Honeywell Aerospace shares the commonly held view that the growth of the advanced air mobility (AAM) sector could be impeded by a shortage of pilots to fly the new-generation of eVTOL aircraft. It’s looking to address this hurdle by rethinking the functionality and purpose of the flight deck as part of an effort to safely simplify operations.
“If you are going to scale up operations for applications like air taxi services, you will need a lot of pilots or operators [for the eVTOL aircraft], so we need to shorten the training curve so that they can learn, fly, and stay current,” said Stephane Fymat, vice president and general manager of Honeywell’s new Unmanned Aerial Systems division, which is leading the U.S. group’s efforts to achieve a leadership position in the fast-evolving AAM sector. “Our vision is that we have to get these vehicles to be increasingly autonomous, so we need to automate more of the functionality that is now exposed to the pilots.”
