dror yahav
CEO of universal avionics By Rick Weatherford
D
ror Yahav is a former fighter pilot, a “fighter jock,” which is not exactly
fertile ground for an innovative executive who is pioneering state-of-the-art avionics for helicopters. Yet, the current CEO of Universal Avionics had a life-changing observation while later flying in a field that has been aggressively recruiting talent and skill away from helicopters—the airline sector. Again, not exactly where one looks for people to add to the rotorcraft industry. How Yahav came to contribute to helicopters is a life story that begins in his boyhood…
FLIGHTPATH
Yahav’s mother is a renowned sand artist, but her boy grew up wanting to be like his dad. Yahav recalls, “He was a fighter pilot and that’s all I ever cared about was wanting to be like him.” (After Yahav realized his boyhood dream, he actually got to co-pilot with his father, who flew in his Phantom backseat. After completing
Dror Yahav as a fighter pilot, flying alongside his father
seven years of service to his nation, Yahav took a domestic flight path to captain a regional airliner for income. “I needed to provide for my family because I got married early.” (The marriage has been successful. Dr. Michal Yahav currently develops drugs for psychiatric conditions. The couple has three children: their oldest daughter has her master’s degree in chemistry, their middle daughter is a college freshman in Arizona, and their son is in high school.)
REALIZATION
While he flew as an airline pilot, Yahav studied for his bachelor’s in computer science that he earned in 2002 from Tel Aviv University, where later in his career he earned an executive MBA. This education empowered Yahav to act on that aforementioned life-changing realization he had as an airliner pilot. “Flying for the military is one thing, but flying for an airline gives you a different perspective, and that is really what changed my life because I realized that airline technology was so very basic compared to military avionics.”
WINNING STREAK
That realization began to propel Yahav’s career when he left the airline to work in research and development for
Systems, a global defense technology company. He focused on how to bring
Elbit
A year after Elbit Systems acquired Universal Avionics, Yahav was promoted to his current position as CEO of Universal Avionics, which is based in Tucson, Arizona.
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advanced military avionics to the civilian cockpit.
“I wanted commercial pilots to
have the ability to look all over the place and get information. When they were flying at night, I wanted them to feel like they were flying in the daytime and handle severe weather conditions with better tools. We started to win commercial contract after contract after contract,” he said.
Elbit Systems’ leadership noticed Yahav’s winning streak. He was promoted in 2011 to senior director of advanced vision systems for commercial aviation, then in 2013, to vice president of Commercial Aviation. In 2018, Elbit Systems acquired Universal Avionics in the United States to help expand Elbit’s aviation business to the large U.S. market as a domestic company.
Also, Universal Avionics supplemented Elbit Systems product portfolio. Yahav said, “The one I had created at Elbit was super new, super innovative and super exciting, but it lacked fundamentals such as a flight management and a cockpit display system. When we married Universal’s products to Elbit’s, it started to be extremely interesting and beneficial.”
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