A National Strategy for Advanced Air Mobility

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2:13Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. The China-focused business news site Kaishin today reporting that, well, it was actually this week, yesterday, that China has unveiled draft rules to speed up certification of eVTOL aircraft. We're talking about electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. You haven't been on one yet. Not yet. Yeah, no, neither have I. The story goes on to note, though, the regulatory competition with the U.S. citing industry executives. For more, we're joined once again by Lisa Wright. She's founder and CEO of Landings.

2:48It's a company that says it's building a landing and ground operations network of vertiports for eVTOLs. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Welcome back.

2:58Sean Duffy:Thank you for having me back. The regulatory landscape is a really important part of this. And I think last time you were on with us, you said that the first passenger carrying eVTOLs will happen in the Middle East. It won't happen here in the U.S. Is that still the case? That is still the case. I mean, they are carrying passengers in China, but the Middle East will be next. and then the U.S. is coming pretty close behind. Is it a disadvantage in terms of the regulatory environment here versus other countries? No, the FAA has been working very hard. Actually, they've streamlined and done a lot of fast tracking and changed the training for pilots because there's going to be new pilot training, et cetera.

3:34Sean Duffy:So I don't think the regulations in the air has been an issue. It's just, you know, in Dubai and the UAE, they were more excited about building the infrastructure first. So I'm very much about the infrastructure. So that's what we're trying to build. Well, let's talk about that. Because when we talk about electric vehicles, we just did a story this week about kind of how things are sliding backwards. And I think initially early on, Lisa, so much of it was the infrastructure wasn't there, the charging networks. And it created anxiety among the consumers. So talk to us about the infrastructure build out, where you guys are in this process, and what are some of the hurdles?

4:12Sean Duffy:Yeah. No, there's definitely a lot of hurdles. number one is energy. So getting access to energy is hard. We're not really competing with data centers, but data centers are looking for energy in areas that we're looking for energy as well. So what we're doing is we have two people on the team who are specifically looking at energy and getting the equipment financed and working with utilities, but also providing battery backup and energy systems in front of the meter in order to take up the slack for the charging. So charging is our number one issue, really. Finding land is great. We can do that.

4:48Sean Duffy:But getting the energy out, and to your point, there's a lot of attention being paid to EV networks right now that aren't necessarily succeeding. Do you actually have to be connected to the grid in order to charge? Could you create a sort of self-contained off-the-grid landing area that uses renewable energy? Absolutely. So we use about one or two megawatts of energy. And you can get that from five to 10 acres of solar. Okay. So there is a way that we can do with solar. And then store it. Exactly. And store it with the battery. And then we can exactly use it for the peak or the demand when they land and need it.

5:28Sean Duffy:But you can't just rely on that alone. Or can you? We could do that. I mean, there's still a grid connection to most places. Maybe in Arizona or, you know, I don't know, parts of California. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you see kind of this building out and what's the cost involved? Like, how do you do it? Is it public, private, partner? Like, how does it all get done? Yeah. So the first network of 12 that we have in upstate New York is a mix of different use cases. So we have agriculture, we have entertainment and casino, we have existing airports. We also have some private public, private partnerships going on with communities for like medical purposes and first responders.

6:06Sean Duffy:So there's a whole range of uses. Now, a lot of the vertiports that you see right now, they're very fancy. I call them Zaha Hadid buildings, right? They're amazing and futuristic, and they cost a lot of money. We're going to build 2 ,000 of these, so we're going to not make them cost a lot of money. And how we're going to do that is because they're mini. They're very small. They're micro. They're about an acre and a half is the minimum space we need. And we're going to put so many of them out there. We're going to put 2 ,000. Not all of them will have charging, but by having such a dense network, we'll be able to guarantee landing spaces and charging within 30 minutes of any spot you are.

6:44So I think about air traffic control in a situation such as this. And we spent a lot of time over the past few years talking about shortages of air traffic controllers. If we're sending more vehicles into the air, there's more of a need for air traffic controllers. How does that factor into the estimate for how these things are going to be filling the skies?

7:04Sean Duffy:Yeah, no, air traffic control is really overwhelmed right now with traditional flight. But because of the altitude that these craft fly in, it's a different altitude and it's a different wavelength for communications. So they do not have to use the existing air traffic control systems. There's a company, a nonprofit in Syracuse called New Air that is working on having all the demand for the airspace for heavy drones and eVTOLs. So it's going to be a completely different airspace. Right. But you still have to have some coordination, don't you? Because eventually even those that are flying much higher have to come down.

7:45Sean Duffy:Absolutely. Absolutely. And when they are near airports or towered airports, they still have to communicate with the tower and air traffic control like normal. mine because my locations are mostly um rural very remote they're not having the same conflict there in general airspace but also um the the reason one of the reasons that we chose the mohawk valley upstate new york is because this company new air has a thousand um miles of air space that they're already working in so there's drones and all kinds of different things flying there already the real estate agreements that you have in place what do they look like so we do two different types of real estate agreements, but what we're pushing for right now is just options.

8:26Sean Duffy:So we're not leasing and we're not buying the property. We're getting an option. It's much like a cell tower. So in essence, we will take on then the feasibility studies, the engineering, the build. We'll finance the equipment for the owner. And once we're operating, then we'll share the revenue with them. So it's been how much? A month or so since we've talked? Yeah. What's the biggest change in that timeframe? The biggest change in the last month, there's been two, but one is that everybody stopped focusing on individual vertiports and started talking about the network, which is really key for especially eVTOLs.

9:02Sean Duffy:Right. You can't just go from two points. It gets a little boring, right? You have to have a lot of locations. I need one that goes from... Home in Brooklyn? 731 Lexington Avenue. Okay. In midtown Manhattan. Just South Brooklyn a little bit. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, what do you envision that like we just got like 15 seconds? What's the view you think? I don't know. Is it five years, ten years? What's the vision? Five years from now, I believe everybody would have at least tried one. Wow. Okay. That's pretty cool. That's very cool. So first Waymo. Sooner than I thought. And then this. Yeah, this has people.

9:39This has people. Feel a little bit better? Yeah, I do. Close my eyes in a Waymo. Lisa Wright, founder and CEO of Landings, joining us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.

9:50They told us to expect change. They warned us about the transition. But honestly, they forgot the best part. This is the chapter where we finally focus on us. LifeMD delivers expert menopause and midlife care right from your home. From hormone health to holistic wellness, LifeMD helps you feel your best for the best years of your life. LifeMD, it's just getting good. Visit lifemd.com slash goodlife.

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12:37Terms and conditions apply. For many men, mental health challenges aren't recognized until they've already taken a toll. Work pressure, financial stress, changing relationships, and traditional expectations around masculinity can quietly wear men down, often without clear warning signs. In season three of The Visibility Gap, Dr. Guy Winch and his guests explore how these pressures show up, how to spot them earlier, and how men can access meaningful support. Listen to the new season of The Visibility Gap, a podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare.

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