Episode Transcript
[00:00:56] Speaker A: The future of what vertical aviation is going to be on display for the world to see. And, and we hope the world comes and sees what we have to offer and the incredible benefits that vertical flight offers all of society.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: 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.
Hey, welcome to Hangar X. And this is Jon Ramstad. And we bring you the leading voices in aerospace and everything innovation and what's happening in the world of both vertical flight, VTOL and today. We are excited our entire team will be heading down to Dallas for Verticon. And we asked Bailey Wood, who's the director of strategic communications at verticon, to come on the podcast and talk about what's going on at the world's largest vertical aviation conference. It's going to be incredible. But Bailey, welcome to the podcast, first of all.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Well, John, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate this opportunity.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you guys are seeing this, it's going to be March 11th through the 12th in Dallas at the K. Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. And man, as we dug into it, Bailey, not only who's going to be there, the exhibitors, but the 125 speeches and educational. We're going to be digging into some of this. But you started out, you just told me about your grandpa. He was a Packard and Nash car dealer. That's how far back that's going, which got you into the automotive industry and then led you into aviation. And you just keep following different passions. But first of all, everybody who's listening there, if they might not be familiar with Verticon, I'd love to hear it from you. What is it and why do they need to be there?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Well, Verticon is the world's largest vertical aviation exposition in the world. Nobody even comes close. And it is the latest and greatest that has everything to do with helicopters, VTOLs, EVTOLs, the next generation of equipment, Bambi buckets, avionics, you name it, it's available at Verticon.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Well, I want to know what a Bambi bucket is, first of all.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: So a Bambi bucket is, if you've been watching the. Well, they haven't used them in la. Bambi buckets are those big red buckets that are suspended below a helicopter that scoop down on a lake, pick up a big old bucket of water and Then take it over a fire and then they pull a cord and then the water drains out of the bottom of the bucket. Now, they can't be used in California for some regulatory reason over there, but it's California. But they're used to put out fires. And they're really neat. They're huge. I mean, they're.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Well, I actually know what it is because I live in Colorado and we were under evacuation orders for a massive wildfire. And There's a lake 50 yards from my house and a big chinook was coming in. And also like a twin rotor, it might have been a Sikorsky S72. It looked like a. What did we call them in the military with the two rotors front and back. Anyway, it come in with those buckets, fill it up, fly over and dump it like 200 yards from my house as the fire was coming up. And it saved my. It saved that whole section of the neighborhood. These guys just filling and going. And it was. I didn't, I didn't leave under my evacuation orders because I was too fascinated watching the helicopters do their work. It was incredible.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: It is. And to watch fire operations, I've watched a lot of video on them and it's just absolutely incredible. The coordination and the dance between the firefighters on the ground and what happens in the sky and the additives that they put into water that makes the water stickier and stick around longer. And some of it's retardant. You know, what they have going on the last few weeks in Los Angeles is absolutely heartbreaking. I mean, this without question will be the largest and most expensive disaster in U.S. history.
And you look at the homes, but you also look at the artwork that's there and the family heirlooms. It's just incredible. And these men and women are flying sorties 24 7.
One of our board members, Paul Gotwig, I was on a call with him today and he looks exhausted. He is the chief pilot for LA County Fire Aviation.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: He's been on the ground kind of.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Managing the weeks now, probably for him, like with minimal rest.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yes. And one of the things we're going to do, we're going to take a few moments out when we're at Verticon this year and to honor those first responders because they're showing what's truly great about vertical aviation. How helicopters and VTOLs change the way peoples live, change the way people's people live. And we save lives, we save homes, we save communities. It's pretty powerful what our industry does oh, it does.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: It's such a unique space that you just don't get with a fixed wing. It's a completely different application. Opens up so many different possibilities and solutions. And, you know, given that, though, verticon and the.
Tell us a little bit about the vision that's led up to. And there was a name change from last year to verticon and just the history of this organization.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: So originally the.
Let me start with the background in the association. Originally there were about. I think there were eight or nine. There were eight or nine helicopter operators that got together in California and created the California Helicopter Association.
And that simply started to grow because they realized how important it was to have a larger voice in terms of policy, in terms of what's going on with your neighbors and roles at airports and things like that. So California Helicopter association grew and grew and grew. We eventually turned into Hai Helicopter Association International.
Now, as you well know, the world of vertical aviation has changed dramatically over the last few years. And we went out to our members and said, look, we've got some new entrants to our world and they're not helicopters.
Whether there be an Archer, a Joby or a Lilium or a Supernal, we have the same issues, but they're not really helicopters. So we completely rebranded and we became Vertical Aviation International to embrace the change that's happening in the world. And as part of that, we changed Hai Heli Expo, which was our original exposition, which has always been the largest helicopter exposition in the world. We changed it over to reflect our new brand as well, and it became Verticon. So this year is. Is technically the first year of verticon, and we're really excited this year to be in Dallas.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it is exciting. It's. It's really fun to kind of see. You know, you got Robinson and Joby and Lockheed Martin. So you have both Sikorsky aircraft. You also have the F35B. You have this entire ecosystem. And moving into this year with so many advances, and also the FAA really putting out sfrs on powered lift, which has really been great for the entire industry to open up some possibilities. What would you say some of the themes are that people are going to see at verticon this year?
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Well, I think one of the big things is just the sheer size of it. We have grown every year. Last year we hit 15,000 visitors, which is pretty amazing. But I think some of the things you're going to see are the new technologies, which are getting faster and smaller because weight is important in aircraft. So those New technologies, we may see some information related to alternative fuels, possibly hydrogen. I know that there's going to be one individual that's going to be speaking on the VAI connect stage about hydrogen fuel cells and how they are soon to be part of the vertical aviation landscape.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: You know it's interesting, you know the aircraft we're building, the Trifan 600, we did a deep dive in trying to do hybrid with hydrogen. Now the technology is not ready yet so we couldn't use that as a solution. But I'm telling you if when that gets solved, the energy density of that hybrid power plant with hydrogen made the economics the TCO because this is a larger area VTOL, it's six to eight passengers, 700 mile range. But that is so that's going to be fascinating. To learn more about this year, I just looked at the attendee list. 600 participants, 125 speakers.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: We're expecting 60 to 80 aircraft.
60 of those aircraft will probably fly in the couple days before we we get special permission from the FAA to create a landing area and we land these helicopters, we have to take some blades off the time and we push them in. And I get to be a part of that for the first time this year.
And so that kind of excited about that get to be on the ground. And we've invited a lot of media to come and take pictures. But moreover we always have to include the local media so people aren't freaking out that they're thinking there's some sort of invasion.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Always be good to your neighbors.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Always be good to your neighbors. So are you going to get a ride in any of these helicopters, Bailey?
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Probably not this time. I have in the past, but I have not. My first helicopter ride was when I was 8 years old. I went up in a little Robinson. It was a little two seater Robinson.
My mom was a pilot, she flew Cessnas and one of the guys there needed to take it a first flight after maintenance and they're like would 8 year old Bailey like to come? And that got me hooked on aviation.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: I love that. And you know, and with some of these new entrants with the rebranding to Verticon Advanced air Mobility EV tolls, new propulsion system, bringing AI into flight laws, flight controls for what this industry is developing.
We just talked to Dr. Hill from Hill Helicopters. He can't make it because they are absolutely heads down right now because they're getting very close to their first flight. But are there any product announcements, major announcements that might be made that you could another Reason for people to be down there.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Well, I can't spill the beans on any of that. I want to leave that up to my members to share that news. But what I can tell you.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: But there will be some, I'm guessing. Sorry, but there will be some, I'm guessing.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Absolutely.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah. That's exciting.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Press conferences and booth announcements just about every day. One of the things I'm. I'm personally particularly excited about is Skyrise is going to be there. I was first introduced to Skyrise when I went to Oshkosh this year. My first Oshkosh blown away. They're a little bigger than we are, but we're getting close.
But was it Oshkosh? And I saw Skyrise and there's simplification of controls. I mean, helicopters are complicated machines. Generally speaking, an airplane could pretty much fly on its own as long as it's moving forward and has thrust.
A helicopter, I mean, you really have got to keep that thing in the air all by yourself. It's really the pilot that keeps it in the air. And simplifying those controls like Skyrise is doing, is going to open up so many more opportunities and hopefully it'll address one of the biggest issues facing our industry, which is training and workforce development.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Well, and we're going to be meeting with them because we actually saw what they're doing and we're like, you know what? You guys might have part of the solution we need for what we're building. So actually we have a whole list of people we want to go see. We also wanted people come over to the Hangar Rack Studios Boost. We're going to be hosting live podcasts there right on the floor, promoting some of these announcements and what big advancements and developments in technology. So, you know, if you're going to be there at Verticon, please let us know. JohnGerackStudios.com we'd love to meet you in person down at Verticon. Have you on the podcast. We have room, we have some slots and we've got some great people lined up. But I'd also like to ask you is when you're also looking at some of the. There's a lot of synergies, I think, between civil and military and a lot of advancements in what we're seeing in the civil side or some things that have been funded by some public private partnerships or, you know, places like darpa, Air Force Research Labs, what's the level of the representation of kind of that relationship at Verticon?
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Bailey Well, VAI is truly just general aviation. I mean, we really don't have. Now, mind you, there will be military representatives from all over the world who come in to look at potential purchases for their. For their.
For their armies. I was going back and forth with the Italians the other day. I know they're sending a group over just to see what else they have. Mind you, they've got a great manufacturer right in their backyard, but they're looking at a couple other places as well. So generally we're just general aviation. And that's pretty much our focus for verticon.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, anybody listening and they want to attend, how do they sign up? How do they go to the event? What's the website, Bailey?
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Verticon.org v e R-T-I c o n.org.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: And you can go sign up, get a ticket. Come one, come all. Three days.
There is so much to see. We're going to be there three days. I don't think our whole team is even be able to see what we want to see. But we're going to have some incredible conversations. I know. As a matter of fact, we're going to be meeting with current partners in the development of our aircraft, future partners who we really want to have a better relationship with, but also just get inspired by. I know for a fact we're gonna see things that we haven't even thought of yet that people are down there saying, hey, look at the solution we created. So it's gonna be incredible. So just as we wrap up, Bailey, just any final thoughts on just verticon, what you and the whole team is excited about, about what's gonna happen?
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Well, let me touch on two things really quickly. We have over 125 education and training seminars, and these are incredibly value. Education and safety is at the cornerstone of what VAI is. And there's an opportunity to meet with industry experts and to hear firsthand about the experiences they have. And they cover everything from helicopter infrastructure to bird and wildlife hazards, to insurance issues to. And most importantly, safety that is truly the biggest in safety is absolutely paramount to VA and a verticon. So there's these great opportunities not only for you to grow your career, but also grow your business. Because we have a lot of small business activities that we're doing because a lot of our operators are air tour operators with one or two helicopters or they're small organizations and they do just a few things. So we have resources for them. And the other thing that I think is really important, and I said something about it earlier is we also want to focus on workforce development. The biggest thing we hear from the industry is the fact that, that we're absolutely starving for not only pilots but also maintenance technicians. And so we have what they call Milta Civ, which is a great program where we encourage those who are currently in the military or looking to ret. Retire from the military or really recently being separated from the military to come up. And we have 40, probably 40, 30 to 40 different employers who have jobs. And these are federal government agencies, for instance, they're private companies, they're air ambulance companies that are looking for pilots and also maintenance technicians. Maintenance technicians are an incredibly important part of what we need to address in the.
What we need to address in terms of the industry. And for the first time ever, we're having a maintenance competition which should be really exciting. We're having them come in and you alluded to my auto background previously. I've seen these in the auto side and they're always exciting. So in teams of three are going to be presented with a scenario and in helicopter engine or some sort of helicopter issue that needs to be fixed. And then they're pitted against each other in time trials to see who can fix it not only most effectively and most quickly, but end up with the most safe result.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: So you mean they actually fix it, don't finish it.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: You throw in. You throw in mill to sieve the maintenance competition. You throw in everything that we have on the floor. It's going to be a great time in Dallas and we really hope people look out and join us again.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Verticon.org and I just want to highlight a couple things. You know, I was a safety officer in the Navy, military aviation, it's such a priority. And if you can come to a place like this and I've read some of the topics, they're incredible. But if I can go learn, take some notes, take the materials and bring it back and share it with my team, my crew, my pilots, my maintainers. It is such a great way to get it back there. And I love what you're doing with military civilian. My transition out, I had to take care of myself. It was hard. You know, pilots, maintainers. And I'm telling you, if you're listening to this, you know, somebody that just got out of the military or thinking of getting out, that's in maintenance or as a pilot or any part of that of an air wing, let them know about this so they can go down there and maybe they'll find that next dream job. They've been looking for. I didn't realize you guys were doing that. Bailey that is incredible and I love this maintenance competition. I am absolutely going to make time in my calendar to go watch one of those so I can't wait to see in person and meet your. By the way your team has been phenomenal. Love your team. Great bunch of people and just as we kind of hover to a land here Bailey just any final comments?
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Well first off John thanks again for this opportunity. Look forward to connecting to you in person. You know the future of what vertical aviation is going to be on display for the world to see and we hope the world comes and sees what we have to offer and the incredible benefits that vertical flight offers all of society.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Awesome. Well I will see you soon. Keep knocking them alive my friend and have an outstanding day.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Thank you again John. Appreciate the time.
Sa it.
