• 01 Nov 2020 10:36 AM
• 0

VFS Continues Streaming to Keep Knowledge Flowing

By Jim Sherman, VFS Director of Strategic Development
Vertiflite Nov/Dec 2020

Converting technical programs to virtual events has kept vertical flight information flowing and made it more convenient than ever for members to stay current.

Over the past two months, the Vertical Flight Society has continued providing virtual content, with both industry interviews and virtual chapter meetings. Here’s a summary of what’s been offered. Links to past and future webinars are available at www.vtol.org/webinars.

3rd VFS eVTOL Infrastructure Workshop

VFS held the third Workshop on Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Infrastructure for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) virtually from Sept. 1–3, covering topics on strategic planning for vertiports, smart airport Integration of UAM, air traffic and airspace challenges, and infrastructure development. Each day also featured an interactive session where the attendees provided feedback about the topics of the days, and helped to define the content of the next workshop, planned for March 2021.

The first day featured leaders from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — Robert Bassey and Jonathan Torres — to discuss the FAA strategic vision for vertiport technologies and integration. The next session featured a panel discussion on integrating UAM into smart airports, as airport traffic is expected to be one of the early-use cases. Among the common themes of the day was the availability and delivery of electric power.

The second day covered air traffic, and featured an update on the NASA Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign from Starr Ginn and David Webber, along with representatives from the program sponsors Deloitte and Gannett Fleming’s subsidiary GeoDecisions (Brian Smith actually calling in from vacation in the Thousand Islands!). Wrapping up the presentations for the second day, the workshop covered the business cases for infrastructure development, the influence of flight testing on infrastructure, advancements in hydrogen generation for electric propulsion, a review of standards, and considerations for working with individual states.

The third day was originally planned for a tour of the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center and the National Aerospace Research and Technology Park (NARTP), but was converted to a virtual tour.

The entire program can be purchased for $200 USD on the VFS Vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/VTOLsociety.

eVTOL Writers Group Interviews

On Sept. 9, the VFS-supported “eVTOL Writers Group” resumed its regular interviews by featuring new VFS corporate member Dufour Aerospace. The webinar featured a tag-team interview with CEO Thomas Pfammatter and CTO Jasmine Kent; it was moderated by Nicolas Zart, a frequent contributor to Vertiflite.

Pfammatter and Kent provided a detailed overview of Dufour and the company’s formation, including the role that Canadair CL-84 tiltwing and Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor designs had in the development of the Dufour aEro 3 electric tiltwing design. The hour-long webinar also provided insight on the company’s background in electric flight including the Hamilton aEro electric conventional takeoff and landing (eCTOL) demonstrator. Pfammatter, who has an operations background — including more than 10,000 hours of mountain flying, with countless rescues — provided unique insight on the aircraft development, while Kent’s background with startups, including VFS member Daedalean, has created a potent synergy.

On Sept. 15, the eVTOL Writers Group held a second interview, this time with Jerome Casteret and Matthew Tkac of Communications and Systems, Inc., which provides certification services for all levels of avionics and software to customers in the US and Europe. Casteret and Tkac gave a detailed talk about the certification process and what’s involved, which can be overwhelming and full of pitfalls for newcomers to the industry. Aerocar Journal’s Dave Clarke moderated the discussion.

The video recordings of these interviews are available to view, free of charge.

VFS Chapter Meetings

VFS chapters have also been busy holding activities as virtual meetings, and VFS headquarters has helped to assist in supporting many these events.

The East New England, Stratford, San Francisco Bay Area and, combined, the Arizona, Redstone and Philadelphia Chapters have utilized the VFS headquarter’s GoToWebinar tools to hold chapter meetings, host speakers and development in a VFS webinar for the eVTOL Writers Group. conduct question and answer sessions. These free, sponsored web meetings have benefited from being available to the whole world, with the promotional efforts of VFS headquarters used to attract new attendees to the local chapters as well.

• Stratford Chapter: “Is Urban Air Mobility Really Disruptive?” with Jonathan Hartman, Sikorsky Innovations
• San Francisco Bay Area Chapter: “Rotorcraft as Robots,” Larry Young, NASA Ames
• Arizona, Redstone and Philadelphia Chapters: “Accelerating Towards Design-by-Analysis for Composite Aerospace Structures,” Dr. Subramaniam (“Subby”) Rajan, Arizona State University
• Stratford Chapter: “Audrey Brady’s Flight Path,” with Audrey Brady, Sikorsky VP of Commercial Systems & Services 
• East New England Chapter: “Bell 525 Relentless Flight Test Pilots - View from the Sky,” with Joe Twomey, Bell Flight Test Pilot

VFS is continuing the virtual programming, including webinars from the VFS chapters. Recordings of past chapter webinars and information about upcoming events are posted at www.vtol.org/webinars. We hope you will join us for these informative presentations and maintain your sense of community with your vertical flight colleagues, despite geographic and social distances.

Note that all of our past video recordings from webinars, conferences and meetings are linked from the VFS Video Library page: www.vtol.org/videos.