SESAR 3 JU 2022 annual conference - Hot Seat - Dirk Hoke

Now we were engaged in many activities and we are still a very small company, so we had to really focus. But last year Volocopter decided to join because we always said one of the most critical parts is public awareness and we need to talk about regulation, we need to talk about integration into our daily life, and we believe that the joint undertaking will help us to address many of the fears of the public, that we will work closely together with regulators and standardization bodies in order to identify the problems, what scares people, and how we can take that into future operation. I want to come back on that issue of public opinion later on. So it really is that being part of the network, that collaborative approach, but also and therefore being able to talk to the regulators, the policy makers more easily, but that wider issue which we'll come back to.

Yeah, this is quite interesting. People see it flying and still think it's only happening 2030, 2035. And when we tell them we plan to have a commercial operation by end of 24, they look like, oh. And what you saw flying was not even our new product, it's still a prototype, the 2X. In parallel we already work on a B0 model which is currently doing flight tests, and we are going to start flight test with the full B model early next year. So we do flight tests in different stages and we're preparing for certification by 24.

So all day we've been saying technology's there, it's the other things we need. I think to be honest we're currently in the process of evaluating that with our partners in Paris, with our partners Aeroports de Paris and ADP, and in Rome with Aeroporti di Roma and UrbanV. We're looking at what is needed because we're in close contact with the local authorities as well, and of course for the certification of the EASA. So we find out now more and more of what is needed in order to be prepared for taking commercial operations up in 24. So for the moment we believe it's possible, but of course it would be nicer to have already a smoother process so that we know exactly we have to do A, B, C, D and then we are able to fly. I think it's not yet a problem because we will not, what a lot of people are afraid of, that suddenly hundreds of vehicles will come into the market. We will have a step-by-step approach. We will have a few demonstrations where we have A to A flights, we have A to B flights. So we will show that we can do commercial operation from 24 onwards, but it is a step-by-step approach which gives us time to work on the other topics that you discussed already today. Because we all want to go to autonomous flying, because if you want to really scale the business model at the end, it's about automated and autonomous flying. And this gives us a few years to prepare for that while we get experience in commercial operation in urban spaces. But we still have to accelerate because I remember that I was involved in similar discussions a couple of years ago and it was still the same discussion that we had about ATM going to the next level.

And I think this is our big challenge. We have to discuss how we accelerate the merge between U-space and ATM. And what do you see as the key reason why we're not making progress as fast as we need to? I think that's a very difficult question because I'm not involved in all the discussions, so I cannot dare to say what is the problem. What I see is we are used to, I think the whole system is built on trust, and I think that's also very good. So I think there's no compromise possible on safety, and this is exactly what we do also for memorability. We will have exactly the same safety standards as in civil aerospace. So this is a given and we cannot take any risk to play on the safety side. But I think what is also clear is that we have a system that is built on rules that have been created 100 years ago and that have been slowly evolving, but also very often saying don't change a running system. And this brings us to a moment now where we need urgently a digital transformation from away from a human-centric system to a computer-based system, of course always with humans involved. But the next level of aerospace is not possible with the system we have today. And we heard that today several times. But flying 24,000 aircraft today is a challenge. Going to 30, 40 and having then several thousand drones on top of it, I think we all know that is not possible with the system that we see today.

I can only tell it from the experience last week. We had on Thursday morning 250 people coming at 8:30 to the airport in Rome. In order to get there they had to get up very early. So people are really interested in the topic, they want to see it. And all the comments I heard was like, oh it's much less noisy than I thought, and it's much more impressive than I thought. And this is an early prototype. So two times 250 people I think became ambassadors for the topic because they saw it's not an annoying picture, it's not as loud as helicopters. It is something that we will see we can integrate safely into our natural mobility network. I think that's why the step-by-step approach is so important. We have to take that series, we have to involve people so that they can witness that it's feasible. We did similar things when we were flying in Stuttgart. We asked the audience before the flight if they would use such a system and what they expect from noise wise, and we asked them afterwards and it changed completely. So we see once the people witness that it's less dangerous, that it's less noisy, and it's less annoying, people start opening up. But the point that Mr. Kelly was making, which perhaps sort of links to what we call in English NIMBY, not in my backyard. So in principle fine, all sounds like a great idea as long as they don't land on my roof. Do you think that will be so that broad public positiveness?

No, I think you see the problem is that a lot of people have a picture in mind more like The Fifth Element where we have millions of vehicles flying above our heads. Or a lot of people have, when we first saw the DJI drones coming into the market, we had this high frequency noise everywhere, people didn't like it. So first of all, the noise level is really, I think, not as, you cannot compare to such toy drones. It's a total different frequency, it's more acceptable. Landing on roofs, we will see of course vertiports on roof at a certain point of time. Why it shouldn't be possible? If you can land with a helicopter on a roof, why you shouldn't be able to land with a Volocopter or another UAM in the future on the roof? But I think most of the routes that we're currently discussing, they are rather looking at first demonstration. So it's from airport to downtown. In downtown there are different options, and even in Paris they're looking at options landing on the roof, but probably in the second step, not in the first step.

Every city is different. That's why we always partner up with local companies and authorities in order to develop that system. It has to be, you have to have the local knowledge, you have to have the understanding what is important in that area. So you always need a local network of partners.

Yeah, we can compare it with Singapore for example, where we will start operating also end of 24, beginning 25, interesting flight in the Marina Bay, 12 minutes round trip. There the authorities have been really, really fast and forthcoming. They also gave us land in order to build the vertiport there. So we see that Singapore has always been a very innovative city and country. So we see a lot of support there. I think it's not always like that, but we see also in Asia there's a high interest and they really want to be at the forefront of that new modality. So we see that they're really eager to engage and to do a fast forward.

I think we're doing well. I think we are still, let's say, I looked at that topic 2015, 2016 when I started to work for Volocopter, and I wouldn't have expected that we would go into a certified operation end of 24. I wouldn't have guessed that at that time. So I think we're complicated, we're slow, but we still make things happen. So I think we're still innovative, we're creating innovations everywhere. I think Europe has a strong culture of innovation, and I think our diversity is probably also at the root cause of it. Are we always completely more complicated? Yes, sometimes I think, but I wouldn't say we are worse than other nations of the world.

Yeah, if you look at the brochure that's laying out on the table, and I looked a bit at the flagship programs for the Digital Sky initiative. If we only do what is written there, this would be magic, I think. We can implement these projects, we can accelerate this project. I think my wish list is covered. So is it easy? No. I know that there are currently a lot of discussions with ATM happening on these topics and progress is rather slow. But if we can execute the wish list along that brochure, I'm totally fine for the future because this gives us time while we do the step-by-step approach in our pilot cities, commercializing operation still with a pilot, creating confidence that the public can accept this new modality, and then I'm preparing for the real business case which is autonomous flying. And then hopefully we have the rules and the regulations set in close alignment with the next level of ATM in order to fly at a different level.

I hopefully we see progress in the discussion on ATM level, that we're opening up not only saying yes we are open but nothing happens, but really tackling the topics according to the list which is clear. I think everyone has the same list of topics that need to be done. So really making progress, evolving until the next level. This is not going to happen in one year, but we need to get started and we need to accelerate.