Revolution.Aero Europe 2019
Revolution.Aero hit San Francisco back in September last year, in March it was London’s turn.
Revolution.Aero Europe 2019
Revolution.Aero hit San Francisco back in September last year, in March it was London’s turn.
THE WORLDS of business aviation, commercial aviation, space and money came together to talk about the latest developments and plans for the future.
It is not just the headline-grabbing eVTOL that are shaping the future of flight. It is also blockchain, digitisation, autonomous flight and more. The landscape is ever-changing and no matter how closely you follow these developments, it is hard to keep up with every new start-up, every air-taxi and every revolutionary app.
But if the skies of the future are filled with fully autonomous electric-powered aircraft, whose entire history from production to sale is documented via blockchain, the money needs to be there to make this a reality.
And these ideas are far from pipe dreams. In fact, a lot of these developments are gaining traction. Investors and regulators are working with everyone from garage start-ups to companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange to support new market developments. The race to secure capital has begun.
The regulators need to support it too – and they seem to be onboard. “I am here to listen,” Simon Williams, the director of civil aviation at the Isle of Man Aircraft Registry told the conference delegates.
Several of the panels and presentations trailed away from these technologies to discuss how to bring the business jet market into the 21st century.
Digitising an industry where a lot of deals are done face-toface or over the phone presents issues. But this is an inevitability; everyone agrees that the market needs to be changed. Revolution.Aero also hosted the second Pitch@Revolution competition, where six new start-ups pitched their ideas to a panel of four experts.
The six different start-ups to take the stage were: Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) manufacturer Advanced Air Mobility; helicopter charter booking app FLYT; eVTOL-racing company Hover Racing Grand Prix; transitional personal VTOL manufacturer Neoptera; autonomous-systems retrofitter Nodein; and cargo transport and passenger hybrid jet project Samad Aerospace.
Nodein walked away with the panel votes and electricaircraft racing start-up Hover Racing Grand Prix won the audience’s hearts with the promise of a new electric-aircraft racing league.
