Interviewing Boom's Lead Flight Test Engineer
Jeff lead Flight Test Engineer @ Boom Supersonic, former Black Hawk pilot and Vahana electric VTOL engineer
Hello all,
Hope you are all well.
In last week’s update I talked about exploring a helicopter pod product for military applications. Thanks to @Michael for putting me in touch with Jeff [1], and thanks to Zac for suggesting the lucrative shore to vessel cargo market [2]. More on those below. Welcoming @Josh Ip a former founder of Kiki Air (drone delivery startup) to the thread as he has expressed a keen interest in helping.
I used the opportunity to talk with Jeff about where a potential market could be, and also quizzed him on shore to vessel cargo ops like Zac mentioned.
Here's a recording of my interview with Jeff:
Here's some of the things I learned:
- offering this as a combat solution is a non-starter due to the pilot being a sitting duck
- there is a strong need for stabilization of slung loads
- landing cargo on boats is extremely dangerous, especially in cold water, at night and dangerous conditions
- the pod enclosure and subsystems would result in excess weight, a hard sell
- an device attached to a rescue litter that can be inside the helicopter might be better for a number of reasons
It's an interesting chat, do watch the whole video if you have time.
A company called Vita Inclinata came up numerous times while researching helicopter stabilization systems. They have developed a helicopter load stabilization system based on simple electric ducted fans. The video demos explain it pretty well [3].
They have even managed to successfully lobby the US govt for outfitting this on 39 mlitary black hawks [4], and there is now budget defined for this specific type of product in the National Defense Authorization Act. There is now between $5.5MM and $11MM available (annually?) to spend specifically on this type of technology. This is a great sign, and definitely validation of the market. If this demand exists in the US military, it exists in all helicopter slung load markets around the world, commercial and military (hat tip Zac). My conversation with Jeff confirmed this even though he didn't seem to know about Vita Inclinata when we spoke.
A robotic system that can keep helicopters high out of danger would seem like a great fit for missions in low visibility, at night in high winds and rough seas where the payload needs to avoid colliding with moving structures fixed to the boat [5]. @Peter and I spoke this week about a gas thruster system that would provide far greater control than Vita, as well as having other benefits over their architecture.
My goal is to find more helicopter slung load operators to interview, especially those servicing dangerous missions like the shore to offshore market. Seems that commercial operators would be an even faster route to market.
That's all for this week. I'm in Spain this month to visit the in-laws and catch some sun in Barcelona and Ibiza so progress might be slow in August.
Thanking everyone again,
Arush
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mabry-365b7143/
[3] Vita LSS-SL at Norfolk Naval Station
[5] Extremely Tricky Emergency Airlift Rescue On Rough Sea | Deadliest Catch