AAM Spotlight, David Shilliday, Honeywell

Having signed up to $10 billion worth of contracts with a host of leading advanced startups, Honeywell has emerged as one of the leading suppliers of products and systems for the nascent sector. David Shilliday, general manager of Honeywell’s AAM division, recently sat down with the AAM Report to share his thoughts on the rapidly evolving industry. A partial transcript follows:

AAM Report: Can you provide an overview of the AAM division at Honeywell?

Shilliday: Early on, we saw that there was going to be a new market where new technologies were going to be required, and we wanted to have teams that were agile enough to meet that mission. But we also recognized that these customers were going to operate at a different pace and some of the traditional ways of supporting them weren’t going to work.

So, we created a dedicated AAM division that reports directly to our CEO Jim Currier, which ensures we have the agility and resources needed to respond to this dynamic and fast-moving new market. The idea is to have business people and offering managers and engineers who are able to go support this market and these customers where they are today–not following the same traditional methods or processes that we would have used with legacy OEMs.

How do the technologies you’re developing for AAM feed back into your legacy aviation portfolio?

It happens in both directions. In one sense, it’s a sandbox where we can evolve technology that was developed for traditional aircraft to get it ready for future needs, whether that’s AAM or a future fixed-wing application. And then the same is true in reverse; we may get unique insight from these customers that drives us to create a new offering that may feed into one of our legacy road maps.

And one of the best things we’re able to do is reach back into the Honeywell mother ship relative to things like certification support or looking at legacy products like our Honeywell/Anthem avionics or our actuation and cooling systems to see how we can apply those to this nascent market and do it at a cost and at a weight that allows those customers to be successful.

Can you share an example of a product with cross-applicability between AAM and traditional aviation?

A great example is our cooling systems, or what we call our micro VCS, or vapor cycle system. That was and is applicable to defense and business jet platforms because it’s a very low-weight system that can provide cooling for both passengers and a number of systems on the aircraft. It utilizes a Honeywell refrigerant that has lower global warming potential, so it represents our future aspirations toward more sustainable solutions.

But it’s also a perfect fit for AAM, where size and weight matter, but you’re also dealing typically with all-electric, or in some cases hybrid-electric, systems that generate a lot of heat. And so the cooling requirements are substantial, both for the passengers as well as in some cases for the batteries or other systems on the aircraft. So that’s an example where the original applications for traditional aerospace are good and appropriate, but it’s also a great fit and we are adapting it and learning via AAM.

Besides weight and heat, what other considerations come into play when building out systems for AAM?

There are some integration opportunities, particularly where the aircraft is all-electric. So, if we think about the sorts of legacy hand offs between systems–avionics to flight control computers to actuators to engines, etc. In this new world where these aircraft are in most cases electric, you have the ability to offer integrated solutions between the cockpit, the flight control computer, the actuators, the electric propulsion and the battery systems, whether battery management or power management. You have the ability to link those things together across systems that are being designed for a time when data is going to be free and accessible and the cockpit is going to be connected all the time, and so your imagination just gets going on all the possibilities that that creates.

How does a focus on Simplified Vehicle Operations influence the company’s design philosophy?

It’s a major focus area, especially as we think about where we are today on the continuum toward autonomous aircraft. As we design aircraft systems, we try to think about the decisions that can allow for reduced crew operations or what we call simplified vehicle operations, so that we can build trust in those systems and move toward more autonomy, and ultimately, with enough trust and proof, complete autonomy.

Simplified vehicle operations are built into our Anthem cockpit. The whole idea is to make it as intuitive as possible for the pilot to make decisions, while removing information that is dull or not totally essential, so the pilot can focus on the critical aspects of flying the plane that only a pilot can do, while the aircraft itself handles the minutiae that can be easily automated.

The AAM industry is at a critical juncture in 2024, with the first Western OEMs projecting type certification by the end of the year. What is your personal outlook for 2024?

This is the year that stuff gets real. Both on the technical side, proving the mission, like Volocopter plans to do in Paris, but also all of the associated requirements. So, 2024 will prove where we are technically, and that’s the most straightforward aspect, but it will also highlight all of those somewhat lagging needs relative to infrastructure, certification and some other elements.

At present, I’d say certification is getting its fair share of attention, but infrastructure is lagging. And as folks start to see these vehicles operate and delivered in 2024, you’re going to start to really see people get serious at airports about things like, ‘Do we have enough grid power? Do we have enough vertiports? Do we have the capable and necessary people to repair and pilot those aircraft?’ I think all of those concerns get very, very real in 2024.

And the last thing I can’t emphasize enough is customer adoption. In cities where early missions are going to be done, getting the public access to these vehicles and proving how quiet, safe and clean they are will be crucial. If you can put these vehicles into the local airport, a stadium, or somewhere where people can wrap their arms around it, you can start to demystify it. That’s going to go a long way toward reducing some of the resistance we might otherwise see.