IMHO By Chris Van Buiten
Designing Urban VTOL Safety Volume of flights demands new safety standards.
Chris Van Buiten is vice president of Sikorsky
Innovations for Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company.
This group is responsible for maturing next-generation
technologies and products in areas such as autonomy and high-speed flight. Chris joined Sikorsky in 1989 and has been engaged in the conceptual and preliminary design of products, including the Collier Award– winning S-92 helicopter and the UH-60M Black Hawk.
future with thousands of city-center VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) rooftop operations with the appropriate mix of excitement and reverence. Some industry forecasts predict global VTOL activity to reach 150 million flight hours per year. While significant technology and infrastructure obstacles remain, we can address them. But to achieve the vision of cityscapes humming with VTOL aircraft, the emerging electric VTOL, or eVTOL, community must take on the responsibility for safety that comes with this mission. We should start to address aviation’s future by looking at its history. Helicopter operations in the center of New York City in the 1970s ended in part because the safety level at the time didn’t support the usage rate: while aircraft safety was adequate for a small number of operations, it was inadequate to support the demands of a busier system. The FAA faced a similar challenge in the past few decades as the number of global airline operations climbed tenfold. The airlines’ safety level had to mature concurrently with their operation in order to stay ahead of the demand curve. The ability of the regulatory community and aviation industry to safely support this expansion in airline operations was impressive; now, the urban mobility community must be prepared to do the same. To glimpse the magnitude of this undertaking, consider current helicopter safety standards.
T
We should view the challenge of creating a future with thousands of city-center VTOL
rooftop operations with the appropriate mix of excitement and reverence.
Sikorsky’s S-92 helicopter, for example, received the 2002 Collier Trophy from the US National Aeronautic Association for its spectrum of safety features. In the 15 years since its introduction, the S-92 has earned an impressive fatal-accident rate of nearly one per million flight hours. This is made possible by the helicopter’s certification to the toughest regulatory standards. A few examples underscore the rigor required to prepare for high-tempo commercial aviation operations. Flaw-tolerant design requires dynamic components to be purposely compromised prior to fatigue testing to ensure safe continued operation. High-intensity radiated fields (HIRF) testing requires aircraft to be intentionally exposed to significant electromagnetic radiation to ensure system integrity. The list goes on. Yet, if the S-92 were to be deployed in a fully mature urban eVTOL market that demanded 150 million flight hours of operation per year, its outstanding safety rate could result in approximately 150 fatal accidents per year. A fatal accident nearly every other day is clearly unacceptable! Perhaps we could assume that, in a mature eVTOL market, people would accept one fatal accident a year. But this frequency would require an approximate target accident rate of one per 100 million flight hours—100 times better than that of the current state-of-the-art S-92. A 100-fold improvement in safety will be possible if the eVTOL community embraces the
most exacting design, manufacturing, testing, and regulatory standards. Additionally, the community must successfully deploy electric propulsion and autonomy to drive out the leading causes of today’s helicopter accidents, such as controlled flight into terrain. The concept of pushing for lower standards to ease introduction is risky. An early provider
who lowers the safety bar will damage and maybe end the market for us all. Enterprises without the appetite to achieve the required level of safety should consider other ventures. We have an exceptional opportunity to serve the public with new eVTOL technology. Let’s assume the responsibility that comes with that challenge.
12 ROTOR WINTER 2020
ODAY, THE INTERSECTION OF AUTONOMY AND ELECTRIC propulsion has created the potential for a new class of short-range urban mobility solutions to move people in our increasingly congested city centers. We should view the challenge of creating a
IN MY HELICOPTER OPINION
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