The Vertical Space

#94 Brandon Suarez, Reliable Robotics:  Balancing safety and operational benefits

• Luka T • Episode 94

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In this episode, we welcome back Brandon Suarez from Reliable Robotics, more than three years after his first appearance. Brandon leads the development of technical standards and global aviation policy, and this return visit offers a valuable perspective on how the aviation industry has evolved, and in some ways, diverged from expectations. The conversation centers on the implementation of automation in aviation and its operational and safety benefits, especially for general aviation. Brandon makes a compelling case that improving safety isn’t just a benefit of automation, it’s a prerequisite for aviation growth. He addresses persistent issues like the stagnant GA safety record and explains why relying solely on the pilot is no longer sufficient.

The episode dives deep into topics such as the future of digital flight decks, the lessons learned from the rollout of ADS-B, and how these inform the potential deployment of ACAS-X. Brandon also touches on the transformative role of connectivity solutions like Starlink and highlights the urgent need for leadership and vision in U.S. aviation policy. From radically different aircraft architectures to third-party service providers, this episode is packed with thoughtful insights.

Brandon:

No matter how many more things we put onto small aircraft, we're still relying on that pilot to, quote, save the day when the systems do fail. But the underlying problem is that most pilots don't fly with the vigilance that you would actually need to achieve what the designers expect you to be there for. You get the classic turn on the autopilot at 600 feet and crank up the XM radio. I have some friends at Cirrus that call this the casual pilot. How do we improve the safety for the casual pilot or part-time pilot? And my perspective is we just have to rethink the automation architectures, the avionics architectures that we're putting into these aircraft and radically redesign them to increase the level of automation and improve the level of safety that we're seeing today. Then that's the only way out of it, I think.

Jim:

Hey, welcome back to The Vertical Space, and it's with great pleasure that we welcome back Brandon Suarez, who leads the development of technical standards and global aviation policy for Reliable Robotics. For our newer listeners, you should check out Brandon's first podcast with us published on January 1st, 2022. I think it was the fifth podcast. Listening to a guest like Brandon for the second time and more than three years later than the first provides such a great perspective on what has changed in the industry and how it's different than anticipated so many years ago. So we talk about a lot of important and relevant topics in this episode, and it primarily focuses on how digital flight and its implementation of automation has a significant operational benefit, not only for the safety of flight, but considerable economic benefits as well. See if you agree with how Brandon explains and, lays out his argument and what a great point he makes in this conversation that you have to improve safety to grow aviation. We discuss how the pilot can't always save the day to further improve the level of safety that's needed, especially in GA and the important role of automation. We talk about how the GA safety record remains stuck at 10 to 14 fatalities per month. Listen to how Brandon maps out the role in the importance of automation today and going into the future. Great review and a balanced discussion around the importance of ACAS-X, the role of ADS-B and how it was deployed, and how it can be fully adopted, and what lessons we can take from ADS-B when we consider the implementation and possible full deployment of ACAS-X. Brandon also discusses the role of Starlink in aviation. I really like Brandon's call out on the importance of the need for leadership and a future vision in US aviation. He addresses this in a few different parts of the episode. Brandon, thanks again for a terrific discussion. And to our guests, let us know what you think of Brandon's talk, or the conversations of our previous guest by emailing me at jim@theverticalspace.net and we hope you thoroughly enjoy this talk with one of our great innovators, Brandon Suarez, as you profitably innovate in The Vertical Space. As I mentioned at Reliable Robotics, Brandon leads the development of technical standards and global aviation policy for the company. He's focused on defining key aspects of the development roadmap, including airspace integration and international operational approval and supports product strategy plans and future aircraft programs. Prior to joining Reliable, Brandon was the Technical Director for UAS Civil Airspace integration at General Atomics. Brandon is deeply involved in the aviation community. He serves as the chair of the Aerospace Industry Association's Emerging Technology Committee, bringing together diverse segments of the industry to advocate for common policies. He's an advisor to the International Civil Aviation Organization working to make RPAS a normal part of the global aviation ecosystem. He is a co-chair of the RTCA special Committee 2 28, which has developed FAA recognized standards for DAA systems and UAS data links to critical enabling technologies. He is also active in several NASA research activities seeking to advance future aviation concepts. Brandon, earned a BS and Masters in Aerospace Engineering from MIT. He is also an instrument rated commercial pilot. Brandon. Suarez, Hey, welcome to The Vertical Space again.

Brandon:

Yeah. Thanks for having me back. it's been almost four years and I, really appreciate the invitation and I'm looking forward to continue the conversation we started four years ago.

Jim:

We were like young pups when we did this last time. We were just, I will say, I just listened to the podcast again, Brandon, and it's the only time Luka has ever used the term fun fact. He has not used that term since then in a podcast, but

Luka:

what was the fun fact reference to.

Jim:

it was referencing how I think, Brandon, you met your wife or is it your wife's first

Brandon:

Oh, she was my first passenger after I got my license. It's funny, I went back and I listened to, that episode number five, almost four years ago now. And, it's funny'cause back then I think when Luka was doing the intro, he said this is a pretty long one.

Jim:

That's right.

Brandon:

it was only about an hour.

Jim:

Right, right, right.

Brandon:

much longer

Jim:

And we're at 90 minutes now, so, we asked you a question, Brandon, and what is something that very few people agree with you on and do you remember your answer last time?

Brandon:

Yeah. last time I was, I think we were in the middle of this debate around small UAS and large aircraft, and I was really focused on the idea that for large aircraft we were gonna follow the traditional aviation process. and the idea of going out and collecting data, to substantiate a safety case or an aircraft certification, effort just wasn't gonna work. And, that, that was pretty controversial back then. I think it's actually kind of played out, when you look at how long it's taken for, the small package delivery folks to get operational approval, the fact that the FAA has only actually issued one type certificate for small UAS so far, and everyone else went through this, D&R process. And how long that's taken and how painful it's been. I think that perspective has sort of proven true over the years.

Luka:

But I also think that the industry overkilled the type certification of small UAS, requirement initially and as things are trending right now, that line between showing safety through performance and experience versus showing safety through design certification. That line seems to be blurring, especially in Europe with the Sail three, process of not having to go and get a design verification, but rather show an adequate, amount of flying under the belt. So I wonder what other lines will be blurring, in a year or two from now as people get more comfortable with the operations on the small UAS side of things.

Brandon:

Yeah, for sure. And I think the market's gotten a lot better at defining what its real intended operation is, and the fact that shielded operation has have become much more popular. People have realized they can make money with shielded operations. I think that's a key trend over the last five or six years.

Jim:

So what's your new response? What do, very few in the industry agree with you on?

Brandon:

So this is actually born out of my experience at Reliable Robotics. and it's that I think, for all of the great technology development going on, all of the amazing things happening in electric propulsion and battery technology and autonomy, I actually think the real revolution that we're seeing in aviation right now is one of design tools. I think we're basically getting the tools that we're developing now to design these new aircraft are gonna break and recalibrate, the historical parametric program estimation tools that we've had as a, as an industry. so everyone, knows that design and certifying and producing aircraft is expensive. Some of that's inherent to the complex engineering problems that we're solving, but I think actually a non-trivial percentage of that is based on the old tools that the ecosystem is still using. Obviously among the legacy OEMs. DOD has been trying to break this down over the last decade with digital engineering, and model-based system engineering and all the model-based tools that have been developed. But it's difficult and it's been very difficult and expensive to, to certify new tools. and of course, it's one of those sort of, it's turtles all the way down, it's tools all the way down where you gotta certify the tools and certify the things that certify the tools. but I know that several of the OEMs now are really focused on that particular problem, and if we are successful in doing that, it's gonna change the whole development life cycle.

Luka:

Can you give us some examples, where you compare and contrast some of these old versus new tools and the impact to development processes?

Brandon:

Yeah, the best example is gonna be a really nerdy one, which is on the system engineering side. historically we've used tools like, like Doors to, to capture requirements and trace and validate requirements. At Reliable we've actually given our systems engineers free range to develop a new tool, for requirements capture and analysis and system safety analysis. And that's an example where I think when we are successful in deploying that tool and using it to certify our systems, we can then take that and quickly iterate to the next aircraft project. And that's gonna really, I. Be a game changer?

Luka:

Not to digress too much, but what is the FAA position? How does that fit into their view of the future?

Brandon:

Well, to a large extent, the tools that we've been using historically over the last 40, 60 years to do, system engineering, to do, structural analysis, aerodynamic analysis, simulation, auto land certifications, right? there's been a process in place for the FAA to approve those tools. And in some cases it's just as difficult to certify the tool as it is to certify the software, that results from it. But as a result, they've been totally open to it and actually eager to, to have something new in that area. So that's, it's been exciting for us and they've been eager to work with us on it.

Jim:

Brandon, given that it's been almost four years, what's changed over the last four years in listening to your podcast? You said from four years ago, what did you get right and give us an update on the industry in the last four years, what's happened that's surprised you and what, weren't you surprised at all about? I.

Brandon:

Yeah, it's a convenient place to be able to look back comfortably over the last four years. Obviously I'm still working on the same stuff so bad. good or bad, depending on your perspective, still, co-chairing the Industry Standards Committee at RTCA, still contributing to, the ICAO RPAS panel where we're trying to promulgate these international standards and procedures for RPAS. Unfortunately we still don't have a Beyond Visual Line of Sight, NPRM out of the FAA yet, although it's, closer every day. And then, some nerdy things. we still don't have a clear policy from the FAA on approving control stations and other services that uncrewed aircraft are gonna need to operate safely. Really the main change is, hey, I got my commercial pilot's license and, I've racked up a lot more hours flying my family around the Western United States. but no, seriously, I think, one, one of the, some of the interesting trends, right, we've had, obviously the eVTOL companies have been at it over the last four years. We still don't. I have one that's been certified or been able to scale operations in the way that I think they were predicting four or five years ago. That's un unfortunate, but I obviously they're getting closer every day as that market has consolidated and they've, consolidated capital as well. And, obviously the BVLOS rule hasn't come out, but we actually have a lot of BVLOS operations going on around the United States and around the world. I think they've, like I was saying earlier, as they've clearly defined the operation that they're conducting, that's become more possible. I think some things that I've really learned over the last four years is I didn't appreciate how critical American leadership in this area would become. We've seen other countries advance in ways that we've not been able to in the United States. for example, we've seen passenger carrying eVTOL operations in China. We've seen, a twin turbo prop, cargo aircraft come out of China that, well are operating in China with no one on board. And, it's been obvious that, we want these technologies, these capabilities to come to market in America and we want the rest of the world to, to follow our lead because we think we're going to do it right. I also didn't understand how critical supply chains were gonna be for across the whole ecosystem. even for us at Reliable, where we've become very vertically integrated, we have to think hard about supply chains, not just in terms of, the cost, but also, for national security reasons.

Jim:

Brandon, talk a little bit about the American leadership. What has surprised you? What are we doing right and what is it that we're lacking.

Brandon:

Well, certainly what we have going for us, is our people. The engineering technical base that we have in our country in terms of human capital is just absolutely incredible. We've also been able to deploy, the most capital, most, financial capital of any market in the world, obviously. And I think to a large extent we have a strong regulator that's been trying to enable innovation. I think some of the disadvantages we have, the defense world is such an attractive market and opportunity that I think in some ways it's distracted a little bit from the goal of deploying commercial systems. I would actually have liked to seen the DOD be able to move faster, but I think we've kind of run up against some of the limitations of what the Pentagon can do in terms of acquiring and developing, deploying these new systems. I think we've also gotten well, and we've seen in other countries where the regulator is more willing to prioritize projects. I think we saw some of those projects move ahead faster than we did in the US where, for good reason. But the reality is every project is sort of given the same amount of attention until people start, delivering artifacts to the regulator. so that's probably not allowed us to move as quickly as we could have otherwise.

Luka:

Do you have any insights as to why it's taking so long for the Part 1 0 8 NPRM? And I think you might have been alluding to part 1 46, for the services aspect of it, or maybe something similar to it, but why is it taking so long?

Brandon:

I really don't have any special insight into those processes. Government rulemaking is taking a long time. I think there's, the interagency review process is a beast. And I know a lot of, the other agency besides the FAA have had significant concerns, around the same things. Security, primarily, but, yeah, I think the process is going, I know it's restarted after getting pretty far in the last administration and it's restarted in this administration. and, frankly, it hasn't stopped a lot of companies from deploying capabilities and getting operational approval and making money. So I, I think, although the community's been focused on getting the rule, a lot of companies have been able to move forward and, and yeah, and deploy commercial systems. So that's been good.

Luka:

What about your work with RTCA? Are those projects going along as expected on schedule?

Brandon:

Oh, they are. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of, sort of nuances around schedule. But, yeah, I think at this point, we are largely in the mode of getting the industry to build and certify systems to the standards that we've been developing for the last, 12 years or so. I think, the FAA's been, I hope we get a chance to talk about a ACAS-X'cause I think, that's a real success story in the public-private partnership and the FAA actually solving a problem for the industry. but yeah, I think we're really bumping up against just the, the capacity of the aviation ecosystem to develop and deploy new capabilities.

Jim:

Brandon, let's talk a little bit about the GA's safety record. what's it been, why is it kind of stuck where we're at today the accident rate and, what improvements have been made and what could be made going forward?

Brandon:

Yeah, the GA community, I mean, we've really been hovering, depending on how you look at the data and everything. We've been hovering around 10 to 14 fatalities a month for a long time now, many years. of course the miles flown has increased, the hours flown has increased. But we're, kind of stuck. For those willing to spend the money on, modern avionics and more training, safety has definitely improved. But man, pilots are still making bad decisions or getting into bad situations.

Peter:

Isn't it true that the cause of fatalities has changed though?

Brandon:

I, I don't think so. I mean, I think it's the same causes. I mean, I think one thing that's really happened over the last, yeah, I would say four years maybe 10 years, is, is YouTube. I mean, it's kind of a controversial topic, but there's a lot of really good channels now that are shining a light onto general aviation safety in a way that just what didn't exist five or 10 years ago. I mean, I, there's a lot of them, and it's always tough to single people out. But I think, Blanco Lirio, Pilot debrief, flight shops, and even Probable Cause, Dan Grinder's a little controversial, but I think his channel is great in terms of, all of those guys are in terms of shining a really bright light onto the causes of accidents, and then what we as a community could be doing to be safer.

Peter:

Yeah, it's turned into a tremendous resource for that.

Brandon:

Yeah, I think I, I think there's still a couple of fundamental issues, which really haven't changed in 40 years. First is we're flying around single engine aircraft, right? So it's that is what it is. I think the poor performance of light twins is also, that's a better understood problem now than I think it was back in the seventies and eighties. It, it's obviously accepted, but it's still there. I also don't think, and I'm speaking mainly as a general aviation owner operator now, there aren't enough, owner operators engaged, really deeply engaged in maintenance decisions. people like Mike Busch, I think have gone a long way to improving this. I actually recommend his books to every new pilot that I meet or every new owner I meet. His site, Savvy Aviation. I mean, I think they're trying, to use the data we have available now that's being recorded in the contemporary avionic suites and to use that to, to improve maintenance and safety. And then, we just end up with a lot of pilots not staying proficient. Right. We, you learn, you, you always know that being, legal is not the same as being proficient or being current is not the same as being proficient. And in my own experience, I've tried really hard to stay ahead of that proficiency curve, especially from my instrument, proficiency. And I know that takes a dedication and amount of money and resources that are can be challenging

Peter:

And time.

Brandon:

And time. Yeah, exactly. I and that's the thing, I think for owner operators willing to invest the time and money aviation, like general aviation has become a lot safer. I mean, I have more information in my cockpit now than most transport category aircraft today and certainly 20 years ago.

Peter:

And where I was going with my original comment, haven't the causes of fatalities changed? it was more than four or five years ago. this effect happened with the wide adoption of iPads in the cockpit and Foreflight and the Garmin product, the equivalent and controlled flight into terrain had, as a result of that, radically reduced. And then other related causes that if you give a pilot, really good information in terms of where they are, that you can avoid. but that still leaves us with judgment oriented and as you say, proficiency related causes, you know, loss of control is still an issue. you know, stall spin in the pattern is still an issue. and, it's not like people have more spare time today to go and fly and remain proficient. there, there are so many demands on people's time that a segment of the pilot population is definitely impacted by that.

Brandon:

Yeah, absolutely. and there's no doubt the, that the iPad and, all the electronic flight bag apps, like Foreflight, have been game changing. I also go back, I give credit a lot of credit to the folks in the late nineties, early two thousands at NASA that were really re-imagining small aircraft, as a transportation system. It's sort of the really the predecessor to what we have now with Advanced Air Mobility, regional air mobility and urban air mobility. and, companies like Garmin and Avidyne that really stepped out, fed at that point to, to bring glass cockpits to the market. when you can find those advances which were really foundational at the time with, the EFB revolution. yeah, that, I think that explains a lot of the improvement we've seen over the last 20 years.

Luka:

Okay, so we have to live with certain fundamental, truths regarding single engine operations and poor twin ops. However, despite some of these advances in avionics for people who can afford it and want to afford it, there is still this big gap, in general aviation safety that points to training, proficiency, responsibility of the crew. And so how does that gap get bridged? Obviously increasing automation and autonomy is probably a part of it that you're very excited about, but that at the same time can bring, the automation paradox, very clearly into the picture. And so, how do you see the safety track record then improving in the future?

Brandon:

Yeah, obviously, I'm banking my, career on the answer to this one, but I think that, the thing that's never gonna show up in an NTSB report, it's not gonna be obvious, but I think to, to the engineering community it is that we are still designing systems. We're still like, no matter how many more things we put onto small aircraft, we're still relying on that pilot to, quote, save the day when the systems start failing or when the systems do fail. But the underlying problem is that most pilots don't fly with the vigilance that you would actually need to achieve that to achieve what the designers expect you to be there for, you get the classic, turn on the autopilot at 600 feet and crank up the XM radio. And so up two hours later, I have some friends at Cirrus that, that call this the casual pilot, how do we improve the safety for the casual pilot or part-time pilot? and my perspective is we just have to rethink the automation architectures, the avionics architectures that we're putting into these aircraft and radically redesign them to increase the level of automation and improve the level of safety that we're seeing today. Then that's the only way out of it, I think.

Luka:

What is your idea of that radically different architecture.

Brandon:

Well, first things, first, the airplane's gotta be able to fly itself. So the systems architecture on any aircraft has gotta be extremely high integrity. So we have to bite off the redundancy in flight controls, both at the flight computer level, the flight management level, and at the actuation level. Even emergency auto land capabilities that are coming out now are single string on the automation side, right? So we, we have to redesign those architectures so that they have, a high integrity flight control system. And that's gonna enable, automatic taxi, it's gonna enable automatic takeoff, obviously the flight portion, and then automatic landing. And then we get into, contingency and emergency management, right? So we have to be able to onboard the aircraft handle, failures, expected failures and unexpected failures, both within the system and operationally. Then that leads to, hazard avoidance, right? Traffic, weather, obstacles, terrain and being able to avoid hazards, being able to alert the pilot so the pilot can take action, but ultimately being able to avoid those hazards automatically. And that's gonna be the last bit that we get in terms of, basically fully automated flight where, you still have a pilot on board, you're still moving people around but to improve safety to the level that I think we need to get to as a community to actually grow the aviation pie, we've gotta just radically rethink the architecture.

Jim:

Brandon, you mentioned ACAS X. Talk about it. What is it? Many would argue it's a rare example of a government industry collaboration that seems to have worked.

Brandon:

Yeah. So, to state that simply acas X is a traffic avoidance system, ACAS stands for Airborne Collision Avoidance System X, because everything sounds cooler with an X behind it, really developed as a replacement for TCAS 2, the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System, that was designed in the seventies, deployed in the eighties and nineties. But acas X was really designed as a replacement for TCAs two in light of the next gen upgrades that were happening in the two thousands. Acas X is actually a family of algorithms, so acas XA is designed to as a drop in replacement for TCAs two on trans transport category aircraft. Acas XU is designed for uncrewed aircraft systems, large aircraft flying in controlled airspace. Acas, SXU is designed for small UAS that were operating at lower altitudes and acas XR was originally designed for rotocraft and, and more recently has been, viewed as the answer for eVTOLs, urban air mobility kind of operations. I really give, a lot of credit to some of the visionaries at the FAA. So it was a gentleman named Steve George, who's getting ready to retire, who took over the TCAS program after the Uberlingen accident in 2006 when, the FAA had to basically go and look at that accident and see what needed to be changed with the TCAs algorithm in light of that. And then a gentleman named Neil Suki, who's the current program manager for the acas office, has been there since about 2011, 2012, and has really seen the whole program through concept development to, to deployment now. There's also, the reason this is such a rare example is that it's not just government, is not just industry. It's also the federally funded research and development labs like Mitre and Lincoln Lab. So there were some vision, the original creators of TCAs from the seventies, people like Andy Zeitlin Andone, who saw the need for a replacement for TCAs. They knew that the algorithm that they had developed had been stretched to its limit and they needed something fundamentally different. And then the people that actually created that, like Jim Kuchar and Mykel Kochenderfer, really laid the foundation for what we now know as acas X. and then obviously hundreds of people, hundreds and hundreds of people along the way, both, that have carried on their work, but also in industry building prototypes, building products now certifying products. I, I think really there's, two things that need to happen now to kind of see this program through the first, it sounds weird, but, the FAA actually needs to realize what an incredible thing they've done and they need to continue to fund this program. it's there, there was a large program of record that was going on at the FAA and they've really been on like an r and d budget for the last five years or so. And I think it's important that the FAA continue to fund that project. that they dedicate long-term funding to the maintenance and monitoring and deployment of ACAS X. And then it ultimately, it's incumbent upon our community as OEMs and operators to recognize the value of this capability, especially the eVTOL community. I think the e eVTOL community, the UAM community needs to rally behind the ACAS X as the solution to their problem of conflict avoidance, especially in densely populated urban areas. and we need to just come together as an industry, show our support, and provide the market, incentives for those products to be developed and deployed.

Jim:

What would the naysayers say to the deployment of ACAS X?

Brandon:

I think there's still a misunderstanding there. There's the, there, there will be people that say, well, we don't want to be constrained to a single solution. We don't want the government to tell us how to solve this problem. We want industry to innovate and, come up with new and novel solutions that no one ever thought of. And obviously I think there's a role for that. I think there's many places in aviation where that is a good sentiment and a good idea. Where I think that falls apart is when there is direct interoperability between diverse systems or systems developed by different, manufacturers and designed by different manufacturers and surveillance and collision avoidance and detect and avoid are like the classic examples of that. And so in this case, I don't think the leave it open and let everyone figure out their own thing is gonna work. We have to interoperate with the existing systems that are out there, the transponder ADS-B that are already out there. and at the end of the day, we want multiple manufacturers to be able to build products that when two aircraft are heading towards each other, they can coordinate, they can communicate with each other, and we can avoid a collision. And, this is an area where I think we as a community just need to focus and get it done.

Luka:

Is your excitement primarily channeled toward Acas XA as a replacement to TCAS 2, or also for the small UAS side of things? Because that just opens up another can of worms, of can you develop it at such low form factor, low power, low cost to where it doesn't start to interfere with the tight margins on the business side of things.

Brandon:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited about it across the whole aviation spectrum because the main challenge is interoperability. So, we need the 7 37 with acas XA to be interoperable with, in my case, the Cessna Caravan, the uncrewed Cessna Caravan. And we need to be interoperable with, the Joby S4 eVTOL, right? Because we're all operating in the same airspace. We're all gonna be sharing surveillance data, and we need to be able to, explicitly coordinate in the case of collision avoidance, for small UAS. I think it's the same thing. I think it's an interoperability issue, I think if that community doesn't want to be strategically deconflicted from traditional, airspace operations and controlled airspace, then they need to embrace this concept of interoperability. And, form factor wise, I mean, it's software, right? So the ability to store a few gigabytes of, lookup tables is pretty marginal on these platforms. So I don't, I think that those concerns tend to be overblown.

Luka:

Yeah, we've witnessed how long it took for the ADS-B equipage to reach the levels that it is at right now. How do you expect a similar conversation around equipping universally ACAS X across general aviation would be like.

Brandon:

Yeah. we need to start the conversation with safety, right? And we need to clearly articulate and acknowledge that in general aviation, there's still a problem with mid-air collisions. We're still experiencing mid air collisions. on average, let's say one a month, that should really scare people. And obviously it's one thing when it's small aircraft over small airports or small towns. but, the DCA midair is, heavy on our hearts and minds still. And the sad thing is we have the technology. We've been working on the standards. We've been working on the technology. We've been deploying the technology for over 12 years. We have the solution to these problems, and we need to embrace them as solutions to the safety challenges that we still have. I. I think from a general aviation perspective, we saw that when the government supports the equipage through, in the example of ADS-B, we saw that through the rebate program. The rebate program for ADS-B out was oversubscribed. So clearly there was enough demand, there were more people that wanted to get the rebate than the Congress appropriated funds for. So we know that model works. Secondly I would say we need to provide the general aviation community with an operational benefit after they equip. So we lead with safety and then we show them the operational benefit. and and this will get into the topic of digital flight, which we'll cover. But, so that's the real question is what's the operational benefit for the generally nation community? I. For the transport category aircraft community, the operational benefit of Acas XA is that you get Acas XO and o being for operations. So that system is designed to enable closely spaced parallel operations through IMC. So that allows a pilot onboard the aircraft to designate a paired aircraft, conduct a paired operation with that aircraft, providing a, a tighter collision avoidance protection boundary for that paired aircraft than with while maintaining global coverage with everyone else. And so that's an example of how, again, in their wisdom, the people that came up with this stuff 10, 15, 20 years ago, knew they needed to provide air carriers with an operational benefit. And so that's the closely spaced parallel operations was the operational benefit that you get when you equip with Acas XA on a transport aircraft. I think for, for, for general aviation too it's gonna be coupling the, collision avoidance or, hazard avoidance more generally with the autopilot, right? So Airbus has had TCAS 2 coupled to their autopilot for over a decade now on A380s, and then subsequent, aircraft that they've been developing. and I think we could easily see the same thing in general aviation.

Jim:

Brandon map out the next five to 10 years as it relates to GA automation and GA autonomy.

Brandon:

Well, I think what Garmin's been doing, and Cirrus has been doing with emergency Auto Land has, I think really opened people's eyes, right? How I've been actually amazed how quickly they've been rolling out that capability to other, aircraft types, most recently with the new SR 22, variant that they're marketing now. So I, I think they've laid out a pretty clear vision in terms of, emergency auto land, engine out glide, aids that they're incorporating now. And it's pretty obvious that, their next step would be to enable those auto land operation on a normal use, all the time basis. So I think, for me that's really the next step is auto takeoff, auto land all the time using GPS. Think we need, again, a partnership with the FAA to develop more procedures to more runway ends,'cause, circling approaches, speaking of operations that are, seem to be inherently not as safe as we would like, we've had several accidents recently where, large aircraft have been doing circling approaches and those none not ended well or have ended tragically, I should say. So more, more straight in approaches to more runway ends, that enabling auto land, and then expanding what we've done with acas X to other hazards, right? So, weather, terrain, obstacles, and then coupling that to that high integrity autopilot that we need for auto takeoff and auto land. And then ultimately, or, then the next step is on the communication side, right? So, we're obviously gonna have voice communication for a long time, but the FAA has been working on a program to upgrade their system to voiceover ip. And that opens up a bunch of possibilities in terms of, I mean ground to ground voice communication for remote pilots, but for pilots in the aircraft, that opens up to possibility of satellite communications. we could talk about starlink, and other ways to communicate over voice that don't rely on the legacy VHF transceivers, scattered around our country. And then that moving to Datacom, Datacom has sort of been something that's been the purview of transport aircraft. But I think we're starting to see that in general aviation now, the FAA has been working on, mobile clearance delivery. The idea that I can get a an IFR clearance directly into my EFB through the cellular network. I think that's game changing'cause it opens up a new capability for me as a general aviation pilot. It also is the first step in opening up, what I would say, non aviation, networks to safety critical data flows. And that's gonna be really important moving forward because we just don't have enough bandwidth to do all the things that we wanna do in aviation protected spectrum. So that's, that's kind of a rough right? it's the classic comm, nav, surveillance and then, conflict management.

Jim:

Brandon, tell us about, starlink and its impact on aviation as you see it.

Brandon:

Yeah, obviously, star link's a low Earth orbit satellite constellation that's being deployed by SpaceX just at a incredibly rapid pace. anyone that's, tried it out right on their RV or, any, anywhere really. I mean, it's just incredible, having video conversations like this from a camping spot somewhere, deep in the backcountry is just a pretty impressive thing. It's pretty clear, watching YouTube that a lot of backcountry pilots enjoy having wifi connectivity even when they're fooling around, in an aircraft, I think, everyone wants more bandwidth and they don't wanna have to pay an arm and a leg for it. So there's obviously applications. I think what United, or Delta said, announced they're gonna roll it out on all their aircraft and basically provided as a nearly free service, which is incredible. I actually prefer to be disconnected when I'm flying. But that's a personal problem, I guess. The way I would say it's gonna impact, general aviation is a lot of small airports, that I go to, especially in the west here, don't have very good cell phone coverage, right. They tend to be, small towns and, when you're out at an FBO or something, you may not, yeah, you just may not have good cell phone coverage, so it'll make it easier to get clearances at non towered airports. it could fill in gaps in the ADS-B coverage volumes, so I can keep getting weather and traffic, in my cockpit, even when I'm, below the traditional ADS-B service volumes or for FIS-B also. And then I think it, it could provide a low latency voice com, which could have interesting benefits in the NAS especially, up in Alaska where, the infrastructure is more spread out. The IFR system is harder to get access to. it could really open up a lot of interesting remote communication applications, which I think are cool. it's not obvious to me that, starlink is gonna support safety critical applications. I think it's just too much money to be made in getting more bandwidth to people, to stream stuff. but it could be a nice initial layer, with a, high integrity backup in case it fails. There's some sort of architectural issues with starlink, like, they're gonna keep pushing over the air updates to their hardware, and that's sort of antithetical to, the aviation paradigm. And I don't know how we overcome that. but, overall I think I, it's just gonna, it's just gonna be deployed more and more in aircraft and we're gonna see people coming up with a lot of new interesting ways to use it.

Jim:

Do you think starlink and autonomy could form the backbone of a future, let's say digitally native flight deck?

Brandon:

I think there's a role for it to play. what I think it's gonna take is a, you know what I'll just call for the sake of analogy, a thin gold plated pipe that is getting the high integrity, high criticality data to that flight deck and to the pilot and then a large, call it plastic pipe that's getting a bunch of other bandwidth to the pilot, or the remote pilot. And I think the architecture that we come up with has to enable both of those things. Then, use them for the right purposes. Right? So we've got the thin gold plated pipe to make sure everything is working properly, to get a few high criticality messages through on what could be a high latency basis, and then a, big fat plastic pipe for everything else. And, and the trick is gonna be allocating, which data flows, which functions go to which pipe. So they have to live together, I think.

Luka:

So Brandon, we talked about ACAS X. What about ADS-B? What's your common sense vision for full ADS-B adoption?

Brandon:

Yeah, that's a, it's a great question. So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and be a little controversial. And I'm gonna say we've gotta extend the ADS-B Out mandate to all controlled airspace in the United States. I think that's common sense at this point. we don't have to extend the transponder mandate, right? So we can actually decouple the altitude reporting transponder requirement from the ADS-B out requirement. That's actually key to this. So I think there's two aspects to that. One is we need the FAA to focus on a means to approve a portable battery powered ADS-B out unit, probably in the 9 78 megahertz spectrum for universal access transceiver, UAT. But I think that plays a, that's a really critical piece of expanding the ADS-B out, mandate for all controlled airspace. The other piece of that is we need to get serious about ADS-B in. Since the beginning of NextGen, ADS-B In was the way to provide operational benefit to the airlines for equipping with ADS-B out. And I would say anyone starting flying now, is basically expecting to have ADS-B In on their iPad, and they're suction cupping out a little antenna to the screen if the airplane doesn't have it. think ADS-B in should be required anywhere that a transponder is required today, right? And then what that enables is actually an ACAS X deployment that is comprehensive at that point. so I would say, and especially based on, in, in light of, or as a result of the DCA midair, I would say let's mandate acas X for all the Mode C veils. if you wanna fly in high density airspace you gotta be able to do collison avoidance against everyone that's there. yeah, so that's the plan. And I think if, bringing back the, the rebate program to offset some of the cost of equipping, would go a long way to bringing the general aviation community along. But I think ultimately we gotta show leadership as a nation and as a community and just acknowledge that this technology has really been a game changer for safety. And, it's time, it's time to just deploy it everywhere.

Jim:

What would the critics say

Brandon:

Well, the, there's obviously the money aspect of it, right? the exemptions from the ADS-B out mandate, around military aircraft. There's obviously a lot of sensitivity around national security missions in the NAS. they would also argue that, aircraft that were certificated without an electrical system, really has no way of doing this. But again, that's where the portable, battery powered unit comes in. There's been criticisms about, well, how do we ensure that the battery's charged and the antenna is in the right place? And it's like, come on. I fly with six batteries today. like everyone knows how to keep a battery charged. We can create common sense, guidance on, suction, cupping antennas to windows and things like that. I think those are, really antiquated arguments. And then of course there's privacy. people are concerned about, the proliferation of flight tracking capabilities. The fact that this ADS-B data has become essentially open source because, companies that have basically deployed receivers in a crowdsourced way. And I acknowledge that and I think we've developed ideas around what we've been calling vehicle to vehicle or V2V communication where a secure version of ADS-B would be ideal. But there's some practical challenges with that, that, we don't need to get into. But I, I think the privacy thing is probably the biggest argument we've seen, a lot of advocacy recently around, especially from AOPA around airports using ADS-B data for commercial reasons, right? To charge pilots landing fees or facility fees and things like that. again, I think we've gotta really still leadership in terms of safety. The fact that, air to air mishaps are still a problem for the aviation community and the reality that these systems have become, much lower cost. I think the original ADS-B out rule, the cost benefit analysis and the rule put the cost at like$10,000 or something per aircraft. And obviously that cost is way, way lower today than it was 15 years ago.

Peter:

Any idea why privacy wasn't addressed originally in the design of ADS-B? I'm not really familiar on the early history of it, but I was wondering if you knew.

Brandon:

Well, it was to some extent in the fact that, operators are able today to petition the FAA or request that the FAA hide their information from the stream that the FAA puts out. That doesn't stop the crowdsourced, entities. But I think we could handle that, from a regulatory basis. I think a lot of those companies, their businesses, they don't wanna run afoul of, government rules. And so I think a lot of people would comply if there was requirements around obscuring the data from public view, the practical reality, to really make it private you'd have to encrypt it. And, that's a challenge that, that, that's a big challenge. encrypting a, obviously a distributed, set of devices like that, without it that have to be offline is a challenge. And that's what the military does with IFF. And, let's just say it takes a tremendous amount of energy that doesn't exist in commercial aviation.

Jim:

Brandon, we've talked a little bit in past episodes where, forgive me for saying there's no money in safety. And that's crude. And I think a lot of people in the last year or so have understood the importance of, the vulnerabilities around safety and the importance of focusing on safety. But you've said you've dedicated your life to autonomy, and we've talked about the future of autonomy in ga, but there clearly is money in autonomy. There's clearly significant cost savings that could result from autonomy. How do you see the future of autonomy in GA and in commercial, and with advanced air mobility? How do you see it playing out in the next 10 to 20 years?

Brandon:

Yeah, so, I don't want to be disrespectful to any individual, or anyone or any organization, but I think it's fair to say, and I, yeah, I, it's unfortunate, but I'll just say it. I think the aviation ecosystem lacks a clear future vision. I think that's in part because the system is so much bigger than any one person or one organization, or one company could wrap their head around and understand and let alone start to actually affect, right? Like it's just too big. it's distributed and diverse and there's so many different interest. but I think it should also be obvious that for aviation to exist at the scale that I think humanity would like it to exist or needs it to exist, the operational safety outcomes have to be much, much safer and much less likely to result in the human death than it is today. So I actually see the safety argument and the future of aviation argument intertwined. I. Because the only way to grow the pie to expand the use of aviation across the planet is to make it safer. so we have to improve operational safety, obviously, transport category, aircraft accidents, get the big headlines, but, it's crude to say it, but people are dying almost every day in aircraft across our country and across, and if you look across the world, just as much. So, and if you want evidence to that, like, forget YouTube and forget the NTSB, just look at insurance rates, try to go get insurance for a small aircraft, right? It's expensive and it's going up every year by a scary amount. so I think if we as a ecosystem, don't embrace core philosophy of improving safety to grow aviation, it's just gonna stagnate. And if as it stagnates, it's gonna become more expensive relative to everything else in our lives. Right? and certainly every other mode of transportation. The argument around automation is not about shifting workload from humans to machines or getting people out of the operation. And it's definitely not a, it's all human error kind of argument on safety. it's a economic argument, right? So if any product or service that relies on people, if you're not, improving the efficiency of those people, then that product or service is just gonna get more and more expensive relative to everything else. This is the problem with healthcare. it's a problem with entertainment. it's a problem with a lot of industries that are highly dependent on human labor. So, then the question really is how do we as a community drive towards that future where, as you say, Jim safety doesn't sell, or there's no, people don't buy safety as a product. and that's where I think focusing on the operational benefits that are enabled and facilitated by improving safety through automation is really the key. And then that gets us to this whole concept of digital flight and ultimately, right, a new set of flight rules, a new operating mode in the airspace that I like to call digital flight rules. I think that's just sort of a catchy, an easy way to encapsulate it that sits alongside visual flight rules and instrument flight rules that provides the operational flexibility of VFR, I can go fly anytime, anywhere I want with the all weather capability and the airspace access capability of IFR, I can fly through clouds, I can fly through icing, I can get into airports, with a lot of traffic, right? There's several sort of warnings that start flashing right away, right? The first is that this has actually failed in the past, this was the premise of next gen. The premise of next gen was best equipped, best served. if you start equipping and you buy into the vision, and you increase your capability, the ANSP, the, the FAA, the air traffic organization will serve you better. And that didn't work maybe for a number of reasons. I think the most obvious reason it didn't work is that the airlines didn't wanna invest in new equipment, or the ones that didn't actually get to see the operational benefit. And that kind of scared everyone else away from it. The other big warning thing that flashes is that ANSP, obviously in the US we're talking about the FAA, was not and has not been able to make the investments that they need to make to actually realize that operational benefit in the past. Right? So now we start talking about privatization and ATC modernization and all of those things, right? And that's why I think actually focusing on the airborne capabilities, the capabilities of the aircraft itself, and that is, gets right into automation is so important, If we're gonna ask the community to move in a direction to increase the amount of aviation activity around the world, given the lessons we can learn from history, the way to do that is to increase the capability is onboard every aircraft to increase the level of automation on every aircraft, to increase the number of functions that are automated on every aircraft. and that's the way to actually achieve that vision of digital flight, where I'm able to, take on those responsibilities as an operator, I control my own, sort of destiny as it were. I control the way that I operate and I can realize those benefits without having to rely on other people to make, similar investments.

Luka:

Brandon, let's say, we take Cessna 1 72 as an example of a prolific GA aircraft. In order for that type of aircraft to operate and participate in digital flight rules. What's the I guess an equivalent of a minimum equipment list for that aircraft?

Brandon:

Yeah, it goes back to what we were saying earlier. it's the classic comm, nav and surveillance conflict management. So on the comm side, being able to exchange digital data communications with ATC and with other aircraft so that I'm not reliant on, an open, multi-party, voice channel. Navigation, right, being able to, we could, we can call it RNP, but being able to define the route I'm gonna fly and actually fly it. Surveillance, being able to participate so that everyone can see where I am. I share my intent with everybody, everyone knows what I'm gonna do. And then, conflict management, so being able to deal with, the hazards associated with traffic and weather, obstacles and terrain. So you look at the 1 72 I, the example I go back to, I live here in San, I'm fortunate to live here in San Diego and fortunate to experience on most days blue skies. But, a lot of times here we get this marine layer that comes in and just sits over the city from about a thousand feet to 3000 feet off the ground. And I know I'm sitting there at my airport getting ready to take off and I know the sky is clear up at 4,000 feet, but I've gotta wait for an IFR clearance'cause I'm gonna punch through, 2000 feet of clouds and I'm number three for clearance. Right? And there's six aircraft lined up on the approach of San Diego International and 12 other aircraft and SoCal tracon all trying to get into these airports, right? The six other airports in my area. That's a perfect example of where if the sky is clear, I ask to depart VFR line up and I'm providing my own separation from terrain, obstacles, weather, and traffic. and I'm, defining my own flight path and flying. With the proper level of automation on board the aircraft, I can do that exact same thing through the weather. And that's an example of, I, we can provide an operational benefit today to that small aircraft, general aviation pilot. that wouldn't be possible any other way. And, will, again, back to the core foundational thing that all of that improves the safety of that operation tremendously. And now I've given that pilot, 30 minutes of their life back.

Luka:

It is a very compelling vision. The cynic in me would recall the earlier conversation we had about pilot proficiency and responsibility and the training as being central to the, poor safety track record and then putting that kind of a pilot into a even more uncertain environment and risky environment. That also sounds like a bad idea. So at some point you then escalate the need for additional technology, additional automation in the cockpit to be able to offset that, and you end up in this spiral of cost and complexity and training. It seems overwhelming for an average GA pilot. Would you agree? is this something that is intended for maybe another, category of pilots or is it all or nothing type of application?

Brandon:

Yeah, I think it goes back to our conversation around, architectures and the reality is that I don't think we can just, keep adding more boxes to the airplane. I think it actually does take a fundamental redesign of the system architecture onboard, an aircraft that would participate in this way. I actually do think we can provide pieces of operational benefit without that fundamental redesign, but, to really see out that vision of radically improved operational safety and, deploying all these operational benefits. Yeah. it is gonna take, a level of automation onboard the aircraft that on one hand, maybe we do have to train pilots more or differently. On the other hand, it could actually reduce the burden on pilot qualification and training to the point where, if my avionics are handling contingencies and emergencies automatically for me, I actually envision a day where, flying IFR is almost like getting a tail wheel endorsement, it's something you would do because you're kind of, you're a nerd and you want to, you wanna go fly tail wheels and, it's something, it's a challenge. It's actually easier to not fly a tail wheels, it's easier to fly, a tricycle gear airplane. That's how we train most people. I could see a world in which people actually come into aviation with only the ability to fly with a, an aircraft enabled for digital flight. And if it's gonna take additional training and additional qualification requirements to go do other things, that we do today as the basis of being a pilot.

Luka:

Can that digital flight, native aircraft operate in mixed environments? Mixed fleet environments? Or what's the cost operational and financial, then that would impose to other participants?

Brandon:

That's obviously the key. I I encourage, all listeners to, to go search online for some of the NASA papers on digital flight or digitally enabled cooperative operations. We put out a report couple years ago from RTCA on digital flight, easily searchable online and one of the key principles that we've talked about for over five years now is the need to acknowledge that we exist in this aviation system IFR, VFR airspace classes, ATC procedures and all those things, and digital flight has to exist alongside all of those things. and cannot just, can't to practically speaking, impact the efficiency or the safety of those operations. So that obviously puts a higher burden, naturally on, this new idea of digital flight rules. But, to me that's just the reality of coming into an existing system.

Luka:

And short of overhauling the architecture and some of these larger changes in the nas, what do you see as some of the near term levers that we can pull as a community to improve the safety track record in general aviation, but without triggering all of these other conversations?

Brandon:

Yeah, well, I was, I'm actually encouraged there, the discussion going around ATC modernization right now and, whatever the number comes out to be, 15 or 12 and a half or$40 billion, whatever. I was actually encouraged to see that there was money, set aside for safety enhancing automation capabilities onboard aircraft. and so I think that conversation of, yes, we need to improve our existing ATC system, but we can actually shift some of that, call it burden or some of those capabilities to the aircraft. And I would say as a nation and as an aviation community, we should be willing to ask the taxpayer to pay for that because it's an improvement. If I improve the capabilities onboard aircraft, I actually improve the system overall. So, that goes back to the things we were talking about earlier, expanding the ADS-B out mandate for all controlled airspace. creating an ADS-B In mandate for, the basic applications requiring ACAS X for, high density airspace today. And I think, if we did those three things alone, we would radically improve, safety. Because mid airs are still a problem. and that would actually shift a lot of the burden and onto aircraft and start us down that path.

Jim:

So Brandon, how do you like working at Reliable Robotics?

Brandon:

Oh, I love it. Oh, man, I'm having a blast. Every day is a ton of fun. One of the things that, that drew me to Reliable in the beginning, is that, Robert Rose and Juerg Frefel, I think are the two most compelling co-founders in this space. And, it really has been incredible to work with those guys and to learn from them. And the whole team at Reliable. I love working with smart people. I love the problem we're working on. I think, automating, Cessna Caravan, converting it to be remotely piloted is, and has always been the logical first step, all the way back to the DARPA Alias program. And, we've got a great commercial partners and we have Reliable Airlines it's operating, six caravans today out of Albuquerque. And so it's been fun to get more exposure to the airline, to really drive at that intersection between design and operations has been a ton of fun. Yeah, so it's been great and we've got a lot of exciting things coming up, including, later this year flying, our pre-production Caravan with no one on board. so lot of fun things to look forward to.

Jim:

Now, you know, we had your CEO on the podcast.

Brandon:

Oh yeah,

Jim:

Did you tell him you were joining again

Brandon:

I did. Yeah, we talked a

Jim:

and tell me the first words out of his mouth when you told him.

Brandon:

Safety. Yeah. No, and and I certainly encourage anyone interested in Reliable Robotics to go back and listen to that episode'cause I think he articulates, our vision well and we are still marching down that path.

Jim:

That's great. As you anticipated the podcast and now that given that you're a veteran, is there anything you wanted to talk about that we haven't asked you about?

Brandon:

One other thing that I think is important to mention because we got to talk about digital flight and obviously I'm passionate about, about that topic. I think another sort of key aspect of that, which ties in our discussion on small UAS as well is the role that third party service providers are gonna play going forward in the airspace. We hope that as part of the BVLOS rulemaking, there will not only be a part 1 0 8 for operators, but what's been called part 1 46 for service providers. And I think that's the piece of the BVLOS rule that can actually be a seed that will grow for larger aircraft and operations in controlled airspace and around the world. So expanding the use of third party service providers, both for, things that contribute to operational efficiency. Like, we have for, EFBs, but also safety critical, services as well, I think is gonna be a really important thing going forward. in our case, we're looking at companies that provide services around the C2 link and we are gonna be pushing the envelope around using secure cloud-based network architectures. We're gonna be pushing the envelope around SATCOM services and I think there's an opportunity to expand and codify the use of third party service providers so that they can be approved, independent of an operator. And once I have service providers that are decoupled from an operator, now I really can get synergy in terms of them improving and developing services, and rolling those out to multiple operators at the same time without the burden always being on the operator to reapprove those service providers. So I'm excited about the way that's gonna play out and, the way that can, and not only improve safety, but also contribute to this future of digital flight.

Jim:

Save us a few minutes. If you were to create a headline, a title for the podcast, give us a couple of options.

Brandon:

Oh, is that like, is that like writing your own obituary or something? Yeah, I mean, I, again, I think that the big thing is we've gotta be focused on safety. We've gotta tie that to operational benefit, right? So I think, you know what I, I would like to think that what I've tried to give you guys today is sort of that the long-term vision with digital flight being the way that we provide operational benefit to aviation users and the motivation for that, not just being economic, but being safety and, so I don't know how to turn that into three words, but.

Jim:

You've articulated that very well. So Brandon, thanks so much for joining us again. This was great.

Brandon:

Thanks for having us time, the time flies by. So I appreciate you guys, doing this for me and, I hope it, I hope it helps people.

Jim:

Yeah. Thank you for doing it for us. We

Luka:

Thanks, Brandon.

Peter:

Thanks, Brandon.