Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Fabi Riesen: I mean, think about measuring the eyes so we have a full blown eye tracking where you see the pattern, scanning and so on, and you really can help the pilot. I mean, at the end, having such tools that just makes faster, safe pilots, and that's what you want to all do.
[00:00:18] Intro: Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
Our guests include aviation experts, pilots, financiers, military leaders and innovators of all types.
Buckle up for another episode of Hangar X.
[00:00:47] John Ramstead: All right, welcome to the Hangar X Studios podcast. We are here live at Verticon and this is where disruptors and innovators and the doers in aerospace are talking about things that we need to know about before the rest of the world does.
And today we have Fabi Reasonan. Fabi, thank you so much for being part of this podcast.
[00:01:05] Fabi Riesen: Thanks a lot for having me here.
[00:01:06] John Ramstead: Now, people that might not know Fabi, it's with Loft Dynamics and you guys are completely changing the game on helicopter simulators, on training, full motion simulators, and it truly is a game changer. We were just talking about this before, but before we dive into, I got so many questions for you, but what was the vision that led to you founding Loft Dynamics and, and what you've created that's now been certified through the FAA and across Europe?
[00:01:34] Fabi Riesen: Yeah, well, basically myself, I'm a hobby pilot since 1999, flying around with small single engine piston aircraft. And I was always wondering, being an engineer by myself, what could be done, what could be improved and so on. And then back in 2013, for first time they got out this virtual reality headset. So basically a visual system, you mount to your head and out of a sudden it was possible to have three dimensional view. What I mean by this is like you don't have screens and if you move the head, the screens still remain like in the very expensive simulators. But you can move your head and out of a sudden you can watch vertical down.
The environment is moving the elements of that. So you out to certain have much better perception. So there I had this headset in hand and in addition, knowing what's there in simulator, it was for me very clear that the traditional full flight simulators have simply a wrong visual system. Simply wrong. I mean if you move the head, nothing is moving, so it's not representative what you have in the real aircraft, what's actually needed, especially in the helicopter world. So at that time I started to experiment in the living room and build the motion system around. Got power from the kitchen, from the living room, from everywhere. Just that the house is not collapsing. And then it somehow worked out. And then over time, a team has built around. And then back in 2018, and the.
[00:03:08] John Ramstead: Whole goal was, how do I use virtual reality glasses?
[00:03:11] Fabi Riesen: Exactly. Yes.
[00:03:12] John Ramstead: And combine that with a simulator so I could have higher fidelity training. Is that fair?
[00:03:17] Fabi Riesen: Spot on. Spot on, yeah. And then, I mean, you can imagine there are several technical challenges. I mean, of course, you need to have a motion platform because with the three dimensional view, you see much faster if something is moving. So you need to have a very high fidelity motion platform. Then if you have VR glasses, you don't see yourself. So you need to be able to operate the button and the switches. So more and more had to be developed around. But at the end, we've managed to completely separate the visual from the haptic.
And on one hand, it's much more realistic. On the other hand, it builds a foundation for endless possibility in training.
I mean, you can't think about what's already possible with that by today and so on. But having a universe, just make one small example.
On a helicopter, you have this small yaw string in front.
[00:04:08] John Ramstead: Yep.
[00:04:09] Fabi Riesen: And because the visual is separate, you don't need to touch it. You can simulate the yawstring. So you really see how the yawstring is acting to the environment, whether you go into a vortex or not, which is simply not possible in a traditional simulator. You cannot animate the yawstring. I mean, it's just one out of several possibilities. And of course, the footprint is nothing compared to the traditional simulators.
[00:04:35] John Ramstead: It is. And so we were overlooking at Your is the HC145, the H145, and the.
[00:04:42] Fabi Riesen: H125 we have here in the show. Yeah.
[00:04:45] John Ramstead: And what's incredible is you're sitting in this helicopter cockpit before you put on the VR goggles. And it's a complete template. It's all black switches with little patterns. But then you put it on the VR, it becomes the R44 or the HC145, and all the switches are live. And talk about how you guys, because I'm an engineer, also the haptic of being able to reach out with my hand and grab the right switch to, you know, to do the procedures in the simulator. How did you. How were you able to combine the visual and the haptic? Because I saw all the camera systems and I'm like, man, there's a lot.
[00:05:19] Fabi Riesen: Of thought that went into this definitively so. I mean there are different, different technologies. We've had mounted displays like you can have augmented reality where you have glass and you watch through.
[00:05:30] John Ramstead: Right, like the F35 heads up display.
[00:05:33] Fabi Riesen: Exactly, yes.
[00:05:35] John Ramstead: In the, in the helmet. Yep.
[00:05:36] Fabi Riesen: But I mean that would be most likely the simplest one. Then you have what's called mixed reality where you have like VR glasses with cameras in front and then you just have virtual reality, what we are using. But the one million dollar question is, I mean at the end you want to make a professional training devices, which means it needs to be qualified.
If it needs to be qualified. The question is which one is the right. So starting with the watch through glasses, like the augmented reality. The problem is that by today's technology the field of view is not big enough. And in addition, if you want to make a real black level for doing night flying and so on, you can't do it because the head up display technology. So this already falls out. Or if you use it, you will have limitation in qualification. So the next easy one is what is called the mixed reality. It's like VR glasses with cameras in front and the cameras are filming the traditional cockpit.
Now that's a pretty straightforward thing. And then what he's doing is with some green box technology, you carve out the environment and then you mix it together. That's why it's called mixed reality. But the problem there is, I mean several. But one problem is if you are filming the cockpit, you cannot master the color representation because you never know what the camera is doing. Like if the light is changing, then red is out of a sudden, maybe not anymore red. Amber is not anymore amber. And you need to prove that for qualification. There is a second and this most likely the most thing why mixed reality should not get accepted by an authority qualification. So if you have the cameras, know that your eye point. If you have the cameras are in front. So basically if I'm watching up and I see the switch, I have a geometric distortion. So the camera is filming a few, maybe half an inch wrong from the position.
So if I'm in the procedure, I watch up and then I reach the like what I'm doing in a very fast environment.
You reach on the wrong point. So you need to retrain your brain.
Then we are immediately having negative training.
[00:07:48] John Ramstead: Exactly. Because it has to translate over to the actual aircraft flying it.
[00:07:52] Fabi Riesen: And the human body is so great, it learns to adapt. And Stanford University made a research and people at the end using mixed reality were not able to eat anymore with a Fork so they hit the nose. So from that point of view, that's called feeding your fish definitive.
It's like this response.
[00:08:10] John Ramstead: Let me ask you this question too, because, you know, we're talking a little bit about the technology, and it's been certified by the FAA in easa, so operators can use this. And I was able to talk with your team yesterday about the business benefits of this. And I got to tell you, you know, coming out of the military, one of my colleagues came out of, you know, flying for United, the benefit of full motion simulation with the visuals. But I'd like to hear from you, for helicopter operators, people that are considering loft dynamics, bringing it in, what is the benefit for now, what you guys have created, which is extraordinary, leap forward to safety, to cost to pilot training.
[00:08:53] Fabi Riesen: That was basically the trigger where we were saying, you know what? Whatever was working in the living room is supposed to make a company out for it under the assumption we are able to qualify, like you mentioned. So that said, if you are a helicopter pilot and you want to fly with a simulator close to the ground, you want to make pinnacle landings and all those things, the visual is wrong. You have to learn to fly the simulator. If you are a helicopter pilot and you say, well, simulators are not realistic enough. So I'm going back to the helicopter. You are risking your life because the helicopters by nature are not having the same amount of tolerance like a fixed wing is having. So, I mean, at the end, you will need to simulate modified.
[00:09:37] John Ramstead: And if I make a mistake in a simulator, I don't have a mishap.
[00:09:40] Fabi Riesen: Exactly.
[00:09:41] John Ramstead: Yeah.
[00:09:41] Fabi Riesen: Yeah. And then, I mean, the moment we went out with the technology not as possible to make auto rotation exercise on a simulator, which was not never possible before on the traditional one, because as soon as you go close to the ground, like you start guessing, we basically, from a safety point of view, we managed to say, you know what? Now you really can do all the malfunctions on a real simulator in reality, whereas on the real helicopter, you need to simulate malfunctions. So from that point of view, this is where we ended up and saying, yeah, well, that's a great approach.
[00:10:19] John Ramstead: Yeah, well, the safety and the training and also I was just going over the numbers, just the cost of using the simulator per hour compared to actually going up with an instructor and practicing these things real time, it's just a fraction of the cost. So it's just. It just amplifies your ability to be operationally ready and proficient.
[00:10:38] Fabi Riesen: Yeah, you spot on. I mean, the cost Then also the footprint compared to the other simulators are more realistic, available, the accessibility is there.
And then in regards of getting over and over the same exercise again, I mean for an auto rotation, you don't have to fly up again and wait until you're there. I mean you just can do one after the other. And now back to the virtual reality point. Given that with our approach, we have a complete correct visual system, but we don't see the buttons and switches. We've created these, what is called post tracking. What we basically do with the cameras, we are generating a real time skeleton of the pilot, full body. And this is so exact that you reach the buttons and so on. So if this skeleton, we are animating an avatar.
Now what we can do, if that is we can replicate the skeleton on the instructor station so the instructor can see from every angle the pilot, we can record a training session. That's what we are doing right now. So a flying structure goes on. The simulator is demoing something and everything gets recorded, including the full body motion and everything.
This can get stored and approved in a lesson. We call it loft twin because we create a digital twin from the fly instructor. And now on all loft devices you can just replay that fly instructor lesson. And this is a huge benefit in regards to standardization.
So all of a sudden you have the possibility to have the safety director from Robinson, like Bob Muse or whatever is giving a lesson and this can be replayed on all of devices. So every pilot gets directed a lesson from this flight instructor. And because we record everything, you have the full voice, the body, the full body, you see this explaining it, you feel the controls and you can learn in the second phase. Then you go and fly by yourself and benchmark yourself towards what the flying structure did. And then the next thing you get.
[00:12:38] John Ramstead: Feedback on, you know, this is where I did it well and this is where I need to improve and yeah, I mean, keep getting better.
[00:12:45] Fabi Riesen: Exactly. Yes. Yeah, so nicely data driven approach, but it just helps the pilot to spot on. I mean, I have something cool. I mean myself, I'm a fixed wing pilot. So I started to learn to have all the H1, the A star on the simulator and so on. And I was able to hover it very nicely. But every time I approach an elevated platform, I messed up. And then the system pointed me out and saying, hey, this was based on the body pose, that every time I'm approaching the elevated platform, I get my body up and kind of like see the elevator platform. Like if you start driving a car first time and Basically I lost the feeling on the back and I got my shoulder up and started wobbling around with the cycle. And this reason was simply saying, look, if you are doing a nice hover, you lay back based on the data. If you are doing a bad howl, you just get your body up.
Getting your body up so you know what to perfect. Yeah. And I mean if the system can spot on such things, it's very nice from that point of view. That's just because.
[00:13:54] John Ramstead: Can this help with my golf swing?
[00:13:56] Fabi Riesen: Yeah, actually could. I mean this post tracking, you laugh about it, but this post tracking.
[00:14:03] John Ramstead: Absolutely.
[00:14:04] Fabi Riesen: Yeah. It gets used. I mean we sold it as a side product into the physiotherapy where it basically helps what you are doing wrong based on your body post.
[00:14:14] John Ramstead: Well, you know, it's interesting side note, and then we got to wrap up. But I was a Navy pilot. I flew F14s, landed on aircraft carriers. But at night I was always so nervous and the visuals, because it's pitch black was always. It just felt like I was always wrong. So you know what I would do at night? I would change my seat position to try to see more and I'd be up straight and. And I always, I struggled, struggled, struggled at night. And finally a senior pilot asked me, did you change your seat position at night? Do you do this? Cause I used to do that and it really hurt me. But it took somebody. This was after months of struggling at night that somebody finally pointed out, don't you gotta has to be the same as day as it does at night. And all of a sudden I started to improve and get better. But having somebody to be able to point that out instantly because they're looking at my body position, that is that honestly that's priceless.
[00:15:03] Fabi Riesen: I couldn't agree more. I mean think about measuring the eyes. So we have a full blown eye tracking where you see the pattern, scanning and so on and you really can help the pilot. I mean at the end having such tools just makes faster, safe pilots. And that's what you want to all do.
[00:15:19] John Ramstead: Yeah. So as we wrap up Fabi, what is next for Loft Dynamics?
[00:15:23] Fabi Riesen: Yeah, well, we continuing expanding in the helicopter.
So the team was growing rapidly. So we are a little bit more than 90 people now and we continue to grow in direction. There will be soon announcement about new helicopter types. But given that we have the technology now built and qualified under FA and easa, we also step into the fixed wing and EV toll market. So that's where we are going. So the next thing is going to be the multi crew again. With the multi crew, I can replicate my body on a different headset so we see each other as an avatar. I mean, that. That works perfectly. So this is going to be the next one. Loft is going to announce very soon.
[00:16:08] John Ramstead: That's exciting. Well, Fabi, keep up the great work.
[00:16:10] Fabi Riesen: Really appreciate it.
[00:16:11] John Ramstead: Keep knocking them alive out there and I look forward to our next conversation.
[00:16:14] Fabi Riesen: Thanks a lot. Really appreciate.
[00:16:15] John Ramstead: All right. Have a great one.
[00:16:17] Fabi Riesen: Thanks. Bye. Bye.
