GoFly, Author at GoFly Prize - Page 6 of 10 GoFly Prize

With the Phase II registration deadline quickly approaching on December 8, we’re excited to introduce the newest In-Kind sponsor empowering our innovators to fly — Voltaplex.

Voltaplex provides lithium-ion cells for industries ranging from space to consumer electronics, and has assisted those competing in Hyperloop, DARPA, and Formula E challenges, among others. Voltaplex guarantees authenticity and performance of its products and can provide additional factory services like cell matching and testing for teams lacking equipment.

As a GoFly In-Kind sponsor, Voltaplex is providing all Phase II Teams with maximum pricing discounts and minimum order quantities on all cells and packs. In addition, Voltaplex is supplying free consultations to Phase II teams for cell selection and sourcing, preliminary battery pack design, and other lithium-ion challenges that may arise.

We know we’ve tasked our competitors with an exciting yet difficult challenge, and we’re proud to support your building efforts. All teams who participate in the Phase II Building Phase will have access to thousands of dollars in mentoring, software, products, services, media, and discounts, including but not limited to our GoFly In-Kind Sponsor program.

All of these benefits are available to all teams who complete the Phase II application and are officially accepted as a Phase II Team by GoFly. To become an official Phase II Team, innovators must complete the Phase II Agreements, which can be started by contacting phase2@goflyprize.com.

Registered teams gain access to these benefits in return for completing the Master Team Agreement documents and agreeing to provide GoFly with the opportunity to have a small equity stake in the resulting company.

Remember: You don’t need to have won a Phase I prize, or participated in Phase I, in order to participate and win in Phase II. There’s still time to enter and gain access to all of our Phase II benefits. Register by December 8!

Ready. Set. GoFly!

Editor’s Note: We’re excited to introduce you to the innovative, bold, and talented individuals competing in GoFly. Our teams come from all over the world, shaped by their diverse backgrounds and unique life experiences. We can’t wait to see what they’ll build, but in the meantime, get to know the people behind the devices.

A 23-year-old accounting major from Washington, D.C., Alex Smolen is the one-man powerhouse behind team Scoop. Unintimidated by his solo-status, Smolen is currently working out of his garage workshop on his flying device, the Pegasus 1. As he presses on in the competition in memory of his grandfather, a naval fighter pilot in World War II, Smolen is open to having new members join his team.

Read on to get to know Smolen and hear about how he got into the aviation space—with an accounting background.

GoFly: When did you become interested in the aviation space?

Alex Smolen: I always wanted to build personal VTOL devices and often joked about doing it “one day.” It wasn’t until I found out about GoFly that I saw a promising path appear at the right time.

GoFly: Was there someone who inspired your interest in aviation when you were a child?

Smolen: My grandfather, Francis Smolen, was a naval fighter pilot in World War II. I remember visiting air and space museums and going to air shows with him as a young kid. My favorite story of his was one about a strafing run on a Japanese air base.

During the run, his plane ran over a large bump and he didn’t know what it was. When he landed back on the aircraft carrier, he looked at the fuselage and saw that his belly tank was gone, but there was dirt was in its place. Because of this he got the nickname Scoop—he was the first Allied soldier to touch Japanese soil and come back alive.

These experiences and his stories have always inspired me and captured my imagination. His memory draws me toward the sky.

GoFly: What were some of your favorite courses in school? How do they enrich your understanding of aviation?

Smolen: I was an accounting major in college so my coursework is not very applicable to this competition. Despite this, we live in an age where you can learn almost anything through the internet, and this is how I have gained most of my aerospace knowledge. It is a misconception today that you need a college degree to pursue your dreams. I am an advocate for project-based learning, where people learn not only in classrooms but also by going out, doing, building and by working towards a goal.

GoFly: What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently?

Smolen: Being a team comprised of a solo individual is my biggest challenge, but I am embracing it. That being said, I am looking for other talented individuals who want to collaborate with me. Regardless of whether or not my team expands, Iook for the Pegasus 1 to fly.

GoFly: What does the world look like after you create your flying device?

Smolen: The world will look a lot smaller from above. Think shorter commutes and faster emergency response times. These are the immediate impacts.

GoFly: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Smolen: Don’t forget to have fun.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

Editor’s Note: Over the next two years, we’ll be hosting a series of GoFly Master Lectures where industry experts share advice, insights, and answer questions from anyone interested in participating in the GoFly Prize.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome David Neely. Neely has been with the Boeing Company 14 years. He is currently the chief engineer for the Boeing NeXt Cargo Air Vehicle Program. Prior to that role, he was a senior manager at Phantom Works for the Integration of Advanced Operations and Quality. He was also the IPT manager for 777x rudder/elevator prior to that assignment. Neely additionally served as the F-15 IPT wing manager supporting new development, production, flight test, fatigue test, and fleet sustainment.

In this video, he lectures about the importance of considering safety in development.

Thirty-seven members strong, Project Talaria formed when a friend casually mentioned the GoFly Prize competition to team manager Philip Essle, a student at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). Surprised that the university didn’t already have a team building a jetpack or another personalized flying device, Essle knew he had to form a team and get the project off the ground.

Now, the team has a prototype for their flying device, the Hermes I (pictured below), and is eager to see it soar. Get to know Essle, along with a few of his fellow team members, in our Q&A below.

GoFly: What excites you about GoFly?

Philip Essle: The prospect of pioneering a new area in aviation—and playing an important role in developing this new field of personal air mobility—excites me.

Lina Hosking: It’s exciting to be able to design something from the conception stage, onward. We have quite a few student teams here working on different engineering projects, but most of them already have working concepts that they’ve been using for years, and they are just building the next iteration. With GoFly, we get to design all of it—from scratch.

Thijs Van Der Burgt: I’m excited for the opportunity to show the world that a revolution in aviation is near.

GoFly: What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently?

David Oort Alonso: Securing funds is one of our biggest challenges. Not winning Phase I was a big hit on the team, but at the same time it was a unique opportunity for us to question our design process, which made our current device much better than it was.

Hosking: I am currently working on the powertrain of our device, specifically the gearbox, and we’re debating whether we should do more research on off-the-shelf components or just have one custom made. Another challenge is money. We are pretty far in our development, ready to start placing orders for actual parts, but the money just isn’t there.

Van Der Burgt: Time. None of my team members, including me, were working on Project Talaria full time until recently. From now on, we’re making the Hermes I a priority.

GoFly: What does the world look like after you create your flying device? How do you think you will change the world?

Alonso: I envision a world of flying people. It’ll be a world without roads, where humans travel in the third dimension on a daily basis. We’re getting closer towards realizing a technology that fully integrates human and machine to perform tasks that humans have aspired to for centuries: flying.

Hosking: There’s still a long way to go before personal flying devices drive great change in people’s lives. Regulations have to be changed, batteries need to become more efficient and the concept needs to be proven before becoming truly commercialized. But if personalized flying devices take off, they’ll become another mode of transportation, similar to electric bikes.

Joey Dekker: People will be able to use these devices to escape busy streets and experience flying like never before.

GoFly: What’s one fun fact about you that even your team members don’t know?

Essle: Most don’t know that I lived on a boat for two years and sailed from the East coast of the U.S. to Australia during that time. I’ve sailed at a national semi-professional level for four years and participated in seven world championships representing Brazil. I even made it to the top ten at my last two World Championships.

Alonso: I have deep dialogues with myself. I’m also a big nerd, but everyone knows that. Progress through learning is my favorite feeling in the world.

Hosking: I am actually afraid of flying in a commercial aircraft.

GoFly: What are some of your favorite courses in school? How do they enrich your understanding of aviation?

Essle: Economics and art. Art has taught me that being creative is the best way to solve existing problems, but it also taught me that keeping things simple is crucial for success. In economics, I’ve learned that everything is connected, and one change in one component of a system affects all others.

Alonso: Mathematics helps me stick to facts and truths that can be proven, while physics shows me how mathematical truths translate into reality. And, programming teaches me how breaking down a challenging problem into small pieces and can produce great results.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Essle: Keep it simple.

Hosking: Learn as many languages as you can, as communicating with someone in their native language is way more effective.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Brian Schettler, managing director of Boeing HorizonX Ventures. Schettler leads the Boeing venture capital team chartered with investing in selected startups throughout the world. His team identifies and pursues opportunities to make strategic investments in startup companies with discriminating and disruptive technologies for next-generation applications.

Schettler has more than 17 years of experience in aerospace, technology, and defense companies in areas of corporate and business strategy, mergers and acquisitions, business development, and product portfolio management. Most recently at Boeing, he was senior strategist for Boeing Military Aircraft, where he led mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, and partnership development in Silicon Valley and beyond. He also served as a strategist for Phantom Works, where he partnered with Boeing Research & Technology to build development strategies for new technologies and products while also building product and market strategies for new platforms and concepts.

Schettler holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Northwestern University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland. He has completed executive education courses at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and has certifications from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

In this video, he lectures about attracting startup capital and investments.

We all have that one moment in our past when we discovered our passion—in this week’s post, our competitors reflect on when they fell in love with flight and share their memories of aviation.

“There is nothing quite like the roar of a jet engine during take-off, or getting into a plane in cold weather and getting off in the tropics just hours later. Flying is like a portal to another world. When I was in primary school, I remember organizing a flight crew team in my class. I wanted to be a pilot as a kid, but as time went by, I became more interested in designing aircraft and pushing boundaries.”

—David Oort Alonso, Team Project Talaria, Spain

“My earliest memory of aviation is being taken by my father to Toronto International Airport when I was about four years old. By age five or six, I was making model planes out of the cardboard that came with his shirts when he picked them up from the dry cleaners.”

—Gary Gress, Team Athena Aero, Canada

“When I was three or four years old, my dad built me a wooden box with wings and a tail, and I tried pretty mightily to figure out a way to get that thing off the ground.”

— Jim Corning, FanFlyer, United States

“I’m passionate about aviation because for as long as I can remember, my family and I have been flying out to see relatives on the other side of the world. In high school, [my professors] actually encouraged to drop physics and math because I wasn’t good enough. I’d love to rub that in their faces now.”

—Lina Hosking, Team Project Talaria, The Netherlands

“Not sure if my earlier memory of flight is the drogue parachute I found or the cardboard wings strapped to my back, running down a hill as fast as I could… just trying to get a little air.”

— Stephen Tibbitts, Team ZEVA, United States

Competing in Phase II? Submit your responses to our team questionnaire, and see your response featured here, too!

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome John Langford, the president and CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, which he founded in 1989. Aurora uses autonomy and robotics to develop advanced aircraft and was acquired by The Boeing Company in 2017. Dr. Langford is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and serves as President of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He received his Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics (1979), Masters in Aeronautics & Astronautics (1984), Masters in Defense Policy (1983), and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Public Policy (1987) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In this video, he lectures about the future of personalized flight and holds a question and answer session.

The Vertical Flight Society has connected VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft enthusiasts, engineers and innovators since the birth of the helicopter industry. Founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943, the institution helped the helicopter evolve from a widely dismissed invention, to a vitally important form of transportation.

Today, a similar path is unfolding for new technologies like drones and personal flying devices. In the following Q&A, Vertical Flight Society Executive Director Mike Hirschberg discusses how the VTOL industry has transformed, and looks ahead to what’s next.

GoFly: What drew you into the aviation industry?

Mike Hirschberg: It’s the most exciting industry there is. Many people are drawn to it because it comes with the challenge of solving complex problems, such as building totally new aircraft to fulfill new needs.

To do something that nobody has successfully done before is exciting and inspiring. There is an openness to disruptive ideas in this industry, and there are people in this space who want to take advantage of that spirit of innovation and push boundaries.

GoFly: What role has the Vertical Flight Society played in aviation?

Hirschberg: We’ve embraced all types of vertical flight since our formation. If it’s got a propeller, fan, rotor, or anything that spins to create vertical lift or thrust, it qualifies as a VTOL aircraft.

Over the past 75 years, we’ve amassed a tremendous body of technical knowledge about vertical flight, including many different technologies that are available to people who are developing vertical flight aircraft. Today, we provide the world’s largest forum and community for vertical flight enthusiasts, engineers and technologists, and connect them through conferences, networking opportunities, publications and meetings.

GoFly: What’s the current state of the VTOL industry?

Hirschberg: Look back 75 years to the birth of the helicopter—the first successful vertical flight aircraft. Nobody could imagine how useful it would be. Helicopters were originally dismissed as silly toys. They couldn’t really do anything because they were so underpowered, and they didn’t have any payload capability or the endurance of a conventional airplane. They weren’t reliable or safe.

But over the years, the helicopter has matured into a very robust and capable aircraft. Today, we’re in the same situation with electric VTOL. The aviation establishment sees electric aircraft as immature technology, but nevertheless, people are developing, building, and flying these aircraft. It’s happening in spite of the doubts.

GoFly: What do Phase II competitors need to do in order to succeed in the building phase of the GoFly Prize challenge?

Hirschberg: The GoFly Prize challenge is an incredibly difficult one—to win, a device has to have long endurance, it has to be small, and it has to be low noise. People who aren’t encumbered by the constraints of what they think are inviolable laws of aircraft design will thrive in this competition.

Safety is paramount. We advise competitors to look at the body of knowledge that has been developed for the past three-quarters of a century around vertical flight, and make sure that they properly mix innovative ideas with a clear-eyed and sound approach to system safety and reliability.

GoFly: What’s the future of personal flight?

Hirschberg: The Phase One-winning designs of the GoFly prize are just the beginning. There has been ongoing advancements in computer modeling of components, and in aircraft and computer simulation. There are also advancements in composites, thanks to low cost manufacturing like 3D printing, and innovative propulsion approaches, such as electric motors. There’s all this maturing technology now, ready to be blended with tremendous creativity. To use an old cliche, the sky is the limit.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Boris Popov, founder of BRS Aerospace. Popov founded BRS in 1981, and is currently the Director / Senior Vice President of Sales. He was born in Munich, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1949 through Ellis Island. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s in Economics and a minor in Aeronautical Engineering in IT. He holds rating as a Private Pilot and FAA Ground instructor and in Sailplanes, Hang-Gliding, and Floatplanes. He has received many awards over the past years, including the 1986 Lycoming Aviation Safety Award, the 2005 Aviation Week & Space Technology Laureate Award, the 2010 Sperry Award, the 2015 Flieger Magazine Award, and the 2017 NALL Award. He has also been inducted into the 2000 EAA Ultralight Hall of Fame, the 2005 Space Hall of Fame, and the 2016 Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.

In this video, he describes his company and how it can help GoFly Prize competitors, and holds a question and answer session.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Dr. Darryll J. Pines, dean of the Clark School of Engineering and professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland.

In the past, Dr. Pines has served as the 2015 chair of the National Academy of Engineering-NAE Frontiers in Engineering Education-FOEE Symposium, which recognizes faculty from around the United States for their innovations in engineering education. At $141 million, the school’s research expenditures are at a record high, and the school was ranked as high as 11th worldwide in 2011 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which focuses on research citations, and as high as 17th in the US News and World Report Graduate Rankings. He is the co-author of over 70 journal articles, three edited book volumes, eight book chapters, and 150 conference papers. Pines also is the holder of seven co-authored patents with his students and collaborators.

In this video, he lectures about the University of Maryland’s Gamera II, a human-powered helicopter, and holds a question and answer session.