• By Emmanuel Guyonnet, Director Strategy Drone Avionics, Thales

Paris. 18 May 2019. The bell is the next concept for the so-called On Demand mobility. I’m proud to be part of this project delivering the flight control system of this new aircraft. It’s a tax, and they’re taxing by delivering those strike on force. We will make sure that the flight is safe. From A to B and that the flight is controlled in a safe manner.

So what what are the factors that actually are going to make this happen in the next coming years making it a reality?

We have four main drivers to make this happen in the short term.

1)    Economical and Business model

2)    Technology

3)    Legal and regulation

4)    Social and the environmental driver

We do believe that this era will start soon because two of those drivers are rather mature now. First the business and then – economical.

By definition, those new aircraft are much cheaper than the one you fly in currently. In addition, the business model and the usage are ready to kick off. When everything slows, there will still be profitability and there is no doubt about it. Second in terms of technology, we are almost at the point where we could really release desert technology that enables those flights to be in the air. There is obviously some fine-tuning still required, but we can see already a number of experimental flights in many use cases and we have already demonstrated that this is feasible.

However, the third one needs a bit more time, the regulation bit. And, the overhaul legal environment we believe is good. We are taking a bit of time because we don’t want to take any risk with that freak out but clearly isn’t a regulation that we will have to adapt. This is under way, and this will allow the development of those new business models. It still needs some time but it will come. The last one to my point of view personally is the more let’s say important one. This is the social tool.

Will we accept to fly in with no pilot on board, however, the question is – can you feel comfortable when there is no pilot on board? Would you prefer to have a pilot or not? Maybe is it more safe to have no pilot on board? And another question is will you accept to have those birds flying over your head flying over your garden with some privacy comes some possibility and so on and so forth?

We really have to build that all together – with the people not only from the airspace industry, but with people on the ground and also with people in the aircraft. We have to develop that quickly because the two main drivers are ready. We do believe that this is right at the corner and we are ready now to roll out.

If we look at the previous breakthroughs in the field of aviation, what is so different this time?

There are two factors to this. The first one is that if you look at the legacy is the history of aerospace, and you will see that most of it has been developed from that. Let’s say western parts of the globe in a kind of for almost monopolistic area.

Here, this is completely different. Innovation is coming from everywhere from every continent everywhere in the world. The technology is available, the technology is pushed and this is really new, and this is why it will go much faster than it was in the earlier age. And, the other one is that because, like I said the technology is much cheaper and much accessible. The number of use case will be multiplied a lot; you will have a lot of new use case based on unmanned air, the systems that we still ignore. Today.

More business cases, more is the competition. It will grow fast, clearly. Talent is a leading the company in developing safe and secure solution for the current aircraft industry. Also, just to tell you there is one thing on which there will be absolutely no compromise in this business. This is the safety and security criteria. Policy. And here definitely Torres has a role to place from deliveries delivering safe and secured a unique solution and overhaul you know end to end solution.

Taking the benefit of the experience we have, as well as of innovation that we can put into this field, securing the overall flight for both the benefit of people onboard and as with the benefit of people underneath. We are proud to be European and to be the European leader in a safe and secure a unique solution for drones, while delivering a smart compact solution. To low fast aircraft certification and to close the really large-scale development of the operation of the drone worldwide.

It used to be science fiction but maybe, I’ll show you your nexus just around the corner. I think you should call your taxicab. Finally, we can say that they are challenges but they are quite exciting.