The Vertical Space

#71 Libby Bahat, Israeli Civil Aviation Authority: Lessons learned from the Israeli National Drone Initiative

• Luka T • Episode 71

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Welcome back to The Vertical Space! In this episode, we sit down with Libby Bahat, Head of the Aerial Infrastructure Department of the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority. Join us as we delve into what makes Israeli airspace unique, given its position as one of the most threatened airspaces in the world.

We explore the Israel National Drone Initiative: its origins, surprising initiators, and current results. Learn about the costs of drone operations in Israel compared to other regions, and listen to Libby's "1, 10, 100" concept related to drone profitability.

Discover how drones are used and managed in Israel, particularly in the context of the ongoing conflict. We discuss the evaluations of advanced air mobility that have taken place in Israel, and which aspects are scaling today. Find out what elements Libby sees scaling in the coming years and what he's most impressed with in advanced air mobility today.

Libby:

I think that you should get your feet wet. It has some disadvantages, but I think staying too much time at the offices and drilling too deep into remote scenarios in your risk assessment, it sometimes gets not very effective, and I would suggest to put a limit on that and go out to the field and get your feet wet, in not the most favorable environments. And this is where I come to Israel. I invite companies, first of all, to come see what's going on here. We have been very open and we invite everyone to come and witness with their own eyes, not Zoom, not video calls. Coming, meeting the companies, being in our control center, and then come fly because you're gonna hit that problems at one point or another. So start that early. Sure, you're taking a bit more risk that your drone might have a malfunction. But if you do it over an uninhabited area, then come on, start flying. Let's put up a USSP first in a remote area. Combine a couple of companies. Experiment. That's my main message. And the second one is come do it in Israel.

Jim:

Hey, welcome again to"The Vertical Space" and,a,one of a kind conversation with Libby Bahat Head of Aerial Infrastructure Department of the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority. This discussion has layers of value to include what makes Israeli aerospace unique, which includes that it's one of the more threatened airspaces in the world. We also discuss the Israel National Drone Initiative. A very impressive program, how it started, who started it, which may surprise you the program itself and the results to date. We discussed costs and profitability of drone operations, and how costs may be different in Israel versus other parts of the world. Listen to Libby's 1, 10, 100 and how it relates to profitability. It's amazing to hear about the use of drones and the management of the airspace in light up the current war in Israel. And how Israel managed the use of drones in the first minutes and hours of the war. Simply amazing. We spent a fair amount of time discussing the different impressive evaluations that have taken place. And what parts of advanced air mobility may be at scale today as a result. And what elements of advanced air mobility Libby sees scaling in the coming years. And what do you think he's most impressed with with advanced air mobility today? The answer may surprise you. I'll give you a clue. Listen to one of our more recent podcasts for the answer. So many thanks to Libby for his entertaining and important conversation. And to our listeners we hope you enjoy our talk with Libby Bahat as you profitably innovate and The Vertical Space. Libby has been working in the Israeli CAA for the past 15 years as the Head of Aerial Infrastructure Department. Libby is a qualified ATC, an instrument flight procedure designer, a Lawyer, and he holds an American private pilot license. Within the Israeli CAA from 2020 Libby is also in charge of the UTM/ U-Space implementation within Israel. Libby, welcome to the Vertical Space Podcast. Great having you on.

Libby:

Thank you. Thank you so much. It's an honor being here.

Jim:

What do very few in the industry agree with you on?

Libby:

I wouldn't know where to start. as we're following the European regulation. the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority, was in a good position to have a choice, to which regulation do we want to follow? Do we want to make one completely from scratch on our own? We're not a part of EASA. We're not a part of Europe, of the EU. Obviously, we're not under the jurisdiction of the FAA. So, we were in a unique position. And we looked at a couple of sets of regulations. Obviously, the European set and the American set, when again, we're looking at the ATM part of, of UAS, of, UTM, Unmanned Traffic Management. Eventually we chose, the European set, the EASA set of rule regulation 664 and it's, all, its, cousins, 665, 666 and so on. And as you recall, the basic, architecture is referring to a couple of U-Space service providers. So, a USPACE, let's say, over a city or over an urban airspace, and then the unit that will manage the traffic will be the USSP, UAS Service Provider, and a USPACE Service Provider, and it is supposed to give four basic services, ATM, conformance monitoring, geo awareness. Flight Authorization Services. So, even with that basic architecture, we had many debates.

Jim:

I'm going to interrupt real briefly, if I may. Thank you for that introduction. But what's controversial behind what you just said? What does somebody not agree with you on based on how you've started this process?

Libby:

So the basic infrastructure of four major services, just as a first example, we had questions, whether traffic management, the fourth service, you might say the fourth, obligatory service, mandatory service. We were not sure, we're still not sure, I'm not sure that's why I'm having a lot of debates about it in Israel, is better than having conformance monitoring, which is considered not a mandatory service. So we have questions about which are the correct, the better, you might say, four basic services. That's one thing I'm in discussions, let's say, a disagreement is a strong word. The second thing is having multiple USSPs in one UAS airspace. Again, there are many people, I'm one of them, that thinks this is so far ahead, and this is not the way that the average city will develop. So I'm not really sure that everyone is focused on, in these projects, in the our initiative and in many other projects, that there should be multiple, uSpace service provider in every uSpace. I'm not sure this is the architecture that we'll see at least in the the next couple of years, maybe 10 years from now, for sure, five years from now. So, so that's the second thing. I'm, you could say in disagreement. A third example we can talk about is, who will enjoy UTM? Will it be the average citizen? Will I get, like everyone expects, their coffee and sushi and hamburger and pizza? I don't think so. And I started many conventions with a picture of the soup Nazi from Seinfeld that says, No soup for you. Because I don't think, based on the current business case and looking at the cost, that the average citizen will receive a delivery by a drone in the next couple of years. I think it'll take longer than that. I think the public as a whole, municipalities, Police, different government offices. They will be the main users, of course, emergency services and health. So the third thing I might say is that, I don't think the average citizen will enjoy it, in the next year or two. Fourth thing I thought about mentioning is the conspicuity devices. So, how do we integrate crewed traffic into, the U-Space? Which technology would we use as a conspicuity device? Europe is very focused on ADS- low, ADS B, many different kinds of, new technology. And again, I'm in a lot of conversations with our colleagues about using things that are more common. I know about the Israeli, GA industry. Aircrafts are very old and, I don't see people installing new technology new devices in there. So I think people will use what's already in there. For example, Mode S, and then enhancing the capabilities of Mode S. or, and again, these are things that, that came up. Cellular devices. So, using our cellular phone as a tracking, as a conspicuity device. So, this is just a short of four topics that I'm, I have difficult with,

Jim:

So that's terrific. I have to first say, usually pulling this answer out of people is not easy, but you gave us four things that people disagree with you on. Let me ask you on one of them. We had a terrific podcast last week, with, Bobby Healy from MANNA. I came away,a real believer of the initial value of the drone delivery being the high volume, now with MANNA, profitable coffee delivery is kind of a foundational start, to home delivery. You may not disagree with that. What you may be saying, I just want you to give a little more detail here. A little more light. Are you saying that the emergency services, the police services and all are taking the first priority for a reason, having nothing to do with economics or capability or delivery or profitability? You're just saying that for whatever reason, with your experiences, you feel the emergency services and the police will take priority.

Libby:

I have to make, two different views on what we're talking about when we're talking UTM and USPACE. To have a segregated area and deliver, a cheap item from point A to point B, that's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in managing large scale operations, multiple companies over urban areas, with a nice and good competition, and how do we manage the traffic, how do we maintain the skies safe. I don't call having a segregated area around a mall or around Starbucks and serving a couple of villages around it. I know that's profitable and that's being done and the costs are much lower. But when everybody's fantasizing about the pictures from the Fifth Element of taxis flying one over the other in Manhattan, And, through large scale operation over big cities and UTM U-Space, that's what, where I'm saying, this is not coming very short. And, the costs are high, are very high, be behind every flight. We'll talk about it soon. We made around 25,000 flights during this. Israeli National Drone Initiative. We'll talk about it. The costs are very high behind every flight, there is an ARA, an Airspace Risk Assessment. There is talking to multiple, government authorities. It takes a lot of time, a lot of people, there are people that are maintaining and, taking care of the computers in the USSP systems constantly because there are still bugs. So behind every flight, there are a lot of people and it's simply very expensive.

Luka:

Libby, it will be interesting if you could share some of the numbers on these cost drivers, because again, referencing Bobby's, recent episode, he was very open book about the costs being, currently,$4.27 per delivery, trending down towards,$3 by the end of the year. And they're not flying in segregated airspace. They're flying in controlled airspace. And you have multiple, delivery operators who are now flying in the same airspace under the Mode C veil in Dallas Fort Worth, for example, with MANNA and WING just recently showing how they are, coordinating their own internal UTM systems, or actually they're using an external partner. But that reality that you describe is really happening already. And with MANNA doing it profitably, don't you see that this is an early use case. Isn't that enough evidence?

Libby:

First of all, I'm a regulator, I'm CAA. I don't have deep knowledge, of the exact budgets that every stage is taking. Yes, the Dallas and the WING and MANNA cooperation, first of all, is something new. We all remember that we've been talking about UTM U Space at least for four years now. And only now, in the last couple of months, we see something, profitable. To my knowledge, they are the only one in the world that actually reached some sort of, of commercial profitability. I don't know of anywhere else it happened. I was at the Air Force for many years. And there are many ways you can count, one hour of flight of an F 15. Is it just the fuel and oil you replace? Is it the time the pilot was, instructed and qualified? Is it the maintenance that's after, I don't know, a hundred flights? So, don't know if they counted in the cost that it took to do the airspace risk assessment and the cost that people invested, the time that people invested in talking to, Dallas, to Dallas Airport, to, insurers to municipality, to the public, so I'm looking at everything to have one of our demonstrations. We still probably do have one demo, let's say every two months. So we're taking over a city, bringing there, let's say, 10 companies, now they're a bit less, but 10 operators to operate in the same city. And before such a week, we have 10 people, at least, just from the government, from the initiative management, working on it, I think, two full weeks. And, so I don't know if you measured just the electricity it costs to, charge the battery. and I'd love to hear, how it was done.

Luka:

Yeah, you should check out the episode because, not to belabor the point, but, they do have a fully loaded figure that includes, variable cost and depreciation of the airplane, et cetera. But, what are those numbers like for the companies that you are working with in Israel? How much is their cost per flight?

Libby:

I don't have exact numbers, Sometimes it's a simulated delivery. So the drone is flying from point A to B, but without the actual ice cream, hamburger, sushi, but$50 a flight. this, cause it's doing the actual flight and, we take over, an airspace over a city and we have, let's say, six, five locations spreaded in the city and drones are flying from point A to point B. They're being given, a destination that we're picking in advance. Which is, I don't know, two, three, five kilometers away from their departure point, going to that location and coming back. So this is what we've been doing. We have other missions that are not only deliveries, so we have cooperation with municipality, with the park So we did cooperation with the train, with the post office, with during COVID 19 pandemic. with the health administration. So, we had many profiles.

Jim:

We're going to talk in a minute about your introduction to the Israeli, National Drone Initiative, but before we do, I'm sure there are people would like to know what's unique about the Israeli airspace? And then we're going to ask you about the INDI and, what it is, why it is, and the results you've seen so far.

Libby:

so, Israel is pretty small. Israel, if you Google the distances, so we're 470 kilometers long and 135 kilometers wide at the widest point. So, it's a very small country. I think, again, the square kilometers is around the 22, 000 square kilometers. However, we do have one of the largest air forces, at least in Europe, so either, even though Germany or France or the UK are 10 times larger than Israel, we have pretty much the same air force. You can, so you can imagine 600 aircraft squeezing in one aerospace. So it's small to begin with, we have a very large air force. It's very active. They're training a lot. Every pilot, in the Air Force does at least one flight a day, sometimes two. So the airspace is constantly, occupied. So these are first two things. Of course, we do have a very active, general aviation community and helicopters and light sport aviation, gliders, balloons, UAVs. We'll talk about that, in more in a second. So it's a very congested airspace. other thing is even before the war, it was a pretty threatened airspace. Everyone is very much on alert constantly for hostile drones. You can, see now that we're dealing with tens of drones a day, right now during the war. But even before that, we saw at least one attempt per month, even at what you call so called peace time. So everyone, is really on high alert from hostile drones. Theoretically, I know every country says they are on very high alert from hostile drones, but I think again, the volume here is obviously, much higher, I think we have many authorities with actual capabilities to deal with a hostile drone. And you have to make sure there will not be misidentification between a hostile drone and a friendly drone. So again, that's a bit different, because I think in many other countries, not every policeman, but not every senior cop has the ability to actually take down a drone. And in Israel, it's much more common. So, so the actual ability to deal with the drones is different. The last thing that most of Israeli airspace of that small airspace is not civilian, is not controlled by civilian unit. Most of the airspace is controlled by a military unit. The airspace are shared. So air aircraft, civilian aircraft can use military airspace, but the units that are controlling, are Air Force units. And, I'm a controller at Reserve Service at one of those units. Uh, and this is something unique, but we learned to use this sometimes as an advantage. So to make a lemonade out, out of this lemon, there are things that, civilian ATC, are pretty reluctant to do. and that's different with military ATC. So we take the advantage of each situation. So, so that's what's unique about the Israeli air space.

Jim:

So tell us a little bit about the, INDI background, use cases, participants, results.

Libby:

So, around four years ago at the beginning of 2020, we were approached by, to our surprise, our highway authority. So, Ayalon, Highway Company, it's the equivalent of the highway authority and by, the innovation, authority they approached us, and we very soon, we set up a meeting with our director general. And basically, what they said, listen, us, the highway authority, have a mission to make the roads as clear as possible, to make the traffic flow. And we want to look at the possibility of removing small trucks and, scooters and making the roads a bit clearer and safer. Our innovation authority said we have the budgets, it's innovation, it's high tech. We have a budget. We want to start with a big initiative. We want to experiment, we want to try, we want to get our feet wet. Have companies fly over urban areas, let's say Tel Aviv and we will learn from this experience. You, the regulator will learn, which are the laws that, that you should do, which regulations you should change. Everyone would benefit. And to everyone's surprise, you can say, our Director General gave the thumbs up, and says, I'm good with that, Ayalon Highway Authority. You may take the lead. You have my green light. You have my people. That's me and my colleagues, Ami and Liron. Please help them with whatever they need. So this is how it started. And the basic structure says that us, the three authorities set up a tender. And we say in a one month, there will be a USpace and a UAS airspace over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, just name a city in Israel, we've done it in that city. So there's going to be an airspace that we're going to experiment with deliveries. So, let's say for the first demonstrations for the first two years, about 10 operators, 10 drone companies, applied. Every company was checked and double checked by the innovation authority to see it's a valid, good company. And, you should fly every day, 50 missions, 50 flights will give you on every morning where you have to fly to, and everyone has to be connected, obviously, with the control center. So one of the, the bullets of that tender was also applying for, uh, USSPs, companies that will run the aerospace. And, we have two companies in Israel that joined right from the start, Airwayz and High Lander there. And they remained until now. We didn't have a third company joining so far. And this is how the structure was built and after a month, and that continued for 25 times, a headquarter or a control center is being built in that city. Airways and Highlander are two USSP companies sit together, connect their computers, set up the DSS, we'll talk about it. The companies equipped their drones with remote ID and we start flying. This is the basic structure. Besides those dedicated demos, I think the European term I like using is VLD, Very Large Scale Demonstration. So other than those something VLDs, we also used some opportunities we had outside of these organized demos. So when COVID 19 meant a complete lockdown of movement, actually, in Israel, curfews and so on, though we offered our services to different hospitals and the Ministry of Health to deliver, covid, samples, and to deliver, something to a building that's isolated. But we can land our drone on top of the, on the roof of that building in that hospital, drop the supplies that the nurse required, and that would save a nurse to dress up, dress down. It takes about 15 minutes. So that's one, way we did during the COVID-19, when there was a security situation in Beersheba. And we needed to scan the roads, help assisting the police to track down a suspect. We used to have a crisis in construction site with people falling down because they didn't, harness themselves correctly or they're doing their duties with no helmet. So we had a ad hoc cooperation, to see the, we can, control the safety in those sites. So, I can name a couple of other, corporations, but, the basic structure is the VLD and then jumping on different, opportunities.

Luka:

So Libby, I'm curious to understand a little bit more one of the first things that you mentioned, where your views, diverge from the rest of the industry, flight management versus conformance monitoring. Do you mind exploring that, thesis a little bit in more detail, including, arguments in favor of each.

Libby:

So, the four services that are mandatory according to, the European regulation, are four, they are network id, geo awareness, flight authorization. And the last one is traffic information. And this is, something that we dealt with, during the beginning of the war. I'm taking you to October 8th, okay? Or let's say October, 7th, noon, when everyone knows Israel is under attack. And we know that the war started with drones being sent from Gaza towards Israel, and there was a very big fear that, hostile drones are still, within Israeli airspace. Very soon, we pushed the 9/11 button. Everyone on the ground now, after a couple of, minutes, all the villages and all the, security managers of cities, of remote villages, of settlements, called us and say, listen, we have to fly our drones because this is the way we take care of the perimeter. We patrol the fence. So, you have to withdraw this restriction. So we have, and again, it's not only a fear from drones, it's a fear from terrorists that penetrated Israel. Eventually, what happened, and I'm cutting a long story short, we can get to that later if you wish, is that we declared the entire Israeli FIR as a demo or a semi U-space. That every settlement was allowed to fly in its own territory, only if they're connected to the USSP. Very fast, we, we built the control center. Have Airwayz and Highlander, our two USSPs, sit together, and we gave the possibility for each settlement to connect to either one of them, just as, theoretically you would, the European regulations sees that could happen eventually in a city. And it became clear to us that we are giving, actually four services, but not the ones that the regulation is referring to. So we're giving a network ID, obviously, no one was allowed to take off without, a network ID. The companies were giving these, operators geo awareness service. Before they would fly, they would file a flight authorization request. But, there was no need to, for traffic information service. There was a need, however, because everyone was flying within his own settlement. And many of these flights was anyway VLOS, because these were the guards having their drones within line of sight, doing their line in their territory. It doesn't have to be the full settlement, but their part that they were responsible in that fence. But it was very important to have a conformance monitoring because we wanted to make sure that if these were, on the border of being amateurs, these were not professionals, again, guards and volunteers for every settlement, for every village, including from my kibbutz where I live. Volunteer told the management here, listen, we have a drone we have good camera capability. I can guard this part of the fence from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM So many people volunteered and we wanted, it was very important for us to give them some sort of an alarm if they're doing something you're not supposed to do.. If they're getting away from the area that they are, they're allowed to operate. So conformance monitoring was very important. Traffic information was not so important. Now, when I try again to learn from this experience, and this is, getting close to what I was talking to in the first part of where people disagree with me, I think the average development of a shopping mall with one company serving the villages around him will happen much faster than 10 operators over Tel Aviv, a couple of, USSPs will give their traffic services. I don't think we'll reach that amount of traffic that will, it will make it profitable for everyone. I think we'll start in many places with one company giving services to the areas around it. And the services that are important are the ones I mentioned. The traffic information service is for a later stage. Even that, again, I'm in a couple of teams in Eurocontrol, in EASA. Including the ones, Andrew is so active at, and the way that traffic information service will be giving is questionable. Theoretically, the operator should get an information about a drone that is approaching him that is, not monitored or, a man crewed vehicle or, under the the, dynamic crewed, traffic. He's supposed to, take care of that. He's supposed to land, move his drone. There are many questions on how it'll be actually implemented and, I think it's a very good. philosophical or not discussion, but this is some part I'm, first of all, I'm imagining the development, the chronological development, as a certain direction. I might have it all wrong, but assuming this is the way evolution will go, I think the weight on each services will get clearer.

Luka:

Yeah, it's an interesting observation. And one thing that comes to mind is, if you're suggesting that there will be one operator per region serving a certain amount of airspace and the people underneath them, it becomes very difficult to then, arbitrate who will be that one provider in that area, right? Obviously as a government, you cannot say, no, we already have one operator in this area, so nobody else can come close in a way you're then promoting a monopoly in that particular area. So I don't think that's the way to go either. So at some point, the market forces will drive operators into a certain area. And now the problem is, okay, let's say that we have more than one, does that create the need for traffic information service.

Libby:

Yes. Definitely. I wish, and I truly hope that I'm wrong and that I would get a request from four companies or even two to start deliveries in Tel Aviv. And then I would say, okay, guys, how do you, manage the separation? So I really hope I'm wrong, but until that situation comes, I think we will see more and more situation when we have, deliveries by one company because no one else wants, you're very right. I truly wish that I will get a request just as we start with multiple operators to operate in a certain airspace. However, since I know the costs right now, at least in Israel, are very expensive and the service will be very expensive, I'm not sure it will happen. I was starting to say that I'm looking at many problems in my life, in aviation, let's say, from history. And I'm looking about, how expensive services and new technology started. And I'm looking at the helicopter, taxi services in New York. And when I was a kid, I looked at the helicopter and my dad told me, oh, this is so expensive. When you're old, it'll be cheap. It'll be a 10 helicopter. It didn't happen. so I hope this will happen much faster, but for now on, since this services are expensive, I don't see a very large market and so many customers, so I hope I'm wrong, but that's why I think we won't start off right from the beginning with multiple operators because of these costs. When the first company arrives, starts delivery, as soon as the second company arrives, that'll be a good point to tell, okay, and, and we can set that off from the first contract with the first company. Okay, guys, you knew this is gonna come. I told you that when another operator comes, you will have to find a solution for safety, and you will have to have someone to manage the airspace. Guess what? As the Europeans like to say it, an acceptable means of compliance would be a USSP. By the way, do we need at that point two USSPs? Maybe we need just one company to manage the airspace. So I'm talking about scalability and costs. I have a good fault in that we've been working very hard in Israel on how to, and I'm going to get to that right with that question. What are the bottlenecks? So we've been working extremely hard in Israel on making this work. So making two USSPs cooperate perfectly, having no bugs, having restricted areas going back and forth. Having the flight authorizations, whatever is needed, and, it is very hard. And now, or let's say, as I, you could say, grew up a little bit and learned the costs, I'm thinking we might have made a mistake and we might have focused not on the most important and urgent thing. We've been focusing very hard on making a couple of USSPs work together perfectly in a U-Space. And what I'm telling you now, how sometimes I view things, it doesn't correlate with that knowledge now. But I was the first one to promote working on cooperation between a couple of USSPs. And that brings me to a question. Having two USSPs, or three, or fifty, working together is extremely hard. It's extremely hard because of emotions that competitors have, and, you can, assume a perfect utopic world, but we're talking about people. And when two companies have to work together the atmosphere has to be good. And when it's bad, and he's not working according to criteria, no, that guy's not working according to criteria. And unlike other topics that I'm in charge of in the CAA, I'm not a coding expert, and I don't know all the algorithms on the ATSM by heart. And, so, so that is a major, bottleneck, having two companies cooperate, so that's one stage. And then there's the actual technical difficulties. There are hundreds of commands and hundreds of orders and code is switching from one place to another. And hundreds of questions arise. And to some of them, I would say even many of them, there is no one answer. And, we had to answer many questions. And, this was the second and third, bottlenecks. The actual technical difficulties of running such a complicated mission. And the third one is the criteria that is not yet existing. So these are three, bottlenecks, I would state that these are going to be a big headache for me when we start.

Peter:

Okay, so is it fair to say that most of the challenges are, a step beyond simply assembling the information of the traffic picture across the different operators, but the challenges are really in using that information, how to coordinate the flight operations and keep them deconflicted when you're dealing with competing operators. Is that what you're saying?

Libby:

I think so, and this is just looking internally. So having two companies cooperate. Having, two companies, both software, you could say, working, that's the, second issue. Answering questions that are not, or getting answers that are not in criteria, that'll be the third. and we haven't even started talking about, different issues that are coming from outside. So, police, so Air Force, and many other government authorities want to have a say and want to make you do something for their needs. So, just looking at the internal difficulties, these are the major problems I stated.

Luka:

The National Drone Initiative has been ongoing for a few years now. What are some of the biggest insights that came out of it? And I'm curious, how come after so many years, there is no regular commercial operations of drones.

Libby:

On a private or commercial area for one single company, we have a lot of drone activity. Drones have been flying in Israel for more than 50 years. I was working on the first AIP chapter that incorporated them into the Israeli airspace 15 years ago. The first AIP chapter, on routes corridors and training zones was published in Israeli AIP in 2010. So we have around 300 companies registered, 300 operators, and around I think 3,500 drones have a registration number, meaning they're doing commercial activity. It sounds, doesn't sound like a lot, but if you look at Israeli size, that we are only less than 10 million people. If you look at the scale, it's pretty okay. So a lot of companies are having very successful commercial activity in the drone industry. So we're looking at agriculture and we're looking at photography and different IR scans and security. You name it. I think Israel is pretty known for being rather advanced. And there are many, companies that are working very successfully. We think generally, we're looking at, uh, a formula that says 1, 10, 100. So one operator operating 10 drones doing 100 missions a day. We generally say, as a very generalized, formula, when we were at that point, then we can be profitable. If we have one guy operating one drone, again, we might have get, got the math wrong, but we don't think this is, profitable again for the average citizen. So that's why the main, areas that it is worthwhile is the areas that, that I mentioned that are for public. I don't like, you can say the police example, cause, cause that's a wholly, a totally different, ballgame. That's first responders, that's emergency, let's say getting a defibrillator, serum, and they have, again, looking at manned, crewed traffic, this has been like this for ages and there will be no difference in drones, if a police helicopter used to have priority, then the police drone will have priority, and the same goes for medical operations.

Peter:

Do you see the same concept of separation minimums of the traffic for drones that we already have with helicopters and other aircraft operating in the airspace? Will they be kept apart by the same distance? Do you see it as being something different for drones and, what is the capacity of the airspace for these different drones to operate alongside each other based on that?

Libby:

So we started off, with a very basic, number, you could say, before the initiative, the basic number for, BVLOS separations was a separation of, five miles from IFR flight 2000 feet. And from, in Israel we have what we call controlled VFR route, or in short term CVFR, controlled VFR, and from VFR routes we allowed five kilometers but still, 2000 feet. That's, with the very basic certification process and before, dedicated the risk assessment. So, this is how we started the initiative after, when we started with the first demos we knew each company went a very detailed certification process and testing of their specific drones. So after we did that process, then the basic separation, got down to 500 feet. And, it was still, five kilometers, but 500 feet, vertical separation from, VFR traffic and man, the crewed, VFR traffic. And this was, fair enough for the, these, demos by the way, between the drones themselves within a U-Space we experimented with 60 meters between one drone and another. The initial altitude for the, U-Space was, 400 feet. That was the initial, number and that's around 120 meters, so we thought, again, looking at the traffic volume, we actually need to have two drones passing at the same second one over the other. So we experiment a little bit with, two actual, levels. So one drone flying at 60 meters, the, the other at 120 meter, again, very soon we realize it's working. We have to work a lot and very hard and the cost of having one drone do 360 or hold for 15 seconds and letting the other one pass, it's just so much simpler, and the traffic volume doesn't really justify getting into all that very hard work. I do see a very, big difference from manned traffic and that eventually every drone, the USSP, that unit would know its specific characteristics. So if I know that the regulator authorized for Matrice 300 for a specific type of drone, that we know that it was proven to us the accuracy levels are 60 meters by 60 meters, and another drone is less accurate. The other drone is cheaper, and that's, we could prove, or someone could have proved to us, that drone's accuracy level is 100 by 100, then the USSP systems would be able to tailor a separation for each drone. And it's a very big issue if I was a controller and I would known 737 800s have this level of accuracy, Airbus 320 have that level of accuracy and so on and so forth. But when a computer is running the thing, then I have no big issue of having a tailor separation between each two sets of drone.

Peter:

And if you get down to, 60 meters by 60 meters type of separation, even in work you're doing today, and that still strikes me as a high number, but even if you stay there versus what you might achieve in the coming years, to me that seems like that would minimize the impact on the other drones that are operating in the airspace is type of separation would leave a lot of capacity, in the airspace system for drones. Is that the right read, on this or do you see it a different way?

Libby:

I see it, the same way exactly. I was at a webinar or, it was even, a, of a conference that I think the Spanish authorities, I believe, were investigating a much lower number. Just as you said, I don't think it's a realistic, number. the second issue I was coming to is the reference altitude. The how do we, make sure that the drone that took off from one place but lands on the other has the same reference altitude as a third drone that took off from a totally different place? And that's another thing that you could say is you, it's not only unique to Israel now, but GSS interferences. So GSS interferences are a big thing in Israel. I know not only in Israel, now entire Central Eastern Europe and many other areas. Unfortunately, conflicts are not only in Israel right now. When you take everything into account, I think 60 meters as just, as you said, is it, is an ambitious number to begin with, I'm not sure how quickly it will be absolutely necessary, and I if I have a better solution of separating traffic, if it means one drone will, slow down for 30 seconds, I prefer the easy and simple solution.

Luka:

As I understand the operations that you have trialed so far are mostly VLOS, correct?

Libby:

Yes, I would say, something between, a third or even a half were BVLOS.

Luka:

What's involved in obtaining approvals to fly BVLOS?

Libby:

I'm not in the, airworthiness department, so I'll have to have a assistant from my colleague, Ami, from, airworthiness and engineering. But again, it's not something, new, of course, beyond visual line of sight operations have been in Israel for many years. And it's not something new. I could say just one thing without getting into the technical specification of what it takes to take a BVLOS. First of all, it doesn't require detect and avoid. So, drones that were manufactured, Hermes 450, for example, they're manufactured in a factory next to, uh, which is in the north part of Israel. And then those, had to fly to test their engines to instruct a foreign, customer, their BVLOS. obviously, they're flying, in an unsegregated airspace with other traffic, but without detect and avoid. The second thing is that we required a very well trained operator that's very well, knowledgeable in IFR flights, in, different malfunctions, obviously communication problem, navigation problem, just almost as an IFR pilot. And I know we were approached many times being told, Hey guys, what's needed to fly a Hermes 450 from the north of Israel to the south part of Israel is different than what it takes to fly a Matrice 300 or an Autel, over the margins of Tel Aviv over a large central park. So, these are a couple of requirements.

Luka:

Yeah, so IFR expertise is not really a factor if you want to fly a small UAS up and down the coast beyond visual line of sight. So, is the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority using a SORA like framework to try to assess air risk and ground risk and then based on that assigns a SAIL level and later approvals for operators. Would you describe that process as very much similar to a European process?

Libby:

Yes, it does. Again, not in my department, it's Aerial Infrastructure Engineering. I get to the part of that assessment that involves the aerial infrastructure. Again, this has been going on, for more than 10 years in Israel, you might even say, 50 years in Israel, and I get, into the picture when we're looking at the aerial infrastructure. Do we get next to an ILS and next to a SID from Ben Gurion? From a VFR route, what we call the controlled VFR training zone, and so on and so forth. But generally, yes, we didn't invent anything new. We're following a European regulation. I think we have some combination with the FAA regulation. I know for sure with licensing, we're following part 107. And I think historically the Civil Aviation Authority was very well connected 15 years ago, much more to FAA regulations. And we have a couple of relics from that period, like licensing, but, we're following either European or FAA regulation very strictly.

Luka:

I see. And I'm curious about your comment about not requiring detect and avoid for some of these larger UAS BVLOS flights. Is that because the entire airspace is so very tightly controlled that, there's less emphasis on detect and avoid.

Libby:

Yes, that's because all the airspace is controlled by a military controllers that have, very good sometimes too, strict control on every vehicle, on every aircraft. That's why we don't rely on the eyes of, of the operator. We don't need the eyes of an operator on the vehicle itself. They do not share the airspace with VFR. So in VFR traffic, theoretically, there is no such thing as separation and as instructions of ATC, but we rely on visual flight rules. So I won't get a drone in those routes. I usually I rely on both pilots. Either one of them will have to see the other traffic. Even if one is delayed, the other one will catch it first.

Luka:

So general aviation VFR flights can only happen in certain corridors in Israel?

Libby:

When it's a bit complicated, if it's unplanned and you just want to hop on your Cessna and take off, to train a little bit, then you can do it, yes, only on certain corridors and on certain training areas, normally close to the, the airports on weekdays. Weekends, it's a bit different. There's much more freedom for the civilian low aviation to go about, wherever they want. And even during weekdays, they always have the possibility to request a special, request. they ask these, they file these requests and hundreds a day, to do this or that activity. Sometimes it's authorized, sometimes it's not. Mainly because. the airspace is packed with the Air Force training or doing operational missions. So, it's kind of a special situation in Israel.

Luka:

And just out of curiosity, at what altitude does controlled airspace start?

Libby:

It's basically you could say from zero to 5, 000 feet, but looking at very basically, there are some sections it'll go to 10, 000 feet and some that'll go below 500 feet. And even, it's a topic for another podcast. Even the way the controllers are controlling VFR traffic is almost close to IFR. They are giving them very strict instructions and separation, and they are very worried if two Cessnas come in a converging junction. But 5, 000 feet is a fairly good number.

Luka:

So considering all of these factors, airspace and otherwise, is Israel an attractive region for drone operators from other countries to come in and do business? How often does that happen?

Libby:

Well, we started the initiative, and I think we got a little bit famous around the world just a couple of years ago, let's say three to two years ago. And a year ago, nine months ago, the war started, just as before the initiative, getting a operator to fly in a country and not his own there's a paperwork involved. If I were to come with an Israeli company and start doing business in the U. S., It's not so simple. I think that again, Israel is a very attractive, or let's say should be a very attractive place for foreign companies to come because we took all these lemons and made them into a lemonade. So the fact that most areas are not controlled by civilian ATC means that we have, to do the coordinations with the Air Force and they apply very good logic, they are not obliged to look at some of the separation laws that the conventional, the historical, separation laws that came from a certain history in a certain context that is not relevant today. So we can execute to some extent logics that we cannot, demonstrate with civilian ATC units, unions, you name it. Now, the second thing is that again, I think we, the Civil Aviation Authority, have demonstrated that we are pretty flexible and that we are very helpful, that we are very approachable. You don't have to take my word for it. You can ask people from the industry, but me, Ami from Airworthiness, Liron that works with me, the SWAT team that was established to take care of UTM U-space. We are really doing our best, and sometimes an operator, it's very important for them. They might give up some profits, they might look at different problems they have getting a responsive and active regulator is a very big bonus. Now, the last thing is that I think, like the famous song, if you made it in Manhattan, you can make it anywhere. Well, if you've flown in Israel, no one can tell you that, you can't cooperate with authorities. No one will tell you that you cannot fly in places that have a hostile drone threat. And no one can tell you, ah, you, you probably can't fly in congested airspace.

Jim:

I like your analogy. If you can do it in New York, you can do it anywhere, right? But you're not at scale, though. So even though people are operating in Israel, and you can say, well, if you could do it here, you could do it anywhere. But nothing's really at scale. Or am I missing something?

Libby:

I think, having, around 25, 000 flights, let's say half or third of them in BVLOS in four years, in 25 very large scale demonstrations over people, over, the most major cities in Israel, over Jerusalem, the most sensitive place on Earth. With the size of the Israeli airspace, I'd say we're at scale. I didn't hear of any other country that ran a demo or a project with 25, 000 flights. It's true that the market. in Israel has its limitations. We're 10 million people. Let's say the more, more attractive parts of Israel with the major, customers, that is the big cities, the major urban, areas. Let's say our half of it, so we're looking at 5, 4, 3 million people. And that's true. The market is not very large. I think we have our advantages. someone can grab the opportunity and if our advantages are exactly fit that this or that company that can make good use of it I think they will be very unique So again, I think our attractiveness is true. It's not size and the market, but it's the other considerations of, and other special factors in Israel.

Peter:

Libby, on a few different, dimensions, you've mentioned the impact of military drone operations in the airspace and how that shapes the scale up of commercial operations. Looking at what you've seen in the Israeli airspace relative to this, and then also what we're seeing from the growing use of drone operations in wars like Ukraine. And if we project ahead to the future, what do you see as the implications of all of that?

Libby:

We had, this question being slapped on our face on October 7th, and we had to answer it right away. So we had about 24 hours to understand that we are in a highly threatened, new state of Israel, a new situation, yet we also knew in order to save lives, we have to allow friendly drones to fly. So that question was thrown in our face pretty aggressively on October, 7th. And right away. By the way, it went, we made an emergency regulation. We went to the parliament. Our two, units, our two USSPs were licensed according to Israeli law. So it wasn't, something that, that went on, without thinking it went through the entire, legal process in Israel. And basically what we did right away is mandate a remote ID to every small drone that's taking off. We mandated, that either company, that the entire Israeli airspace would be covered by companies that knew that's their responsibility and that they would pick up any RID Signal that that shoots up in that airspace. By the way, we contacted very fast DJI to open up their, RID broadcast services and they did it pretty fast. They understood the situation. So basically every drone that people are buying right now is transmitting, broadcast, RID right now. So, so these are a couple of, the solutions we found right away. I can say, from my experience, also in my, as, as my, with my reserve hat on, even the way that the Israel has dealt with the drone issues, even within Israel is very different. You hear about a couple of drones a week entering the northern part of Israel But although there have been a hundreds and hundreds of attempts from Yemen and from Iraq to send drone to the south part of Israel, no one succeeded. I don't want to get too much military here but even within israel, there are parts that the solutions that were there work much better. And obviously there are places where the solutions are much harder. There's no one solution. And we will have to build on many small solutions and try to make an impact.

Jim:

Libby, you've gone through many successful years with the INDI. You've learned a lot. Three years from now, you have a couple of parts of the advanced air mobility structure at scale. What's going to be at scale and why?

Libby:

I, I'm in a bit of a disagreement with my colleagues, as you heard. I wish that I would have, in three years from now, At least two USSPs in all the cities of Israel. I hope the bigger ones, obviously more customers, more people will enjoy more to the public, all these USSPs will be coordinated with the different defense organizations in Israel. So the Air Force, the police, other security organizations will have that. Picture so every police officer could have two swipes on his iPad and see if the drone above his head in the middle of Tel Aviv is a friendly one or he should take it down. and that goes, to the unit, to the Air Force unit. I know we're focusing for very good reason on urban airspaces and how do we provide the services in urban airspaces, but I want cities to be connected. We've been having a lot of flights between U-Spaces, long distances. Vehicles with the eVTOL, you just have to have a wing and it's, and you can call it eVTOL, another multirotor. So, larger vehicles. We've had, the EHang vehicle, both the 216 the passenger version and the cargo version flying in Israel. So I would want to have, some sort of taxi service. It won't be cheap. that's what I think, But I'd want that to happen.

Jim:

But that's unlikely to be at scale in a couple of years. Clearly what you're describing with the drones, for the police forces, for the security forces, that it's seamless, that probably will be at scale is what we're hearing. And I'm guessing there will be some kind of drone delivery services, whether it be for, coffee, hamburgers, or medical delivery. It sounds like that may be at scale based on the excellent lessons learned. My guess is a little bit from what I'm hearing, passenger carrying vehicles, probably not at high volume scale, right? In three years.

Libby:

I absolutely agree. We have, stations outside the city, you can park your car and take a bus. So if I can for 10 kilometers, even less so, if, if I can have a, EHang for$100 a flight doing this, seven minute flight the next central station in that city, I'd be very happy. Just as you said, I think the operations that will be of scale are those that have some sort of public value. So, I think municipalities will be a good place. Heavily using drones. I think government offices, environmental, looking for, construction garbage that, that, truck drivers throwing their, the dump from their trucks at illegal places. So I think, a general public, usage will be, at scale. I know we've been in contact with many offices and municipalities, court authorities, of course, the health industry. So I think in three years from now for that, I can, I'm pretty positive, unlike what I said at the beginning, that there will be a very long time before I'll get my sushi with a drone. I think it's different with public use, and that I can bet.

Jim:

I do want you to give two minutes to the USSP providers out there. Let's say governments who are going to be deploying the USSP's and service providers, commercial organizations that are part of this process. What advice would you give to people? It's not, you have a lot of practical experience with really complex airspaces. What advice would you give to countries or providers for USSPs?

Libby:

The first advice is having a very good knowledge in aviation and in regulation. We had high tech companies, very smart people, but without previous knowledge in aviation, they're having a very hard time understanding the logic. Look, I have a perfect solution. Yes, it's not STM, mine is better. No, you don't get the picture of the way things work. So, so this is, one advice. The second, that's more for countries and organizations. Don't do anything alone. Get cooperation for, I would say, the ideal number is three to four organizations. More is too much, and doing everything on your own is too little. So I would say join hands with other government agencies, other government offices, and don't do everything that one organization leads the entire thing. it's a, I don't know, it's an obvious advice, but you have to get people that are really into it, that really love it. You have to find that guy in the right organization, in the air navigation service provider, in Regulator and have that SWAT team being set up. Be sure that these guys get the authorities, get the approvals, get backed up from their managers. that's true in, in, in many issues. You have to get the right people really enthusiastic about it. And again, having, personal, connection with everyone on board. So meeting a lot, understanding the other guy's problem, not making decisions on your own. For sure you don't understand the full picture of your partner. And you have to have ongoing, very good, relationship, personal, and only then you will get to a much more educated, decision and it will save you time, in the future for granted funding goes without saying again for every problem in the world. And get the regulator on board and making sure that he's giving some sort of flexibility and that he has the ability and the will to help you. If a regulator wants to help you, they have ways. Every regulator has its ways, so you just have to get him on board. These are the top advices for people just starting a national drone initiative.

Jim:

When you look around the world and you see drone operations, being conducted, where are you most impressed?

Libby:

Right now, Dallas. Obviously, Dallas is very impressive because that's commercial. We've seen a lot of activity around the world, But Dallas would be the first. I hear a lot, I think I hear most of the things that's going on in Europe, but from now on, I have to say, if you're looking at actual flights and actual activity, it's low scale I'm, again, I have the pride to say we've done a lot of activity in Israel, I didn't see anyone get near that. Ireland, a lot of good things are going on in Ireland, thing that's really impressive in Europe is the regulation, the way they do regulation. We're very good, you could say, at practical experience. We, we hear of an idea and we run away and fly it. We want to experiment, to play with it, with our feet wet. That's one approach. The Europeans, I think, have a different, more strict approach, looking at the problem from one hand to the other, back and forth. And for me, with another approach, it's impressive to see the way they work. Very organized, very structured. And I'm impressed from that part in Europe.

Jim:

But the at scale operations in Dallas is a standout for you.

Libby:

Yes, definitely,

Jim:

What would you like to leave with our listeners? You've done a lot of years of very effective initiative here. What would you like to leave with our listeners that you think is unique based on your experiences?

Libby:

I think that you should get your feet wet. I think that the main advice I have. Maybe that's because it's a kind of an Israeli approach. It has some disadvantages, but I think staying too much time at the offices and drilling too deep into a third class, and remote scenarios in your risk assessment, it sometimes gets, not very effective, and I would suggest to put a limit on that and go out to the field and get your feet wet, get your feet wet, in not in the most, favorable environments. And this is where I come to Israel. I invite companies, first of all, to come see what's going on here without, without coming with your drones yet. But I do invite countries to learn from others experience. We have been very open and we invite everyone to come and witness with their own eyes, not the Zoom, not video calls, coming, meeting the companies, being in our, a control center, and then come fly, and because you're gonna hit that problems at one point or another. So start that early. I think the risk assessment can support that. Sure, you're taking a bit more risk that your drone might have a malfunction. But if you do it over an uninhabited area, then come on, start flying. Let's put up a USSP first in a remote area. Combine a couple of companies. experiment. that's my main, message. And the second one is come do it in Israel.

Jim:

Okay, great. Thank you, Libby. thanks for joining us.

Libby:

Thank you. Thank you so much.