In this episode we speak with Jessica Brightman, Policy & Standards Branch Manager in the UAS & Advanced Technologies Division of the FAA’s Office of Advanced Aviation Technologies, recorded while the final Part 108 BVLOS rule sits in White House review. Most of the conversation was about how the US built a live UTM system without a final rule. Eleven FAA-accepted services now operate across roughly ten states, and from January through September 2026 they deconflicted more than 2.2 million BVLOS flights. Jessica argues the model scales because it requires only the services an operation’s risk calls for.

From there we cover her view that every aircraft should be electronically conspicuous, and how that shapes Part 108’s right-of-way construct, one of the proposal’s most debated parts. We also get into the new priority scheme for lifesaving missions, what Part 108 permits mean for small operators, and why tying UTM, air taxi services and ATC together is still an open standards problem. Jessica also makes an interesting argument about operational intents and why some operators have reserved far more airspace than they need.

In this episode we speak with Anders Forslund, founder and CEO of Heart Aerospace, which is building the ES-30, a clean-sheet 30-seat hybrid-electric regional airliner. We recorded two days after Heart flew its X1 demonstrator at Plattsburgh, the largest battery-electric aircraft flown to date, and about a year after the company closed its Swedish operations and consolidated in Los Angeles. Most of the conversation was about whether electrification changes regional economics enough to bring back a market that has been shrinking for forty years. The first flight used 85 kWh, roughly $5 of electricity, and Anders walks through how that scales to a 125 mile leg, why battery amortization is the bigger line item than the energy itself, and why 40% cheaper than a comparable ATR is the threshold where a stagnant market starts growing again.

From there we cover what X1 retires and what waits for the pre-production aircraft in 2028, how sensitive the 40% is to jet fuel and cycle life, who funds megawatt charging at regional airports, and what moving from Gothenburg cost in schedule and continuity. Anders walks through the certification plan, the twenty or so requirements unique to this airframe out of roughly 3,000, the not-for-credit testing philosophy he took from SpaceX, and the billion dollars to certification. There is more to come on the independent hybrid, which he was visibly biting his tongue about. Anders also makes an interesting argument about the lost generation, engineers in their forties who have never worked a clean-sheet program, and why reps rather than incumbency are what preserve the ability to build airplanes.

In this episode we speak with Marc Allen, CEO of Electra.aero, which builds the EL9, a nine-passenger hybrid-electric aircraft that takes off and lands in roughly 150 feet using blown lift and distributed electric propulsion. Marc came from Boeing, where he was chief strategy officer and chaired Wisk, and took the CEO seat from founder John Langford in 2024. Most of the conversation was about whether a fixed-wing airplane can really get into helicopter-sized spaces while keeping the cost and reliability of a conventional airplane. Because the EL9 takes off on a wing at a thrust-to-weight ratio near 0.6 rather than lifting straight up, it keeps the payload and range that vertical-lift aircraft give away, at a fraction of their cost.

We also get into the harder questions underneath that case. The EL9 flies its approach below its power-off stall speed, which is close to the aerodynamic definition of powered lift, so we spend time on how it certifies as a conventional airplane under Part 23. We talk about how Electra sequences its three markets, with defense as the near-term launchpad ahead of commercial replacement and then direct aviation, and where the fly-by-wire and blown-lift technology still has to prove itself. Marc is candid throughout about what the aircraft is built to do and what it is not, and about how much rides on getting the EL9 from a flying prototype to a certified product.