Aviation Reimagined

 ? All rights reserved Issue: February 1, 2021

Aviation Reimagined

Alex Taylor Founder and CEO

Orb Aerospace

Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor CEOCFO Magazine

CEOCFO: Mr. Taylor, the first thing I see on the Orb Aerospace site is, "What it means to fly will never look the same again." Why is that? Mr. Taylor: We have been flying and travelling the same way for the last sixty years. Look at general aviation and the fact that we are still using internal combustion engines, air cooled opposed piston engines, we are not even using fuel injection in general aviation. Therefore, the way we fly is actually more reminiscent of the 1950s than it is of our modern technology.

Orb Aerospace is democratizing aviation through the development of new technology integrated with new airframes, that bring the price of aviation down to a point where the expansion of the ability to fly for all people can be prolific. It's this idea that we can enable accessible aviation for all mankind.

CEOCFO: Are the big aerospace companies not looking for better ways? Does it not make sense for them? Where does what you are doing fit into the whole realm of the industry? Mr. Taylor: We like to address something called the "complacency cycle", you see this in big business all the time. If there was no complacency in big business there would never be a need for start-ups. Therefore, you have a period where the pioneers of a certain company or technology bring their technology to fruition and it revolutionizes that sector. You see that with Boeing and Airbus, where their engineers are highly specialized and their R&D/concept department is just for show. It is kind of like the Detroit auto shows, where at the Mercedes Benz booth they have this crazy, futuristic concept. Then you go back home and three or four years later you are waiting for the next Mercedes to look like the one you saw in Detroit and that never happens.

It's partly because they have so much invested in production tooling, they become totally unwilling to change. However, if they were to develop something like us, they would be competing against themselves, which is something most companies should do, but very few have the agility or the audacity to do it.

CEOCFO: What can you tell us about your technology? Mr. Taylor: Essentially, we've created an Aircraft that takes off vertically and flies horizontally. All that means is that we are basically combining the airframe of an aircraft with electric propulsion. If you have seen our Orb, it does not look like what people would normally perceive as an airplane. It has very unique shape and unique structure that we have engineered. However, we have integrated proprietary energy and propulsion systems, in laymen's terms, drone technology, applied to general aviation, so that we can put an aircraft easily and affordably in someone's backyard that can then take off and fly three hundred nautical miles.

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We have always had this dream of the Jetsons and the flying car has always permeated society. However, the reality is that a flying car, both a car and an airplane, is a poor representation of both. If you have a flying car, it is going to be a bad car and it is going to be a bad airplane. What we have done instead, is we have eliminated even the idea or the need for roads with vertical takeoff and landing. This is something that is now becoming mainstream. However, it was not mainstream when we first started, although you now see it with Uber Elevate and countless companies that are developing electric vertical takeoff and landing; urban area mobility.

What makes us so different is that we have also developed our own proprietary energy systems. This is where are using agricultural by products to create about five times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. Obviously, this has implications even beyond aviation and aerospace. However, it allows us, instead of going, say, fifteen nautical miles or hundred nautical mails, it is going to allow us to go almost three to four hundred nautical miles on a single tank. This again, is urea and ammonia and agricultural by products.

CEOCFO: When did you recognize you had something real that would work? What was that moment? Mr. Taylor: I think that moment is sort of progressive revelation. When we first had our one third scale prototype and we assembled all of our bits and we went out and it took off for the first time, the thought was, "Damn! I really am an aerospace engineer!"

On a personal level, I am self-educated, I have come from the background of just designing aircraft prolifically and working with drones from a very early age. For us to create the first ever kind of drone, first ever configuration, first ever transition mechanism; all of those things having that "first" label at the beginning of the things.

"We are in a privileged position to know what the future of aviation and transportation is going to look like and we are spearheading what is going to, eventually, quite literally, land in your backyard and be stored in your garage... This is the next evolution in the next generation of transportation technology that is going to eclipse what has already happened with electric road vehicles." Alex Taylor

CEOCFO: Are people excited because of your young age and potential to be a "rock star," or does it put some people off, maybe potential investors or partners? Does it help or hurt you? Mr. Taylor: I think it depends on each individual's personal ethos. I think that some of the most outstanding, intelligent, motivated individuals that I have ever met have neither seen my age as eponymous nor a negative. I am nineteen going on twenty, which is not something that I like to advertise, because I think it is actually completely immaterial to the company and what we are trying to do. What we are doing is age agnostic. I actually do not like it when they give me an advantage because of my age, but I have also met people that have immediately written me off because of my age. I have been yelled at over the phone simply on the basis that at the time that I was calling them I was seventeen. Now Orb Aerospace is a larger organization than the person that I was talking to. I do not say that to hold that over anybody, but it is just that I think taking everyone and everything at face value, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, is a sign of someone who is really in it for the greater good.

CEOCFO: What are you working on today? What is happening day-to-day at Orb Aerospace right now? Mr. Taylor: We are at a pretty exciting point in development. I am as busy as a founder can be. We are growing our team. We are adding more design resources, more aerospace engineers, but the primary thing that we are working on right now, is moving from scale development and what would be considered large drones, to now human sized, full scale technology demonstrators. That is a big portion of my time, although I am the designer/ engineer behind the broad concept of the aircraft.

Much if my time is now spent having meetings with military personnel on developing our market share there, interviewing to bring new staff on board and managing the staff that we already have on board and talking with investors, developing new forms of content in new media for the public. As a founder, where you sort of have to be a jack-of-all-trades and quickly shift from being on a trip, being with investors, to flight testing to social media and marketing. We did not outsource any of the marketing for Orb Aerospace to date, so that is something we are working on.

CEOCFO: Are you seeking partnerships, investors or funding? What would you prefer?

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Mr. Taylor: We have a pretty good group of strategic partners/investors that we have already formed. We are always looking to add to that group. We have aerospace executives and professionals, and when I say executives and professionals in the startup sense of the word, meaning that they are not just someone who was a vice president at a manufacturing firm. This is someone who took an aircraft business from nothing to three hundred million dollars in five or six years. Therefore, adding people like that as partners is exciting. These are people who love what we are doing for our humanitarian impact and are excited to work with us.

What we would benefit from most at this time, is we are looking for people who are willing to be the spearhead of adopting this technology, both domestically in the United States and internationally. That is a big portion of my effort, which is just finding and reaching out to those people.

CEOCFO: What would be involved in maintenance? How would that differ from a standard aircraft, other than it is smaller? Mr. Taylor: That is a great question. We have reduced the mechanical complexity of an airplane by around ninety percent. We you have a greatly reduced number of moving parts. It is a much smaller aircraft than some general aviation airplanes, so there are less structural issues you need to be aware of. As far as electric motors are concerned, what is the one of the number one biggest draws for someone buying a new EV? Less maintenance. At this point, buying a Tesla means less maintenance and no gas. The biggest problem with the Tesla right now is when sensor goes bad, and the same is true for our airplanes. A good example of this is that an engine overhaul for a Cessna 172 can easily cost you upwards of almost seven to ten thousand dollars. In this case, you can replace all of the electric motors on the airplane. No overhaul. Absolutely brand-new engines for seven thousand dollars.

When we talk about democratizing aviation, having a seven thousand dollar cost every ten years, is the kind of economics that we are looking for. We are not looking for something with limited utilities that goes fifteen nautical miles at forty-five miles an hour and costs three hundred thousand dollars. If I wanted that I would just buy a helicopter. However, what we are doing with SJX, which us our aircraft, our platform, is making it so affordable that it can proliferate into even the poorest of communities.

CEOCFO: What is the regulatory environment? Who would look over your shoulder? Mr. Taylor: That is another great question. I was just in a meeting with a gentleman in the Michigan National Guard and we are talking about operating at a military restricted airspace, so in that case it would be the General in charge of that base for demonstrations and operations and military training. Michigan is going to be one of the first states to start training our National Guard on how to operate around these Orbs; essentially, how to change the Warfighter in that environment, how is the battlefield going to change. Michigan is the first state to do that. In that case, it would be the base commander.

In a civil sense in the United States, it is the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). The FAA is slowly moving into accepting that this is the future. However, as a general principal, and as a private pilot, we know that the FAA is reactionary. They do not necessarily anticipate changes and regulate ahead of time, so my best estimate is that FAA certified operations over urban areas are at least five years out. That is why we are developing underdeveloped countries. First, it is because not only do they have the greatest need, it is not a matter for them of, "Lets skip traffic." It is not a matter for them of, "Let us optimize the battlefield." For them, it is quite literally a matter of life and death. "Will I have access to food tonight, will I have access to clean water, will I have access to energy?"

What we can do in that scenario is that our aircraft are so inexpensive that we can operate with individual countries on an individual basis. We can have special operating rules which we develop with the ministry of transportation and operate within those countries under a sovereign agreement in the local transportation authority outside of the FAA.

CEOCFO: What is the takeaway about Orb Aerospace for our readers? Mr. Taylor: You've seen what happened with electric vehicles, you have seen what has happened with crypto currency. In general, you want to live an altruistic life that is worthwhile and sometimes that means taking the risk to go fishing where "no one is fishing yet." That is what we are doing here.

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We are in a privileged position to know what the future of aviation and transportation is going to look like and we are spearheading what is going to, eventually, quite literally, land in your backyard and be stored in your garage. A crazy as that sounds, you can look ten years back and look at some even crazier things that have happened in the last decade. We are only going to continue doing that. This is the next evolution in the next generation of transportation technology that is going to eclipse what has already happened with electric road vehicles.

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