How Major Helicopter Manufacturers Are Preparing
for the Urban Air Mobility Market
The development of electric and hybrid VTOL
(eVTOL) aircraft around the world promises to usher in a new era of aerial
mobility, changing the cost of access to vertical flight and potentially
opening new markets.
Each of the four major helicopter manufacturers —
Airbus, Bell, Leonardo and Sikorsky — are taking a different approach to
confronting the market disruption eVTOL aircraft and urban air mobility will
leave in their wake, with the former two companies investing heavily in public
projects on the bleeding edge of the vehicle revolution while the latter two
maintain more of a "wait-and-see" approach to the vehicles
themselves.
Interviews with helicopter executives from Airbus,
Bell, Leonardo, Sikorsky and industry analysts shed light on what the near-to-medium
term market impact is likely to be and the reasoning behind each OEM's
strategy.
Airbus
Of the four, Airbus’ exploration of the UAM space
may be the most all-encompassing. The company has two ongoing vehicle projects
— the unmanned Vahana demonstrator and the larger, four-passenger CityAirbus — which are intended to explore the performance characteristics
of eVTOL aircraft and inform final design decisions. Vahana, which is slated to
finish its flight testing this year, is run out of Airbus A³, the company’s Silicon
Valley unit, while CityAirbus is under Airbus Helicopters.
The decision to explore eVTOLs in-house through
these two demonstrator projects was intentional, according to Tomasz Krysinski,
vice president of research and innovation at Airbus Helicopters.
“In the case of urban air mobility, we made the
decision to do the testing and exploration ourselves,” Krysinski told Avionics
International. “It is also the way we teach our engineers … this is
the way we see Airbus and the evolution of technology. To be the leader, you
must acquire the technology and learn what you are doing. We took it in-house
to acquire and grow.”
Airbus is also exploring the operational realities
of urban air mobility through Voom, its on-demand helicopter service currently
available in a few cities across Latin and North America. Under Airbus A³, the
company’s work on detect-and-avoid systems for the autonomous Vahana has
evolved into the Wayfinder project, which intends to build autonomous systems
for UAM and work toward the goal of single-pilot operations on Airbus
commercial jets, according to Cédric Cocaud, chief engineer at Wayfinder.
Bell
Bell has also invested heavily in eVTOLs and urban
air mobility, most notably by dropping “Helicopter” from the company’s name at
the end of 2018 to indicate it aims to redefine flight and focus on innovation
beyond helicopters. Scott Drennan, the company’s vice president of innovation,
has been a regular presence at industry events discussing eVTOL aircraft,
electric propulsion, unmanned systems and UAM.
“As a technology company, Bell is focused on the
future of flight with next clean sheet designs more in the area of on-demand
mobility and future vertical lift, for example, the V-280 Valor and Bell
Nexus,” Bell stated in response to questions about its product strategy. “These
technologies will be applied to enhance current platforms. New designs are not
out of the question, based on market demands.”
Leveraging its experience as the manufacturer of
the V-22 Osprey, Bell is developing both cargo and passenger aircraft that use
tiltrotor technology to combine efficient forward flight with VTOL
characteristics.
Bell's Nexus
air taxi concept on display at CES 2019. (Bell)
Bell’s Autonomous Pod Transport program, or APT,
is being designed as a scalable family of electric cargo drones for commercial
and military applications. The company’s Nexus, a mainstay at industry events that was unveiled at this year’s
Consumer Electronics Show, employs hybrid propulsion and six ducted fans to
move a pilot and four passengers 150 miles at top speeds of 150 mph. Drennan
believes this configuration will be able to carry out the urban air mobility
mission by the mid-2020s, and as part of the Uber Elevate family, the
ridesharing giant appears to agree.
Bell is also flirting with the idea of operating
its own aircraft to capitalize on more of the UAM market but has not yet
reached a final decision. Although it is rumored that some of Uber’s vehicle
partners have entered an exclusive agreement, Drennan made clear to Avionics
International that this is not the case for Bell.
“I don’t want anyone who is looking at Nexus or
APT as a potential to their mobility solutions to think that we are in an
exclusive relationship with Uber,” he said.
Sikorsky and Leonardo
The remaining two majors, Sikorsky and Leonardo,
aren’t as focused on developing new eVTOL aircraft. Sikorsky confirmed to Avionics it
doesn’t have a vehicle concept in the works, though it tested electric
propulsion a decade ago via its Firefly program, based on a Schweizer S-300C.
Sikorsky shared an urban air mobility video concept earlier this year that was grand in vision but short on specifics. Jonathan
Hartman, disruptive technologies lead at the Lockheed Martin-owned company,
explained that the video should be interpreted as Sikorsky’s “agreement that
there are challenges in point to point short distance transportation today, and
that new vehicles and new technologies can have a significant impact on that.”
“I do think that electric propulsion has the
potential to vastly simplify vertical takeoff and landing vehicles,” Hartman
told Avionics. “I think it has the potential for reduced acoustics
and reduced costs … and the reason we’re seeing so much innovation in that
smaller space is because that’s where the technology is ready for right now.
It’s ready to disrupt the several-thousand-pound side of the market. I think
we’re still watching it grow to see the intensity and curve of the S-curve that
brings it up into larger and larger applications.”
But Hartman doesn’t think the vehicle is the most
important element for Sikorsky to be working on at the moment. Instead,
Sikorsky has worked with Otis, an elevator manufacturer, to develop an app that
focuses on the logistics of getting the passenger to the correct helipad, an
important problem for the UAM value proposition of saving time and trouble. The
app is set to unveil at CoMotion LA later this week.
Sikorsky is also focused on applying advanced
autonomy to helicopters, creating the Matrix system through which “with 30 or 40 minutes of
training, anybody can safely operate a 12,000-pound helicopter,” according to
Hartman. Matrix exemplifies the company’s focus on enabling technologies that
can be applied to its core products.
“We haven’t made a final determination as to how
we move forward in [the UAM] space,” Hartman concluded.
Leonardo, which hopes to soon gain certification
for its AW609 civil tiltrotor, provided the following statement regarding its
plans for UAM and eVTOL aircraft:
“Urban Air Mobility, personal transport in urban
areas using electric aircraft that have the ability to take off and land
vertically, is a new business segment which Leonardo is looking at with great
interest. The company is investigating a number of possible routes to market
that differ by type of partner, timing, risk profile and financial commitment.
The challenge for Leonardo is to position itself successfully in a nascent
segment that is poised between the worlds of automotive and aerospace engineering.”
A Leonardo representative made clear that any
further comment on the company’s plan for eVTOLs and the urban air mobility
market would be premature.
Industry Analysts
Industry Analysts
Analysts largely agree that traditional rotorcraft
sales won’t be impacted in the near future, despite variance in the expected
size and arrival timeline of the UAM market.
“[Bell] 505 and [Robinson] R-66 sales numbers are
holding up okay despite this alleged revolution, in part because people don’t
see this happening anytime in the next five or 10 years,” said Richard
Aboulafia, vice president of the Teal Group.
Aboulafia is skeptical that new eVTOL aircraft
will result in a brand-new urban air mobility market that justifies the current
investment into the space.
“What will matter is to what extent these aircraft
open up airspace and markets, and people begin to think differently about
helicopters,” he added. “There are a lot of places where helicopters just ain’t
all that welcome.”
Aboulafia counsels OEMs to ensure any strategy
involving eVTOL production is not predicated on mass demand; if demand is more
limited than the hype predicts, manufacturers will need to be able to profit at
lower, more typical aerospace production rates.
Michael Dyment, managing partner of Nexa Advisors,
is more confident electric air taxis will create new markets, though he expects
to see peaceful coexistence between the new aircraft and traditional
helicopters.
“It will be years before these vehicles are
certified, so there’s a lot of revenue on the table right now using existing
helicopters,” Dyment said. “I see less disruption and more peaceful
coexistence, certainly for the next decade. After that, automation takes up and
by the time I think the helicopter manufacturers will have adjusted, so we’ll
see what happens.”
Dyment is confident in the continued success of
the major OEMs because he says “they’re all in” on developing new aircraft, and
they will choose the right dimensions and capabilities to not cannibalize their
existing product lines if they don’t have to, he told Avionics.
“Some of the big names are pursuing a wait-and-see
strategy,” said Pamela Cohn, managing partner of Ascension Global. “There is a
lot of uncertainty in the market around timelines, market size, and aircraft
and airspace technology.”
“Unless you believe you have a unique advantage
over the 200+ existing aircraft concepts, it can make sense to wait out the
development cycle and acquire the leaders in a few years.”
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