01x02 - Aviation

[bunniefuu]

[upbeat music]
[siren blaring]

It's a big challenge.

It's an exciting challenge.

It's got huge potential

Green air travel has been
on the agenda for a while

but what we're at is a point in time

where it's becoming a reality.

[upbeat music]

A global industrial revolution is underway.

Yes, we have a technological
challenge for our environment

for the wellbeing of the
population of the planet,

for civilization.

Driven by passion,

dedicated individuals intent
on shaping a new world.

I do it because I look at my kids

and I honestly am convinced

that this is the way.

A cleaner world.

There is a way forward,

other than burning fossil
fuels out of our funnels.

A greener world.

This wind farm is producing
more hours of power

into the grid than all wind farms in the UK

and probably in the world.

What we've done in the past

is not going to solve these challenges.

We need to find new ways
and I think the only way to do that

is to bravely step forward

and implement technology.

Together,

they are pushing engineering to its limits

to create extraordinary machines

that can our planet for the future.

[soft music]

If you wanna go somewhere

the airlines tell you what
airport they take off from,

what airport they'll land at
and when they want to fly

and you have to meet your schedule to that.

Is it sustainable environmentally?

The European Union predicted in 2015,

that global CO2 emissions
coming from aviation

go from about 2% to, by 2050,
being something closer to 20%.

We cannot be in a
position that this industry,

the aviation industry
takes such a large chunk

of the total carbon footprint
and energy use footprint.

[soft music]

Steve Wright spent over 25 years

working on some of the
largest aeronautical projects

in the history of aviation.

Now helping to teach the next generation

of aerospace engineers,

he understands better than most

the challenges faced by those seeking

to move away from fossil fuels.

Hydrocarbon fuel has been God's gift

to the aviation engineer
like me for the last 150 years.

And let's explain that,
let's put a number on it.

Fuel as we know it,

it contains about 40
megajoules per kilogram.

Good old nature has stuff called lard,

food of champions, 37 megajoules per kilo.

Dynamite, for example, only
six megajoules per kilogram.

It's just very good at
letting out that energy

very, very quickly.

But now let's talk about our batteries.

The battery, it's current state of the art

probably only about one and
a half megajoules per kilogram.

Admittedly electric engines

are probably about twice as efficient

as the internal combustion engine

but it's still only a fraction

of what we can achieve with petrol.

[soft music]

When Norway announced
that within just 20 years

all of its short haul flights
must be on electric aircraft,

it sent shockwaves
around the aviation world.

But a new breed of homegrown aviators

have already risen to the challenge

intent on creating a green revolution

that only a handful of years ago,

most would have deemed unthinkable.

[soft music]

Well, this story really
starts in the garage.

Moving back to my parents' place,

starting to build and
design parts for the airplane.

Tomas Brodreskift

isn't your typical aircraft designer.

He actually intended to have a career

working in industrial product design

but a decision he made

when looking for a case
study as part of his degree

would change his life.

I came to thinking that
wouldn't it be interesting

to use some of the
industrial design processes

to see if we could create
aircraft that are different.

So I basically used the exact process

that you would normally see

if you're doing a bicycle or
a coffee mug or whatever,

because the process of designing something

is more or less the same.

You have to analyze the way
that people use the products,

the way that they
interact with the product.

And what he realized

was that people were
quite dramatically changing

the way they wanted to travel.

Living in Norway,

we're already up to 30%, 40% electric cars.

So for me, the first time
I drove an electric car,

I felt like this is
definitely the future, right?

It's silent, it's clean.

Once you go back to the
combustion engine after that,

you're shifting gears

and you're listening to the
explosions inside the engine

and you kind of feel
the heat and everything,

and you think wow,
this is not the way to go.

Norway's rugged terrain

has always challenges to the traveler.

But Tomas became gripped by the idea

that electric aviation just might be able

to turn one aspect of
this dramatic landscape

to his advantage, water.

And in particular, Norway's


The main challenge,
which I find fascinating,

is trying to make a flying boat

that can fly as
efficiently as a land plane.

And the whole reason why this is possible

is the electric technology.

The whole reason why
we can suddenly do this

is because we don't have to bring

a big heavy combustion
engine with the propeller.

We can start to distribute the power

with a light electric motor.

And suddenly there are
so many opportunities

that the last designers,

the last hundred years have not had.

You can suddenly make aircraft

that are completely different.

Since those early years,

Tomas has been joined by a small group

of highly talented like-minded individuals.

And today we'll see the culmination

of over a decade's hard
work, dedication and belief

as the team prepare
for the very first test flight

of what they hope will form the blueprint

for a new generation of sea planes.

But before they can even
think about taking to the water

they need to establish
whether the plane can fly at all.

Two or three people designing a plane here

so none of which had done it before, ever.

Everything in this plane has
been made by hand, by us.

And of course we've done everything we can

to verify every single detail.

But at some point,

somebody has to take
that plane off the ground

and you want the person

that can handle the worst case scenarios

who can keep their cool
and you need a professional,

otherwise we might
end up crashing the plane

if something is off.

And the chances of something small is off

is quite high with a concept like this.

And the person chosen to take the controls

is as Eskil Amda, Norway's
most experienced test pilot.

A man who was flown everything
from world w*r two fighters

to the latest F-35 Lightning.

Since everything is theoretical,

up to the point where this
aircraft leaves the ground,

everything is just on paper.

So you have an aerodynamicist saying,

"Yes, it's gonna be stable."

But you don't know until you fly it, right?

So it's this extremely nervous time.

And really, it's almost a blur for me,

everything up to the test flight.

Okay.

[laughs]

[upbeat music]

[propeller hissing]

[upbeat music]

[soft music]

Sea planes aren't new,
people have been doing them

since the dawn of aviation, of course.

But we're traveling from
Oslo to Hamburg, for instance

and we wanna land on
the river next to the city.

This is not allowed
today because of the noise

that the combustion engine
and the high rev propeller

that these sea planes need to
get out of the water produces.

It's something that people

have been pushing
away from cities, basically.

So with the electric technology of course,

this can completely be reduced
by a huge amount of decibels,

maybe 50% lower,

and you're down to like a
normal boat or something.

At that point, you can't really
argue that these airplanes

shouldn't come close the cities anymore.

So that's the big change, you could say,

that will come with this.

Is that silent green products

should be able to
come closer to the cities.

It's really strange, but
it's first kind of a relief,

but it's almost like a dream

and it became very emotional as well.

And especially when Eskil also,

I remember he stepped out of the aircraft

and I gave him a big
hug and started crying.

I never cry, but I cried.

In 10 minutes, you get the answers

for seven, eight years of work.

The test pilot has this amazing
sensoric equipment, right?

The body, and he can immediately
feel everything that works,

everything that's wrong.

I think in any prototype
where there's a novel plane

where there's a geometry,
that's never been tested before,

it's extremely hard to hit the mark

without getting a list in the end

of things you have to change

Tomas and his team at Equator,

are know building up to sea trials

while at the same time using the test data

to develop a new four-seater version.

With a flying time of two
hours and a 500 kilometer range

which he hopes will go into production

within just two years,

but that's only half the story.

So the big question is who's
gonna take responsibility

for investing in and changing
the airport infrastructure

and the hardware
infrastructure to be available

so that people can
charge their electric planes.

We are there with a product ready.

We need it to happen in parallel,

otherwise it's completely
unsustainable, in a way,

the whole project.

One of the things that we
need is universal systems

that we can all just
walk up to and plug into.

What are we talking about?

We're talking about what
kind of voltage we use,

what hertz, sort of power we can deliver it

and how long it'll take.

And in the simplest case, it's what shape

is the connector that plugs
into my aeroplane today.

Aware of just such issues,

Sweden and Norway have
jointly set up Green Flyway.

A unique international test
arena for future aviation.

Covering a vast area,

and including two international airports.

It's a place where designers, engineers,

and aerospace companies can develop ideas,

test theories, push boundaries.

The scheme represents
a bold segment of intent

and is attracting aviation
pioneers from around the world.

I'm representing Pure Flight,
it's a company from Czech,

and we have developed this airplane.

It's an all electric airplane

with a 35 kilowatt hour battery

and can fly around three
hours plus with a lot of reserve.

Winter conditions

are just one of the many
challenges electric aviation

must be able to cope with to
satisfying not only regulators

but also future operators.

Green Flyway is also enabling airports

to understand what
infrastructure they will need

and how best to supply it.

But if electric aviation

is to make an impact in the mass market

there will need to be a larger solution.

Inspired by Norway's bold directives

Anders Forslund and his
partner, Klara Andreasson

believe they have the answer.

This is the Heart ES-19.

It's a 19 seater all electric aircraft

with a range of 400 kilometers.

And our goal is that this aircraft

will be certified for
commercial service by 2026.

It's a huge moment for this new startup,

in front of some of the
most influential people

in the business

not to mention members of
the Swedish Royal Family.

They are about to share
their vision with the world.

My business and I realized it's like,

this is not a research project.

This is something that we
need to commercialize now.

They may not yet have a plane,

but they do now have a way of powering it

or to be more precise, they almost do.

Yeah, we had a little
bit of a hiccup, I guess,

when we were doing this thing.

We think we've isolated the problem

and it really goes to show

that you need to iterate on the design.

So now it should be fixed
and we should be able to run it.

If this company is to capitalize

on the interest they have generated,

it's imperative that a
series of vital engine tests

are successful.

But in an industry not known
for doing anything quickly

what they have achieved so far

is nothing short of remarkable.

Our journey started in early 2018.

At that time, I was a
researcher at the university

here in Gothenberg.

And I had just come back from
a research exchange at MIT.

And I was really convinced

that electrification is the future.

And if we wanted to do this,

we had to start creating a company now

because the technology's already here.

Anders' passion was
shared by his fiance Klara

and together, they applied for seed funding

from Y Combinator, an
American investment program

that has helped launch many companies

that have gone on to
become household names.

I quit my job, Klara quit her job.

It was mixed feelings in the beginning

because I had a really good job

and a secure income and everything.

But we understood, both of us,

that this was going to take
so much time and energy.

So either we we do this together

or, I mean, we can't really be together.

At this point where we were like two people

and you say you wanna
build an aerospace company.

It's like, you're taking
on a huge challenge.

I mean, you have to be,
I guess, a little bit crazy,

but I guess if you're crazy
enough to think you can do it,

then you're halfway there

By the summer of 2020,

they'd secured hangar space, offices,

a small dedicated team of 12

and a concept that was beginning to migrate

from the drawing board
into something more physical.

Let me show you around a little bit.

You need to take a cue

from the startups of the software industry

where you have a small team that's talented

that has engineers that
are working a little bit harder

they are using all the latest tools.

And if you just get
that sort of mixture right,

you can take on the world.

And here's Nigel, hey Nigel.

The resume is like almost
like a modern history

of aviation.

Nigel Peapod's official title

is Chief Technical Officer

but amongst the team, for
some of whom the ES-19

will be the first aircraft,

he's affectionately known as Gandalf.

We found some of the
best people in aerospace

that I'm amazed every day

to be able to come to
work with these people.

We have to discuss this as well.

Should we take a step back
and go back to the drawing board?

Or is there a virtue in just pushing ahead

and seeing where this iteration takes us?

Then we have Benjamin

and Benjamin, he's
something out of this world.

He basically created-

So there's this thing called
electronic motor control.

And it's how you program the electronics

so that you can make motor spin.

And he basically created
a global standard for this

out of his basement.

His software has been made its way

to I think around 200,000
different electric machines.

Everything from electric
skateboards and motorcycles

and even like he's working on one project

to build like an electric heart,

which is funny because of
the name of our company.

The thing I love about this
whole electric revolution,

it's actually a piece of physics

that's been around for 150 years.

Visualize a series of
electromagnets in a ring

and then far inside it.

So we switch each electromagnets on in turn

and causing a big piece of metal

to jump between different positions.

We wanna switch those magnets

in and out really, really quickly,

but we need to switch them smoothly.

We need a gentle handover between them.

Otherwise, the thing will latch round,

a little buzz and it'll shake and rattle.

So what's changed, that's
made this all possible?

The extra magic that made it all possible

was cheap computers in the 1980s.

The moving parts of this thing

is simply a lump of iron in the middle.

But what does it give us?

It gives us an incredible force,

something that a conventional
electric motor can't.

And the fact that we, as a small startup

can develop something with
the performance of the jet engine

and efficiency that's
about three times better

and do that in five months.

I mean it's like too good
to be true for an engineer.

It's like really, really exciting.

So this is the equivalent
for the 21st century

of the mechanical engineer in the garage,

tuning his internal combustion engine

to get that perfect sweet note

and the best performance out of his engine.

But these guys today,
they're using software.

The entire electronics and software

for the entire rig here is
something that we have

that I have written mostly by myself.

I think for the certification

to make sure that everything is safe,

you almost need to be able
to build a system like this

in order to understand it well enough.

And that certification process

is also behind what to some might seem

the rather unusual choice of
having 19 passenger seats.

In reality, it's just one of many examples

of the pragmatic approach
this young company is taking

to get a large electric
passenger plane into the skies

as safely and quickly as possible.

This year, the first electric
aircraft was certified.

So that was the pipistrelle villus electro

is what it's called right now,

and it's a two-seater aircraft

and that's a certification basis.

Certification signifies the airworthiness

of a particular category of aircraft

and is needed for serial production

and commercial operation.

That extends up to 19 passengers.

So we can use that
framework that they've used

to certify that aircraft,
to certified ours.

And that's why we can have
a very aggressive timeline

on when we want this
aircraft to be in the air.

If we go to 20 seats and above,

it becomes the same certification basis

as a jumbo jet essentially.

So what they're doing here is sensible,

it's an incremental step.

They've seen an opportunity

that they don't need to
completely reinvent the aircraft.

They only need to address
the propulsion system

But if this vision for a brave new world

is to become a reality,

Anders and his team need to prove

that their motors and
batteries are up to the task.

As a simple way of recreating how a motor

would drain the batteries in real life,

they've come up with the ingenious idea

of using an array of halogen light bulbs.

And the thing that happens

is that when you're just
starting we draw the most power

because you have to take off and climb.

And then eventually we get to cruise,

when we don't climb anymore,

and then the power is going to drop.

We can probably hopefully
see that lights get dimmer now.

And that is because we need less power

to just keep the same
altitude and keep going.

As far as we can tell,

these lab batteries are going
to last for a very long time.

And that makes me real
positive to this whole thing.

[soft music]

Theory is one thing,

but will Benjamin's latest
software work in practice?

We've connected the battery module

to the multi controller now

which can provide probably


than we could before.

Now we have the full voltage

of all of those modules in series

to diffuse to the power switch

and now we'll go ahead and switch it on.

[soft music]

The broadcast is if this thing
catches fire now. [laughs]

Spinning it's up to much lower power,

but with the full voltage
and see how that goes.

[soft music]
[propeller whirring]

Seems to run fine so far.

So we're gonna push it a bit more.

I'm gonna increase the limits a bit.

It's difficult to overstate

how important this test is.

The motor represents the
very core of the entire project.

[soft bang]

What is that?

That didn't sound so good.

If the fuse does blow,

then we're probably gonna have a problem

because then we get the huge inductor spike

but yeah, let's go for risk.

Don't do something stupid.

Yeah, I'm getting too confident there.

But let's look up it to 70 amps

then we're probably
say for the fuse at least.

Okay, so keep it up.

[upbeat music]

Yeah, that's a bit more wind.

[upbeat music]

The ES-19 is now one
step closer to reality.

[upbeat music]
[everyone claps]

We only have to increase
that 10 times again.

Yeah, but that's the next step.

It's not the act of time passing

that makes a new technology grow.

It's the work of engineers that are working

and pushing the technology
towards their edge.

One of the most rewarding
things to what we're doing

is that you find out that
there's an extra gear.

There's one-

You might think that
you were doing your best

or working as hard as you can

but there is actually an
extra gear that you can find

where you can turbocharge what you're doing

and achieve much more than
you think that you ever could.

[soft music]

But what if you don't
want to wait a few years

for a new electric aircraft.

When de Havilland's DHC-2 Beaver first flew

in the summer of 1947
few could have imagined

that over 70 years later the same frame

would Herald a new door
in the history of aviation.

To take that aircraft that
you love, that fits your needs,

that does what you need it
to do, except for that engine,

convert it to electric
can actually make sense.

And so we're enabling the operators,

no matter what their
path is and their growth is,

to go electric.

Which is exactly what
Harbour Air in Vancouver

chose to do with this iconic float plane.

But it required more than
just a straightforward swap.

When you go from a
large heavy radial engine,

for example on the e-Beaver,

and you go to a small
lightweight electric motor,

in order maintain the center
of gravity of the aircraft,

we have to put the motor more upfront.

So we basically elongated
the nose of the Beaver

making it more aerodynamic

In December, 2019,

its 750 horsepower electric motor

was about to be put to the test.

With the attention of the
world's press fixed upon it,

it would attempt to become the first

full electric commercial
aircraft in history.

[soft music]

Even without the electric aspect of it,

the aircraft became more
aerodynamically efficient.

So we could, with less
power, fly the same aircraft

which was a tremendous lesson in itself.

[soft music]

Following on from their success

with the five-seater de Havilland,

magniX turned their attention

to the much larger nine
seater, Cessna Caravan,

a rugged workhorse used the world over.

When you're doing something

that wasn't intended to be done,

then there will be both losses and gains.

If we take the Cessna Caravan, for example,

on a regular engine or with
its internal combustion engine,

you'll be able to fly up to
a thousand miles in range,

a thousand miles, which is phenomenal.

Now, no one really flies a
thousand miles in a Caravan,

there's no restroom, it's
unpressurized, et cetera

but it can fly up to a thousand miles.

On batteries, the electric version,

can only fly about 100 to 150
miles with today's batteries.

The flip side is your costs
have gone down significantly.

For an hour and a half flight,

you'll spend $24 on electricity, $24.

Compare that to the same
internal combustion engine Caravan

for the same one and a half hours,

you'll spend $404 on fuel.

$404 compared to $24, that's fuel alone.

The potential niche
appeal of such retrofits

is just part of the picture.

In reality, they are serving
a much larger purpose.

So if you were to go a
year ago or two years ago

to a battery company and say,

"Hey, why don't you guys
develop a power source

"a source of electricity
for an electric plane?"

The answer would have
been, "What electric plane?"

Had you then gone to an
airplane manufacture and said

"Hey, why don't you guys
develop an electric aircraft?"

The answer would have been,
"With what propulsion system?"

Now there's a propulsion system

that is powerful enough,
lightweight enough,

reliable enough,
redundant enough, et cetera,

to power and aircraft,

now design these aircraft for it.

Which is exactly what a physicist

based in Israel decided to do.

But first he needed a company to make it.

So he started his own.

A lot of people when
we started this endeavor,

a lot of people asked us,

"You intend to be the Tesla of the skies?"

And we said, "No, this
is the wrong comparison.

"We're trying to build
the Model T of aviation.

"We're trying to build that aircraft

"that allows regular
people with regular income

"to use the skies for regular transport."

That's very different.

That's not your odd vacation, business trip

or flight to visit auntie someone,

this is your day to day
commute, reinvented.

Having a dream was one thing,

but the big question was would
anyone else want to share it?

So you need your operators
to really be in a position

that it makes economic sense
for them before you can say,

"Okay, don't worry about it.

"I'm gonna build a car-like aircraft

"and everybody's gonna
buy it and it's gonna be fine."

The, it's gonna be fine part

is not really part of
the efficient industry

on a day-to-day basis.

The sector they wanted to target

were the operators of
small regional aircraft.

After much consultation,

it turned out that nine
was the magic number.

But in order to break into the market,

they were going to have to come up

with something pretty special.

So the Eviation Alice
is a nine-seater aircraft,

nine plus two, meaning it has room

for two pilots or crew members.

With a range of over 440 nautical miles,

and a cruising speed of 220 knots,

the Eviation Alice offered the promise

of low operating costs made
possible by its electric motors.

It was enough to secure a
substantial prospective order

which meant that the pressure
was now well and truly on.

One of the things we did,

actually the first
investment of this company

was to buy a really
obscenely large supercomputer

and use it for simulation.

[dramatic music]

I think at the end, you can
simulate as much as you want,

at the end you need to actually build it

and see how it works.

[soft music]

So how many planes we've
built before Eviation Alice?

The simple answer is zero.

[soft music]

As a company and as a
person, we've never built a plane.

And I think it's, I don't
wanna call it refreshing

because obviously there are some advantages

to coming in to a project
with the enthusiasm

and the kind of clean
slate design and thinking.

But in all honesty, this is a
very, very humbling industry

and there's plenty to learn.

Omer and his team reached out

to over 100 experienced subcontractors

in more than 20 countries.

We had to jump through
the hoops and convince them

that this is worth their effort,

and this is worth their risk sharing

so that they can be on board this aircraft.

Some of them are huge names

that everybody knows in the industry.

Some of them are smaller players,

but yeah, the joke in the company goes,

how do you build a plane with 50 people?

And the answer is, well, together.

You need a lot of people
working with a lot of other people

in a lot of kind of expert groups.

So there is a design

but it doesn't mean we're the best people

to, for example, build the tooling

and actually execute on building that wing.

One company that took no convincing

was magniX.

When you can design something from scratch

and have higher redundancy
of propulsion systems

and put them in really efficient places,

because they're suddenly
small and lightweight,

you can do some amazing things.

The Eviation Alice has three motors,

two of them on the wingtips.

There's a lot of aspects to that

that increase the
efficiency of the aircraft.

For example, sometimes you
see these really cool movies

of aircraft flying through the air

and they have these
really nice smoke swirls

on the pips of the wings.

It's really cool, visually,

it's really bad for the aircraft.

Because this creates
tremendous drag on the aircraft

and it's basically
pulling the aircraft back

which means you have to put more power

in order to move forward.

Imagine if you could put propellers

on the wingtips that
rotate exactly the opposite

to those swirls you get to
see, basically eliminating them.

Suddenly the aircraft can
fly smoothly through the air

and have less drag, which
means you need less power to fly.

When you have propellers
at the tips of the aircraft,

you can actually use them
to help you control the aircraft.

So imagine today what's known as crabbing,

when you're coming in to land
and there's a strong side wind

because the engine is either
on two points on the wings

close to the body or in
the center on the nose,

then what you do is you
come flying into the airport,

almost at an, not almost, at an angle,

sometimes a very extreme angle.

Again, you can see this,

if you look at kind of
side wing landing videos

you can see the aircraft
flying on a side into the runway

and you think, "Oh my God,
how is this thing gonna land?"

And then at the very last minute,

they straighten out and land.

Imagine if you could independently

control the two wingtip
motors, you could, as a pilot,

flying nose straight into the runway

exactly as you would want to

without trying to manipulate the aircraft

and so it allows you to really do things.

Again, up until now have
simply been physically impossible.

By 2019, they were turning heads

at the Paris Air Show.

But although it was
potentially capable of flight,

this plane was scheduled

for intensive ground testing in America.

Yeah, it's an aircraft that could fly,

but what is it good for?

There are a lot of planes out there

that are flying their
maiden flight and that's it,

it's a proof of concept.

Even if they achieve something amazing,

like they break a record or
they fly very far, very high.

That's great, but that's not
what we're trying to achieve.

This is a company
that's building a product,

this product needs to be safe,

it needs to be certifiable

and it needs to be manufactured in scale

for a price that makes
sense for the industry.

And that pushes you, and
in some cases, pushing hard

gets you to a place that's risky.

At the start of 2020,

just a few weeks after the aircraft

had made a sensational debut at Paris,

the Eviation Alice was
hitting the headlines again.

During ground testing,

the aircraft was damaged
by an electrical fire

caused by batteries.

Ironically, the fire was caused by a fault

with ground-based equipment,

but inevitably it raised
questions about the safety

of battery powered flights.

If you're worrying about batteries,

let me give you this thought,

let me put your mind at rest by suggesting,

how would you have felt
if somebody had turned up

with a jet engine as a brand new thing?

Imagine what we'd be up against

if we tried to persuade
somebody to get on board a vehicle

carrying a hundred tons of kerosene.

And then someone explains to you

that they're gonna set fire to it

just over there, on the wing,
next to where you're seating?

You might be alarmed by having a fire.

All I'm concerned about
is can we contain that fire

when it happens?

Because the fire it's a sign,

that we're pushing the technologies,

we're discovering the
boundaries of where we can go.

One way I always put it is,
we as engineers have suffered

so you, the customer, doesn't have to.

As one of my good friends
in this industry told me,

"Omer, you're building an aircraft,

"you have all your people
safe, three wheels on the ground

"and the aircraft is still standing,

"that was a good day."

[soft music]

The testing campaigns that we're taking

are part of the development
process that you cannot avoid.

If you're avoiding it,

you're not gonna have a
proper product at the end.

One design change

that came about as a result of the fire

was another layer of safety.

The battery system was separated

into 16 fireproof compartments
each with enough energy

to safely power the aircraft on its own.

If, God forbid it happens,

and obviously you need to prevent it.

It's still safe for the mission
and for the passengers.

Maybe you won't get where you wanted to go.

But the idea of aviation
is not just prevent failure,

it's if something happens, fail safe

and that's where we're going

and I think right now,
on the battery front,

that's where we are.

With flight testing about to begin

and an estimated price tag of $8 million,

the Eviation Alice has
already secured high demand

for potential orders and the company

are already planning and
ambitious production run.

I think hundreds per year,

that will add up to quite a
few thousands within a decade

would be a realistic approach.

[soft music]

Although the electric aviation industry

may be in its infancy,
there's general consensus

that as battery technology improves,

its growth will be rapid.

Anecdotally, when we
started flying the e-Beaver

we had batteries that are about


Today, we're already seeing batteries

at 400 watt hours per kilogram.

This is less than 12 months later.

On the one hand, the
chemists are going away

and discovering new chemicals

that allow us to cram more
energy into the very box itself.

Then there are systems engineers like me,

who are finding ways

to operate those
batteries more efficiently,

to nurture them, and
cuddle them as it were.

And in the middle, the electrical engineers

can arrange these cells in
different configurations as well.

Do we put them front to back?

Do we put them side by side?

All these options are up for
grabs in this brave new world.

[radio chatter]

Britain's Cranfield Airport

describes itself as an
ordinary licensed aerodrome,

which carries out unusual research.

Although today, this is just a ground test,

this same plane operated by Zero Avia

was the world's first
commercial grade aircraft

to complete a flight powered
by a hydrogen fuel cell.

A hydrogen fuel cell is a
device which uses hydrogen gas

together with oxygen from the atmosphere

and converts that chemical
energy into electrical energy

which can be used to
drive an electric motor.

[soft music]

When Zero Avia made
that groundbreaking flight,

in September, 2020

it was hailed as a landmark moment.

In the conversion process,

So taking the chemical
energy of the hydrogen

into usable electric
energy on the aircraft,

you combine hydrogen, H2,
with oxygen from the air, which O2

And bringing that together
creates H2O, water.

And that is really the only
waste product that you have

on a hydrogen electric system like ours

and that water you can
discharge during flight,

and it does not create harmful emissions

or any climate effects.

Their first flight was
only around 15 minutes.

Now they're testing the systems

in preparation for a flight
that will last over two hours

and cover 250 miles.

Now, of course, as this
gets rolled out commercially,

you will start needing to
have stationary infrastructure.

And that is something that
we're working on as well

to make sure that at an airport
you can produce hydrogen

from renewable electricity
with zero emissions,

you can store it on site

and you can fuel it into any aircraft

that you will want to fuel.

[soft music]

What you see here, is
on the left of the container,

you see water, just regular water

and that water gets
used in the electrolyzers.

The electrolyzers take that water

and split it with electricity.

And that electricity can be
green, it can be zero emissions.

It can even come from solar or from wind.

And that's really how you
produce green hydrogen.

Storing the hydrogen is not enough,

you need to actually make it usable.

And making it usable

happens with a really
standard fueling system.

So you have this nozzle here
that you plug into the aircraft

and then you press the
start button on our system.

The system fuels the aircraft

and once it's fueled
full, it is ready to go

and fly 200, 300 miles.

This retrofitted Piper M-class six-seater

is destined to only ever
be a flying laboratory.

For commercial operations to be a success,

the team here at Zero Avia

will have to accommodate
something considerably larger.

In fact, hydrogen is actually
three times as energy dense

as jet fuel per kilogram of
fuel, which is really exciting.

As an example of why it's so important,

the maximum takeoff weight
of an AirBus A380 is 565 tons.

If its tanks are full,

fuel will account for 254 of those tons,



Reduce that weight and you
reduce the energy required

to fly the plane.

Because that's ultimately
what really matters

in an aircraft.

As you move up the scale of aircraft,

at some point, it simply becomes infeasible

to fly with batteries.

And at that point you
have to switch to hydrogen.

So our vision is actually
developing a system

that is scalable across
the entire range of aircraft.

We have first commercial use cases

actually as early as 2023.

But ultimately the system can scale

from something like a 60D aircraft

to a narrow body aircraft
like an AirBus A320

which is something we'd
be looking at in the 2030s.

[soft music]

There's always a strong sense of purpose.

I think you can feel that
across the entire team

that everybody's really dedicated

in actually making
sustainable air transport.



is less than 500 nautical miles.

That's exactly the kind of
market that we are targeting

with our hydro electric powertrain.

And that is why we're so
excited about its potential

because you can eradicate
all carbon emissions

from 50% of all flights today.

[soft music]

[drone whizzing]

Seems like a silly little toy,

but in fact it contains all systems

that are shaping a whole
new sphere of electric aviation.

[upbeat music]

At Marina Bay, Singapore,

a team from the German company, Volocopter

are making last minute preparations.

They hope that this aircraft

will be able to make a landmark flight

that could shape the
future of urban air mobility.

[upbeat music]

The origins of this remarkable story

can be traced back to


and his friend software
designer, Stephan Wolf,

unwittingly became internet sensations.

Well, it all began

when I saw these
small little micro-copters,

I mean the remote controlled ones.

I'm kind of a technical guy, so I thought,

"What would it take to scale it up

"such that a human can fly with it?"

It was the first manned flight

of a vertical takeoff aircraft
powered by electric motors.

But it was their choice of undercarriage

that also captured people's imagination.

We were thinking about a solution

that was very lightweight

and it turned out that these yoga ba*ls

are approved for like 400 kilograms or so.

Even today, if you ask someone,
"Volocopter, what's that?"

"Ah we did this thing with the yoga ball.

"Ah, yes, I know the yoga ball."

That's the story.

Up till then, it was really just a,

let's prove that this is possible.

But then the public reaction this triggered

both from the broader public,

as well as from a lot of aviation experts,

they came back to us and said,

"Guys this is fantastic,
we've been theorizing

"about distributed electric
propulsion for decades.

"And here you go,
actually proving the point."

Because this opens up a whole new paradigm

for safety in aviation.

Spurred on by the enormous interest,

they secured funding

and began seriously developing the concept.

I thought that it's so obvious,

many people in this world
would be working on it.

Later on, it turned out for years,

there were no followers, I
mean, we were the only ones.

Young companies are like young people.

They create these wonders

because they're too
busy doing something else,

when they're being
told that it's impossible.

When we started out, there
were so many people telling us,

"Guys, do you know all the problems

"that you're facing, right?"

And we said, "Luckily we don't."

So now looking back, many people are like,

"Okay it took outsiders
to take on this view."

Because an aviation insider

would have never set out on that journey.

All he would have seen
were challenges and problems

that seemed insurmountable
to him at that time.

We've tried to maintain
that original spirit

for as long as possible
because it's made possible

what was viewed as not
being possible at the time.

It was not the original
idea to be a pioneer

but then it turned out we are.

A team of 10 became hundreds.

Satisfying the rigorous
demands of certification

meant that every part of the system

was redesigned made safer, more reliable,

able to cope if something went wrong.

We have redundancy in all
of our critical components.

Most visible in our
electric propulsion unit.

So we have 18 propellers

and obviously a number of those can fail

and we can still safely
complete our mission

and this is completely new.

If you look at a traditional helicopter,

there's a whole very complex
change of components,

mechanical components, that
if one of those elements fails

the entire aircraft is in serious problems.

And that's very different
here with the Volocopter

and this safety architecture
allows us to build air vehicles

that we weren't able to build in the past

that are much, much safer
than what we know today.

This, combined with the
much lower noise levels

means that objections
that are previously applied

to helicopters operating in cities

could potentially be addressed,

which is why this flight in
Singapore was so important.

Having secured permission to fly here,

Volocopter hoped that it would
be a glimpse into the future.

Duncan Walker from
British company, Skyports,

was responsible for creating
what can best be described

as a temporary pop-up
airport known as a vertiport.

Yeah, hundreds of people
in the vertiport were waiting

and it was torrential, absolutely.

You know how Singapore
is, just poured, right?

Poured and poured and poured.

Not so happy about the weather.

A little bit nervous that the
whole event would not happen.

But it's a military airspace,

so you only get a defined area.

It's not like you can
just kick it down the road

and say, "I will do it at two,

"because one o'clock doesn't work."

You're doing it by mid
day or you're not doing it.

So we had all these people,
cutting the ribbons, press,

the TV crews were there.

And at the last minute the
skies opened up around the bay.

[gentle music]

It worked perfectly but
I don't think, at the time,

they realized quite how
close it was to not going.

It was a very special
day for me, of course.

Yes, I mean obviously.

And we got incredible
feedback from regulators,

from city official, from administrators,

but more so from the
public who for the first time

had been able to see it, sit
in it, understand what it was

hear it or more importantly, not hear it.

They don't even turn round

because they don't know it's there.

So there was a load of really great things

we could take from that

and then apply them to
other cities around the world.

We don't want this to be a rich man's toy,

very similar to helicopters are today.

We want this to be a
professionally operated fleet

available to the public.

That means the citizens
and the visitors of a city.

And by that we can actually democratize

the access to this new technology

and we can scale our services to a degree.

We ultimately, we have
the potential to offer this

at the price, slightly
above today's taxi rates.

Which really makes it accessible

to broad audiences around the city.

But this is just the first part

of a far more ambitious plan.

Initially, these aircraft will have pilots.

However, in the future,

the intention is for them to be autonomous.

But what exactly does that mean?

Automatic, we press the button,

the aircraft flies from A to B,

which is fine until there's
a balloon in the way.

Autonomous the machine chooses,

then we hope it chooses
to fly around that balloon.

From a technology perspective,
we can do it even today.

We can, for example,

automatically detect
emergency landing sites

along the trajectory, whether
it's free and good to land.

We can detect birds or
elements like another aircraft

or even small drones.

At sufficient distance,

in order to initiate a countermeasure,

in order to avoid such an obstacle

and avoid any conflict that might occur.

So that's technology, we
can already showcase today

but we continue to work on those

with a host of partners,
such as research institutions

and commercial partners as well.

There are a number of
challenges thrown at them,

but they always put
them into three buckets.

There's regulation, there's technology

and there's social acceptance.

Technology, you can solve.

Throw enough money and enough brains at it,

you can solve the technological challenges

that are being worked
through at the moment.

Regulation is on the right path.

Timing is less easy to
influence than technology

but there's momentum
there driven by business case,

driven by innovation,
driven by safety cases.

The big unknown is social acceptance.

When this is ready to go,

do people adopt it as a form of transport?

Do people embrace it?

Do they love it

because it's saving them
time, solving problems?

Or is it a bit more of an unknown

that people are nervous about using

and takes a longer time
to get up the adoption curve

and really scale?

[upbeat music]

But could drones offer a means

of socially acceptable transition?

Duncan and his team
have already begun trials

with drone deliveries of medical supplies

to remote Scottish islands
on behalf of the NHS,

the British National Health Service.

It's really exciting to be
flying drones for the NHS.

And as COVID hit,

it really accelerated what
we were doing with them

because it made what
was a routine delivery,

a really critical delivery,
flying COVID testing kits

between West coast of
Scotland and the Isle of Mull

very challenging in
certainly in remote areas,

putting new roads, bridges, tunnels.

But drones can circumvent a lot of that,

they can provide services

to communities which are underserved

with existing infrastructure

and can really change
lives very dramatically

in a short space of time.

The future is undoubtedly autonomous.

It's actually easier to
do autonomy in the sky

than it is on the ground

because there's fewer random events,

there's less ba*ls bouncing down the road

and kids crossing the road.

In recent years,

there has been a
proliferation of new companies

entering the urban air mobility market

hoping to be part of this
new autonomous revolution.

There's nearly 200 companies

out there in the world, at the moment.

And that's not including the ones

that are working in secret
and there is such a thing.

One company Ehang, based in China,

has even begun making
autonomous passenger flights.

[soft music]

So they've been able to create

a very, very nurturing environment
within their own borders.

The problem is, is when they come to export

into the wider world.

Regulatory regime in China

is very different to the
rest of Asia, to Europe

to the U.S.

And in controlled environments,

they can do things frankly,
just much more quickly

than we can do in the Western world.

How that translates to the Western world

is a bit of an unknown.

There's gonna be an issue

of how do we mesh
those different regulations

and it's gonna become a political issue

and only time will tell to
see how that plays out.

So what about the future
of urban air mobility?

That's gonna be up to us, frankly.

We've got the technology,
we know what we can do.

The biggest issue is
gonna be, do we want it?

Without question,

the way we fly is about to change.

A change that is not being driven

by the conventional aerospace industry,

but by a new breed of aviators,

not afraid to think differently.

As long as we continue to say,

"Well if the solution isn't 100%

"and it can't do all of my ranges

"and replace all of my
aircraft, I'm not gonna do it."

That's putting your head in the sand

and saying, "There's no problem."

Instead, change the way you think

and look at it, piecemeal.

If there's something I can
solve today, let's solve it.

You have the power to
actually do something yourself.

With that power comes the responsibility

to do something about it.

So here we had some guys

who built something in their garage

and showed to the world it's possible

but all the aviation industry have nothing.

It starts on this level
of small light planes

and it will grow into larger
systems as we move ahead.

Technology is the only key that I see

to open up a brighter future

that can be sustainable at the same time.

If we can be sustainable

with all of these aspects together,

we really changed the way we live.

And I think it's about time we did that.

I wish I was still my time in aerospace now

because it really is the
most wonderful time.

It's a brand new beginning.

[gentle music]