Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Back in the part of the world I come from, there's a British inspired statement called gung ho, meaning you're very upbeat about this. I'm very gung ho about this airplane because of what it can do.
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.
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[00:00:45] Speaker B: Welcome to the Hangar X podcast. Today we have a great guest. We are sponsored first of all by Xtia Aircraft and we're talking about the future of aviation. And today we have Salim Zahir Saleem. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Now, you are a former pilot in the Indian air force, flew MiG 21s.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: I did.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Flew big transports. You flew commercial for many, many, many years. And now you head up commercialization at XTA Aircraft and for the Tri Fan 600. But you have this incredible deep background in flight, flight operations, flying history. So I'd love for you, before we dive into a couple questions I have for you. Share with us a little bit about your background.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Thank you for those kind words. To start this off, yeah, I did start in the Air Force in India. I went to what's called the National Defense Academy, which is the equivalent of West Point here in the US and then on to flight training at the Indian Air Force Academy and then joined the Air Force, was selected for fighters. So we trained on the Hawker Hunter, if you might remember that 1950s British fighter. Trained on that, then went on to make 21s, flew those for a couple of years. Then sadly I had a medical problem with my ears and was downgraded to transport. So then onto something called the Avro or the HS748, which is a twin turboprop transport airplane. Then instructed on jets for a while, instructed on transports.
Was a VIP pilot in the VIP squadron in the Air Force and then left.
Ended up here in the US about 40 years ago, mid-80s.
Got to fly Learjets, Hawker Citations business jets for about four or five years, then joined United Airlines in 1990. Started as a flight engineer on the 727, then got to fly the 737, 57, 60, 777 and then the Airbus 320, 319. Then 911 happened and United declared bankruptcy in 2003. So decided to go check out aviation in other parts of the world. Ended up in Dubai in the uae, which Was growing quite strongly in the aviation and particularly the airline space at that time with Emirates and Etihad and a small airline called Air Arabia, which actually caught my interest because having been at United for 14 years, my take on the industry was that the future profitability of airlines at that stage lay more with low cost carriers rather than the full service carriers. So I particularly targeted Air Arabia and I joined them. They were the first low cost airline to start in the Middle East. This is 2004 or thereabouts.
I was chief pilot for them, ran all flight operations, of course, the pilots, but also other functions like flight dispatch, crew scheduling, operations control, that kind of stuff.
And I think the biggest blessing for me having been in Dubai, was that if you've been to that part of the world, particularly Dubai and the uae, it is extremely multicultural. I mean, I think there are.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: I've been to all the Emirates, yeah, my time in the Navy.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Okay. So I think there are over 100 nationalities, you know, living there. And my team, I had 30, 33 of them. I remember counting them at one point. So that was very, very educative for me, you know, managing large teams from different cultural backgrounds.
Then I was asked by the CEO of Air Arabia to help start an airline in Nepal which was a joint venture with a Nepalese airline called Yeti Airways. And this was called fly yeti.com and we had airbus 320 is based in Kathmandu.
I think this is where I learned that timing is Every.
This was 2008. The monarchy in Nepal had just been deposed, the king had been removed, A Maoist government had come into place and we were just not successful. We had to shut the airline down in about six months.
So then I ended up with Indigo, which is India's largest carrier today. At that time it was a small airline. This is 2009. I think we must have had 20 or 25 airplanes or something like that, all Airbus 320 fleet. So I went there as VP flight operations. So ran everything to do with flight ops, did that for about four years with them, helped to grow the fleet, got to over 100 airplanes. I can't remember now. And then I just talked to the CEO, I said, listen, we're growing way too fast. We need to put some systems in place to allow for the scaling up of this airline. So I stepped off the day to day VP Flight Ops role and took on VP Special projects. The intent being to put systems in place that were automated. So if your crew, for example, I brought in a new crew scheduling system. You can't do crew scheduling for 500 airplanes on Excel sheets. You gotta have sophisticated software. So a lot of trials brought that in, brought in electronic flight bags in the cockpits where you get rid of 50 pounds of manuals that we were carrying as pilots and replace them with iPads with all that information. So that kind of stuff. I did that for three years.
And then for personal family reasons, we decided to move back to the US and settled here in the Boulder area, Boulder, Colorado. And I started to look around and see what's exciting in aviation around here that is not traditional airline stuff.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, there's a story of how you came to XTI Aircraft, which is fantastic. So connect the dots there.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Okay, so, yeah, so to just continue that thread. So I was looking for things to do that were out of the ordinary in terms of aviation in the local Denver, Boulder area.
And after much research, it got narrowed down to three companies. One was boom supersonic.
One was by aerospace. Bye.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: What did they do? I'm not familiar with that.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: BAI does, or at that time was doing a fair amount of solar and electric powered kinds of airplanes, like high altitude surveillance missions on solar power, just loiters at 50,000ft for five days or whatever.
So it was boom supersonic by Aerospace and XTI Aircraft. And when I looked at all three, it was clear to me, having been a pilot for so many decades, that there is a missing link in aviation, which is an effective filler, if you will, between fixed wing airplanes and helicopters. If you have a fixed wing airplane, you need to find a Runway. If you have a helicopter, they were slow, they were expensive, noisy. And when I saw the design of the Tri fan, I said this beautifully and elegantly fills that gap. And that's what drew me and excited me to XTI Aircraft. And I tracked down, picked up the phone and called Dave Brody, who was the founder and chairman. And I said, you have a cool airplane and I want to be part of this. And here I am seven years later.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: So tell us about that first conversation with Dave, because we just had Dave on the podcast and I think people started to get a real feel for his vision in the industry.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So Dave is a visionary. As you can tell, his thinking is way ahead of the pack. So he had come up with this concept. I could read in what literature was available at the time that he had founded AVX Aircraft down in Texas and had used or was using the same concept of these ducted fans or ducted propellers in this airplane, the Tri fan. And when I looked at the performance specs When I looked at the mission capabilities of this airplane, I just said to Dave, I said, you've broken the code here, and I want to be part of this.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: You know, I agree. Dave is a visionary. And one of the things he shared is, I think the brilliance of this engineering team and their deep background is 85, 90% of what they're putting together in the tri fan is actually existing technologies. They're just putting it together in a way that fits this mission profile and solves a very unique problem. Now, in that part of the evaluation was power plants. And I know you've put a lot of thought into this, and you have a deep background in commercial operations. So we have turbines.
Hydrogen fuel cells are something people are talking about. There's electric, there's, you know, hybrid versions of, you know, combinations of these. I know you've put a lot of thought and research into this. Where did you land on power plants? As it relates to this kind of. This crossover area of kind of, you know, longer distance, faster speed, but still vertical takeoff capability?
[00:09:59] Speaker A: I think that's a central, critical question in this endeavor, whether it's us or the other folks who are doing EVTOls and hybrids, et cetera. So philosophically, this company is committed to sustainability and taking aviation into a greener future. So we tried for many years to make this a hybrid electric airplane. So using one turbine engine with battery packs.
And then after all the evaluations, we just felt that the weight of the battery packs would be so great for a VTOL mission. And I specifically state VTOL mission because there are people doing hybrids with conventional takeoff and landing, where the tech exists and the power needs exist to do this, you know, as a hybrid airplane. But when we looked at the two.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Very different environments, they're very, very different. The power needed to do a vertical takeoff versus a traditional Runway is very, very different.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: That's correct. It's about three to four times more for that vertical takeoff and vertical landing. And what that means if I'm going hybrid. Batteries, for example, you gotta have pretty big batteries. And if you have batteries just to.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Get off the ground, just to get.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Off the ground, and if they are such that it detrimentally impacts payload or range, then at some point you realize that this is a, you know, it's just not. The numbers are not adding up. So then we tried batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, I think, for almost a year and a half, and we just found that there are so many variables and unknowns on this path forward that it would delay this, and it would essentially end up being an R and D project. We were trying to bring an airplane to market that is doing many unique things, as you can see, with this ability to take off in its range and speed. Which is why we came back and said, let's start with two turbine engines. It is difficult enough to certify a VTOL airplane if you now add to that novel propulsion systems that had never before been certified in aviation.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: And so every one of those has multiple layers of their own. Certification, certification. It still hasn't happened yet.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: And added risk and therefore, you know, added complexity.
The amount of funding that is going to be needed for all the development of these new things exponentially starts to add up. So we thought, let's do this in a simplified, mature manner. We are committed to that sustainable path. Let's start with two turboshaft engines capable of burning 100% sustainable aviation fuel, which as you know, comes from non fossil sources. And if we could get 100% SAF into these engines, you're reducing CO2 by 80%. So we're starting with that as our first step. We will continue to monitor, you know, evolution of hybrids and then make this a hybrid electric airplane at some point and in the more distant future, maybe 15, 20 years down, whenever the batteries alone can do this mission, because we don't want to sacrifice the mission, the range and the speed, then we will switch. So we're just doing it in a phased manner.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I love how your approach and I love that that's the long term vision is sustainability, it's green, it's for the environment.
You know, and interesting you were sharing with me the other day when we were talking Salim, there are hundreds and hundreds of preorders and there are some really interesting use cases on some of the people on why they actually ordered small amounts, large amounts. I'd love for you to share maybe some of the stories and perspectives on how people that are actually committing to an airplane, a future airplane and how they envision using them.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's again an excellent question. And I'd say first that we look at our customer base.
They are across the spectrum. We've got individuals who've ordered airplanes, you know, one, one or two airplanes. We've got some very large fleet operators that operate fleets of business jets, helicopter operators. We've got them from all, I think four or five different continents. So it's a wide array of potential customers. Some of them plan to use it for transportation of themselves or corporate executives. Some definitely have an air medical mission in mind.
And in all of these, these over 700 conditional orders we have, we're just looking at our civilian orders.
I am willing to bet that military applications for this airplane will probably be equal to those. But for our business modeling, we're not taking them into account. If I were to just zero in on one case. If you look at the air medical use case for this airplane where we've talked to air medical operators, they say this is transformational for the following reasons. You will be able to land pretty much where a helicopter can land, pick up a patient, fly them at twice the speed of the helicopter, twice the range at 25,000ft in pressurized comfort, rather than a helicopter which is 1,000ft off the ground, bumping up and down in turbulent air. You already got a patient that's critical.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: I got medevac from an accident that I spent two years in the hospital for.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Oh boy.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: And I remember that helicopter ride exactly what you described. It was bumpy. I was strapped in neck brace. It was very, very uncomfortable. Now I was very grateful that a helicopter could come pick me up and bring me to an airport. But in Montana ideally though, actually I went and calculated it based on the flight speed of that helicopter and the speed of a future Tri Fan 600. They could have actually picked me up sooner than that helicopter could have gotten me Salim and actually brought me to Anschutz or Craig Hospital here in Denver in almost just a little bit longer than just the local flight to the trauma center in Montana. And I wouldn't have to been medevac transported later after five weeks in the ICU up there. So just imagine the difference that would have meant for both my recovery and my family. So I just want to absolutely put an exclamation point on what you just said.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Well, I'm sorry this happened to you, but I think you have beautifully encapsulated that use case and I have nothing more to say on it.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Well now, xti, and this is an initiative you're heading up, is going to be opening up some of the preorders in the future at some point. And I'm just curious, what are some of your ideal clients you're looking for? Are they brokers, are they high net worth individuals, are they airlines, are they transport companies?
Where would you say that you're going to start having conversations when you open that back up?
[00:16:42] Speaker A: So I'll just go back a step and say one of the things I found is when we pitch this airplane to potential customers, no matter who they are, their eyes open wide because this capability has simply not existed in the civilian world up to now. If you talk about vertical lift, their minds goes back just to what a helicopter can do today, which is about 120 knots cruise, let's call it 120 miles an hour cruise, go 2 or 300 miles. So if you talk about an airplane that is cruising at 345 miles an hour, that is able to go seven to 800 miles, and you draw use cases and you draw range maps for them, they start to say, oh my God, I didn't even know something like this existed. So now they come back to you with use cases as to what they could do. So one particular example.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: So you start them, they see the solution, they see the capability, and all of a sudden their creativity, their innovation starts to kick in and go, hey, we could what are some of those what ifs? Or we could that. You're like, wow, I haven't thought of that one.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Exactly. So I'll take one example, was a customer out of Japan. They're into the business of running lots of ski slopes. And they run, I think some kind of a nature reserve in Australia or something like that. So when we pitch to them, they said, okay, well, and you know, this airplane, by the way, I can swivel the engines and take off conventionally. So if I have a Runway available, these front fans can be swiveled to look like, you know, a normal airplane's propellers, if you will. And I take off from that Runway, I increase payload and range. If I don't have a Runway, I can swivel them up and land up and down like a helicopter on a grass strip or a backyard or parking lot, et cetera. So when we.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question. So then with a heavy payload, like if I'm going to go, whether it's disaster relief, I take off from a regular Runway. That's great because I can fill this thing to the brim. And by the time I need to land vertically, I've burnt off that fuel weight. And then I could actually come in. So I can actually allow myself to bring in more payload by using kind of a mixed takeoff.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely correct. Yeah, absolutely correct. And that's one of the unique benefits of this airplane, which pure VTOL airplanes will not give you.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: So this particular gentleman said, okay, so you're saying I can go 850 miles, I can do 700 miles VTOL? I said, yes. You know, I run these, these ski resorts, I've got people coming from, and I have to be a little bit confidential. About this. But he says this will allow me to pick up people from here and bring them directly to my resort. He says I've not had that capability up to this point. So then they see, based on what you're telling them, the characteristics of the machine are that in their particular wherever they're living and working and the kinds of missions they're doing where they can use this airplane, they begin to see, I need to buy one Tri fan and I don't need to buy that helicopter and my King Air. This is doing the job of both.
So you can start seeing their eyes light up as to the potentiality of this airplane just because this capability hasn't existed. Existed before.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love. So you just brought up an example from Japan. I know there's a lot of international orders. And one of the things you look at when you look at the total addressable market and do the research, one of the predicates for that is the private jet market. And we use the US market often as a benchmark, which is where about 70% of the sales tend to come from. What are you seeing? What do you. If I had put on your future hat right down the road, where do you think a lot of that the sales might balance between US and international. There's so many markets from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, whereas sustainable. And also I was talking to some friends of mine from Switzerland and Liechtenstein and you know, one of the things that appealed to them about this is it's quiet, right? Just, you know, being sustainable in an urban area is something a lot of people are very sensitive to. Right. Where helicopters aren't even allowed in some of these cities because of the noise. But this is a very different noise profile. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of that.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Let me just go back to the bigger picture. You're absolutely right what you started. If you look at the distribution of business airplanes in the world today, I think about 70% of our potential initial sales anyway are likely to be the US and Europe.
So those would be big markets. Many others, South America, Asia is growing quite a bit.
But if you put all the numbers together, I would say primary focus initially likely to be the US and Europe. That'd be one a big seller is just the fact people begin to see that I can replace two of my airplanes with one of the one of these Trifens. So when you start looking at the economics of that, the cost of buying a tri fan, operating it for five years, or buying a helicopter and a King Air and operating them for five years. You're saving many millions of dollars by buying this particular airplane. So what we didn't want to sacrifice, and I want to just go back and tell you what our analysis shows about actual business aircraft usage. If you look at usage of business airplanes, and this has been true for know, 15 years or so or more, most of the time they are being used for two hours of less in terms of flight time, let's call it 800 miles or less. And I'm talking about even the biggest, we just average it out and most of the time they've got four people on board or less. So this airplane with our payload and range caters to all of that.
But we give you the added ability to take off and land on a helipad rather than having to find a Runway to go anywhere. So there are immense time savings because of that ability to take off and land on a helipad. And then, you know, if you just keep going on. Take one example, for example, on time savings. If you just take what I think will be a fairly typical mission for this airplane, downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco, for example, about 350 miles on this airplane, it'll take you, I've just got the numbers in my mind, about 1.8 hours door to door. So you take, leave your, you know, your house and you go to a helipad, fly same thing on the other side. You compare that to a business jet, you'll save about 30 minutes on this leg. If you compare it to an airline, you'll save two and a half hours because of all the delays that come with commercial airplanes and security and arriving early and all the rest of it. So there are many, many benefits, time savings, five year cost of ownership, savings against the competition.
Back in the part of the world I come from, there's a British inspired statement called gung ho, meaning you're very upbeat about this. I'm very gung ho about this airplane because of what it can do.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: You are gung ho. So let's end with this thought then when you're, let's say you're sitting down with friends or family and you're, and they haven't heard about this yet and you're so excited, you're gung ho, you're excited to tell them about what you're doing in X Tad, what's like the one thing you think that just stands out? Like where do you start for the trifen? Uh huh.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: I just, I just say, okay, everybody close your eyes. Imagine something comes and lands right there, right outside your door picks you up and takes you to dinner at, you know, so and so place in Centennial Airport. So you come from Boulder and you come to Centennial for dinner at a nice restaurant and this little thing takes you back and it takes you 10 minutes each way rather than battling traffic, et cetera. And they all begin to get it quite, quite quickly.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And where did you bring them to dinner? Are we talking steak or seafood?
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Steak.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Okay, good man. All right, Salim, we're going to have you back on. There's so much to talk about. I think as we really talk about the commercial applications. I know you're focused on commercialization.
You're also the point of contact on some of the pre sales, pre orders that are opening back up. So thank you for your time and what you're doing and your vision just in this industry in general.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Thank you. Pleasure to be here with you today.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Absolutely.
