach to trying to make that 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.960 more accessible and also reduce carbon footprint makes a ton 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.640 of sense to me. It also comes in line with 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.880 some other business plans we've been hearing from with other 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.520 startups that are looking at even shorter distances right Like, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.840 we're looking at companies that are starting up in the 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.400 space where they're using kind of the quad copter sort 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.039 of approach to take passengers from a centralized location to 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.440 the airport. To me, like, this is the next step 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.680 out from that. We're not talking about coast to coast travel, 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.680 but if I here in Atlanta, if I need to 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:36.280 get to Western Tennessee, well taking booking a big commercial 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.760 aircraft seat for that can seem like it's a bit overkill, 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.760 but it's still too far to make it a convenient 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:45.560 drive to get out there in a day, do some 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.719 business come back, or even just on a short weekend 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.960 trip if it's like a recreational thing. So I get 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.240 where the appeal is and I'm really excited to learn 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.760 more about this. At what point in the phase of 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.680 surf air where you start to look at this as 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.159 being the next step of kind of migrating toward this 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.080 approach of how can we enable regional mobility when we 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.239 have all these different airports that are underused or sometimes 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.760 they're just going dormant for a while because they're just 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.600 they're catering to like local pilots, and that's it. When 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.160 did you start really kind of ideating on this. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.360 Yeah, it's a good question. And actually, and you covered 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.800 a lot of ground there too. I think that in 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.839 our case, unlike a lot of other people in the 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.160 space in the aviation of the airline space, in the 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.479 early days of surf air, we were one of the 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.479 few companies that was actually building a brand and a 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.159 consumer service around flying smaller airplanes. The industry at a 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.359 whole when they think about when they thought about the 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.040 new technology happening. So a couple of different trends are 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.479 coming together here. To your point, regional air mobility is 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.560 now something a lot of people are talking about. You'll 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.039 see NASA reports and McKinsey reports and kind of it's 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.120 sort of becoming a thing that that's where a lot 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.480 of the innovation in aviation is going to be for 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.400 the next decade or two. And it's sort of It 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.560 also is slightly in contrast to a line is being 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.279 drawn between urban air mobility and regional air mobility. So 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.800 when you talk about the quad copters and ev toll 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.799 and things like that going really short distances, that's really 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.480 that's being classified or will you know as urban air 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.120 mobility call it zero to fifty miles, and then you 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.640 look at regional air mobility fifty to five hundred miles. 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.480 The benefits of regional air mobility and why people believe 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.160 that will develop first would say is that we have, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.280 particularly in this country, all of the infrastructure. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:34.040 To another point you. 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.440 Made, there are actually five thousand airports that exist in 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.440 this country that can be used by charter operators in 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.599 real contrast, major commercial airlines, we're morphed over the last 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.799 couple of decades really more into a hub and spoke 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.320 model with larger planes and less deserving, less places, and 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.520 less point to point. You know, eighty percent of airline 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.160 traffic goes through thirty airports, and they may flex up 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.320 to two or three hundred for the other twenty percent. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:00.680 We were already flying from airport. It's like that, Like 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.640 I'm sitting here talking to you today from our headquarters 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.760 at Hawthorne in California. Hawthorne Airport is a smaller, smaller airport. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.280 You know, California alone is three hundred airports. There's probably 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.000 twelve airports within an hour drive of here. And because 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.720 we were already flying smaller aircraft and flying from airports 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:21.000 like that, when different companies were coming up with solutions 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.920 and electrification, new technology, new vehicles, we would really get 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:27.600 to see a lot of that first. We were fortunate 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:28.920 to see a lot of that as it was happening. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:30.800 So to directly answer a question, when we start thinking 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.080 about this, we've been following the trend of kind of 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.800 where the space is going. Given that we are in 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.239 fact today we are the largest commuter airline in the US, 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.400 and the commuter air category is really the category that 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.160 would be defined as the business model that would enable 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.880 regional airmobility. It's flying small planes frequently like an airline. 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.840 So we're the biggest brand in that space, and hence 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.520 we saw a lot of things first. Whereas large airlines 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.000 would really look at small electric airplanes as a sign 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.160 project on their way to big ones, it wasn't a 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.160 real commercial use case there. So we were kind of 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.680 in a really unique position to be able to We 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.200 think we're in a unique position to be able to 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:10.920 lead the charge here well. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:16.000 And with that established infrastructure there, it sets it apart 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.880 from other potential solutions that would require massive investment in 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.760 building out infrastructure. I'm thinking of things like all the 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.560 various sort of blue sky rail initiatives that have been 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.840 pushed around, and I love the concept of rail initiatives, 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.160 but if you're being realistic and you're thinking about the 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.320 amount of time and money that's going to be required 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.760 for that to happen, and you are really realistic and 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.400 you start talking about the political buy in that has 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.640 to happen for that to work, and then we recognize 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.120 that every few years we change our political leaders, and 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.280 so consistency is difficult. Having that infrastructure there is so valuable. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.520 I think it's impossible to overstate how valuable it is 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.720 that these airports already exist. So that problem has been solved. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.600 Now it's the question of can you have the capacity 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.960 to meet demand, can you find the price point that 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.680 works for the customer, and can you have that be 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.920 a business plan that ultimately results in profitability. 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.640 I think that's exactly right. I mean, look, we say 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.640 that to really build out the regional ammability landscape, and 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.880 you need a couple of like there's a couple of 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.559 key things you need for success. You actually need a 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.640 brand and a platform that consumers trust and that operators 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.920 are able to fly for. So what we're trying to 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.520 do here we don't just want to continue to build 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.800 a huge single airline in the space. We actually have 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.480 a platform and a brand today where we have a 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.440 number of third party operators that fly for us. We 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.360 want to deploy electric airplanes across all of them, not 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:54.160 just for ourselves, and the first wave of electrification which 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.920 will significantly reduce costs as well. We're actually electrifying an 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.600 airplane called the Cessna caravan. We're working with Cessna the 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.160 manufacturer and to do so, but we're going to own 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.200 the ip around it. But it's a we're built. We're 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.320 creating both a fully electric and a hybrid electric powertrain 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.120 for the Cessna Caravan. And what's really important about the 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.760 hybrid particularly is to the point you were making about 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.319 all the existing infrastructure, the hybrid Sessna Caravan will work. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.440 Think like the early days of the Prius. The combustion 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.080 motor charge is the battery, so you actually don't need 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.480 charging stations to be set up at all of these airports. 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.120 You don't need any infrastructure upgrades across all of these 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.760 airports to be able to use it. So we live 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:36.720 in a country today where all of these airports exist. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.440 A number of airplanes exist which can be converted over 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.800 to more efficient and modern powertrains hybrid electric, fully electric, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.080 et cetera. Based on the mission, hybrid electric can actually 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.720 save twenty five percent of the operating cost, which makes 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.800 it which is a huge number in aviation world, and 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.360 fully electric can save up to fifty percent of the cost, 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:58.880 but will initially be focused on much on shorter routes 0:10:58.880 --> 0:10:59.920 one hundred miles and less. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.880 We're going to take a quick break and then we'll 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:15.200 be back to talk more about surf air mobility. I 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.040 really wanted to talk to you, Sodent about the electrification process, 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.360 because that's to me one of the really exciting things 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.439 about this. I mean, one, opening up accessibility to more 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.560 people so that they're able to take advantage of this 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.960 kind of travel. I'm really excited about that as well, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:36.880 especially in lieu of methods of getting from place to 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.679 place when you're talking in that like fifty to five 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:44.760 hundred mile range. But can you kind of talk me 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:51.480 through this electrification process? Are you both looking into retrofitting 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:56.400 existing aircraft with new electric powertrain systems or hybrid powertrain systems. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.640 Are you also looking at maybe partnering with companies that 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.760 would be building purpose built electric planes. What's your approach? 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.839 Yeah, it's a good question, and actually it's funny here 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.880 here at our business, I try to have everyone use 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.200 the word upgrading. 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:14.800 Rather than retrofitting. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:16.760 Okay, no, taken. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.080 So we think the first thing that you can do 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.680 to make the biggest impact is actually take an existing 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.320 airframe where there is wide distribution of it already, and 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.520 upgrade that to being a hybrid or fully electric powertrain. 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.440 If you think about just the life cycle of an airplane, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.240 people keep airplanes or airplanes stay in service twenty five 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.959 thirty years. However, there's a moment, depending on the utilization 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.200 of the operator, call it every three to five years, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:42.719 where they have to do a full overhaul of the 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.080 combustion engine, and that's a moment where they could replace 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.400 it with an electric engine, which is a way to 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.880 get faster adoption across a much larger category. So we're 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.439 starting with the first thing we're doing is in electric 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.120 and a hybrid powertrain for the Cessna Caravan. Cessna Caravan 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.840 is a great airplane. It's been around for a long time. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.240 There's over three thousand of them out there. We are 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.960 actually the largest passenger operator, we believe, of the Caravan 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:14.160 in the US, and these powertrains will be both marketed 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.800 to existing owners that existing fleet out there, where when 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.679 it comes time for an engine overhaul, the goal is 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.040 to have them be able to upgrade to a hybrid 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.520 or an electric powertrain for a similar prices it would 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.120 cost them to overhaul a combustion engine and instantly start 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.360 seeing the cost and the emissions benefits Additionally, Cessna will 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.560 be selling new versions of the airplane basically with an 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.920 electric version and a hybrid version for new buyers. And 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.680 there's a pretty broad range of potential customers for the caravan. 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.040 It's passenger operators like us, it's cargo, it's military, etc. 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.120 There's a number of use cases. So that's the first 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.640 the electrification project we're doing. Will we do intend in 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.600 the future to work with other airplane types with kind 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.200 of our proprietary technology, of course, and we also intend 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.760 to work with there's a lot of amazing and ambitious 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.680 projects for people who are building clean sheet design airframes, 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.720 lighter airframes so on, that are purpose built for electric engines, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.280 and a lot of them are building their own electric 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.679 engines in those cases, and we intend to work with 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.360 companies like that too to plug into our platform. As 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:18.880 I mentioned, you know, we have a brand in a 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.960 platform which we have our own fleet, and we've got 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.280 a number of other operators that fly within the platform, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.760 and we would like to provide people with the best 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.560 aircraft for the best use case. So if there's a 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.560 great new clean sheet design aircraft that comes to market, 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.200 we'd like to be the one to help distribute that 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.720 and commercialize it too. Wow, so we will in the 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:36.120 long run have a range of products. 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:36.400 Yeah. 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.680 It makes me think of some of the sort of 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 the big displays we saw where you had things like 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.600 the solar powered plane that made the journey around the world, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.280 and you realize, all right, well, this is not to 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.760 show some sort of practical use for an aircraft. This 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.520 is not an aircraft that's going to take you, you know, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.400 from one city to another. But what it does start 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.720 to show is potential for various technologies to be incorporated 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.960 in real world applications. And it's exciting to talk to 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.200 someone at a company where you're actually kind of doing that, 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.360 where you're using this upgrade approach. And I love creating 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.040 that incentive as well, the upgrade incentive where you know, 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.400 for a similar price you can swap out the powertrain 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.360 for your aircraft and you know that you're going to 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:26.000 be incurring lower costs down the line. One of the 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.120 things that I think is really interesting is in the 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:33.440 auto manufacturing space. We've heard time and again from manufacturers 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.920 that changing from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.160 ends up simplifying things a great deal, both on the 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.640 manufacturing and fabrication side and in the maintenance side, because 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:52.680 the systems themselves are inherently less complex than your traditional 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.240 fuel powered engines are. So is the same thing true 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:57.600 with aircraft. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.760 Yeah, absolutely so. Think about you know, electric motors are 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:05.080 much simpler. What we're doing is designing and assembling electric powertrains, 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.400 which are a combination of motors, battery packs, a layer 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.880 of control software you wrap around them. In the case 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.200 of the hybrid, you're also adding a smaller, more efficient 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.480 combustion motor that helps charge the battery. And given that 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.800 there's also a real software layer that wraps around this 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.720 and then integrates into the aircraft, the aid the hardware 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.160 is all cheaper to maintain than the existing combustion engine, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.360 and b the ability to continuously evolve and upgrade the powertrain, 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.960 similar to what you've seen with electric cars or other 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.800 kind of systems, where where an operator that takes an 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.120 electrified powertrain from US will have they'll have that one 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.080 time fee to install it. There'll be an ongoing relationship 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.080 with them, which is not just about basic maintenance. It's 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.680 also about constant aircraft health monitoring, predictive maintenance upgrading, kind 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.240 of as batteries get to next generations and evolve like 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.480 the product will continue to evolve, So you may see 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.920 an electric aircraft with a fully electric aircraft with an 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.120 initial initial range of one hundred miles that at and 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:01.880 get upgraded to go two hundred miles at some point 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:02.440 in the future. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.119 Yeah, it blows my mind too, because I'm from I'm 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:10.640 old enough where the idea of something like the equivalent 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.320 of a firmware upgrade to a vehicle is a completely 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.879 foreign concept to me, because I think back to my 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:22.440 childhood and the computerized systems and vehicles were very primitive 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.920 and very limited. You're talking about bunch of micro controllers 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.440 that don't even really talk to each other. And now 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.000 we're in a world where we have a lot more 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.800 interconnected systems, where because we have that capability, it opens 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:40.160 up opportunities that we can't even necessarily conceptualize right now. 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.720 Right it may be that three years down the line 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.480 we realize, oh, we can leverage this because we've built 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.359 it into the vehicle to deliver some new features that 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.240 end up being huge improvement of quality of life or 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.200 much more effective for the maintenance and care of aircraft 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.719 or the operation of those aircraft. To me, that's another 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.879 really exciting thing about this approach, And of course that 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.800 doesn't necessarily just limit itself to electrified vehicles, but it's 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:11.720 kind of in line with that too, where we're talking 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.359 about this you know, integrated package where it's not just 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:20.159 the drive train, it's the entire system, the control system, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.920 and everything that's wrapped around of the software that enables 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.640 everything as well. And I had read up on an 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.320 interesting thing about electric planes, because if you've ever ridden 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.199 an electric vehicle, you know that they operate at a 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.560 much quieter noise level than an internal combustion engine vehicle. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.479 The interesting thing with electric planes is that they do 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:46.680 operate more quietly than your typical fuel driven aircraft. But propellers, 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:51.359 you know, turboprops make noise, and if you're in an 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:56.240 aircraft that's being powered by a fueled engine, chances are 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.080 the engine noises are actually drowning out anything from the propellers. 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.400 You're not hearing them unless you're maybe sitting up there 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.760 with a pilot. But in electric planes there's less to 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.280 mask that. So I'm curious, what are you looking into 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.520 as far as ways to mitigate propeller noise? In order 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:17.600 to make sure you're not impacting the passenger experience too much. 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.000 So in the world of building aircraft, there's the airframe 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.199 manufacturer and there's the powertrain, which, unlike ours, those were 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.040 actually separated a long time ago, which is why our 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.280 business model is survivable to be in the powertrain space. 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.199 I would say the airframe manufacturers are actually doing a 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:38.080 lot of interesting things like adding blades to propellers, curve propellers, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.720 things like that to mitigate noise. I'm not sure if 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.560 the propeller noise gets louder, if the engine noise gets softer, 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.480 I get the relative comparison. I'm not sure there's been 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.880 enough electric planes flown around to kind of prove that out, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.240 so reserve judgment on that. But certainly there are enhancements 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.879 being made on with propellers to make them quieter, and 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.000 certainly the goal of electrified aircraft. We're not suggesting that 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.360 electrified aircraft will be silent, but certainly the goals are 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.399 to reduce noise levels because to your point, you know, 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.040 there's all of these airports that can be accessed, and 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.439 reducing noise levels to be able to get in and 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.240 out of ones in more crowded residential areas would be 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:16.440 an extremely helpful. 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.800 Thing, right, right, Because we're also hearing onlike the crazy 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.720 ultra lux side of aircraft, all these companies that are 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:30.320 struggling or trying to become hypersonic aircraft companies, and they're 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.440 trying to suggest, oh, well, we're designing aircraft that's going 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.520 to minimize or even eliminate sonic booms. I'm not a physicist, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:39.880 but I have a real hard time believing that based 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.080 upon how air works. But I hear about that, and 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.360 I'm like, oh, yeah, finding ways to minimize noise so 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.679 that you are not a nuisance to the community. I mean, 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.200 especially if we're looking at utilizing these various airports, these 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.800 regional airports at a higher rate, then it stands to 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.000 reason that you, if you want to do good business, 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.040 you have to take that into consideration as well. 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.159 And everything about our model we talk about wanting to 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.879 sustainably connect the world's communities. Like the idea is how 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.479 we create value in a community. We would like to 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.480 create more jobs in that community. We'd like to have 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.880 people who live there be able to move around quicker, faster, cheaper, 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.600 ideally quieter. Yeah, as well, and not sit in traffic 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:22.320 for four hours. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:26.359