The Allplane Podcast

Allplane

The Allplane Podcast is all about commercial aviation and air travel. Every episode features an aviation professional that opens up for the audience a different aspect of the aviation industry.

  1. 1 FEB

    The Allplane Podcast #135: advanced air mobility reality check, with Adrian Norris

    Every now and then is good to stop for a second, and take some time to think and assess what’s going on around you. If you are following the advanced air mobility industry on a day to day basis it is easy to get carried away by a deluge of triumphalist announcements and press releases. But what is real and what is mere hype? Adrian Norris is someone that not only knows the aviation industry inside out after decades of experience in different capacities, but he’s also been an aircraft entrepreneur prior to becoming a consultant. So, he knows a thing or two about the challenges of developing and marketing a new aircraft type from scratch! I’ve been following Adrian’s writings on Linkedin for quite some time. In the, he shares his critical analysis, based on objective, known facts, of some of the most prominent aviation projects going on in the world right now. Does hydrogen aviation have a future? What are the prospects for electric aircraft developers? Who’s going to win the eVTOL race, if anyone? These are just some of the topics we discuss with Adrian in today’s episode. What’s more, rather than remain in the domain of the abstract and general, we are going to name specific companies and try to assess their chances of success. So, buckle up for a ride through the volatile world of advanced air mobility. We'll try to separate hype from reality in an industry in which high hopes and promising tech collide with challenging human and physical laws, challenging economics and shifting investor sentiment!

  2. 18/12/2025

    The Allplane Podcast #134: electrifying airliner taxiing, with David Valaer (Green Taxi)

    What if the lowest-hanging fruit in aviation decarbonization was not in the air, but waiting right in front of us, on the ground? This is what David Valaer, founder and CEO of Green Taxi Aerospace thinks. A pilot since the age of 16, David has spent his whole life surrounded by aircraft, either spending summers a bush pilot in Alaska, flying F-16 fighter jets for the US Air Force or, later on, scaling up and selling a successful helicopter tech company. A few years ago, David became intrigued by the possibilities that a new generation of electric motors offered to solve one of the issues of everyday commercial aircraft operations: the amount of fuel wasted while taxiing inefficiently through airports. Did you know that between 5 and 20% of fuel is consumed by airliners while they are on the ground? This happens because most of the time aircraft use their engines to move while on the tarmac, an incredibly wasteful process which in addition to producing unnecessary carbon emissions, also strains aircraft brakes and exposes the engines to foreign object damage. What if the taxiing could be done with electric motors instead? Green Taxi is working on a system that, David promises, will be able to cut down drastically the amount of fuel aircraft consumer while taxiing. Airlines could be saving in the region of $250-300k per aircraft per year if this technology is finally implemented, not to speak of the related drop in emissions and wear and tear of equipment. I was also intrigued by this story, so after speaking with David a few times at industry conferences in the last few months, I thought it was best if he could come onto the podcast to share all the details about this promising new technology that his company is developing. So, tune in for an interesting chat about what Green Taxi can do for the environment and for the bottom line of airlines! (and also for some fascinating details about David’s earlier adventures in aviation!)

  3. The Allplane Podcast #133: large electric aircraft w/ Daniel Rosen Jacobson, co-founder of Elysian Aircraft

    04/11/2025

    The Allplane Podcast #133: large electric aircraft w/ Daniel Rosen Jacobson, co-founder of Elysian Aircraft

    What is building a large scale battery-powered aircraft was more feasible than originally thought? Our guest on this episode of the podcast, Daniel Rosen Jacobson co-founder and co-CEO of Elysian Aircraft, has come on the podcast to explain how asking the right questions and conducting scientific research laid the groundwork for the truly ambitious project that is the E9X electric airliner. While most electric aircraft projects have focused on the development of smaller aircraft, Elysian Aircraft is taking on the mainstream air travel market with a zero-emissions aircraft concept capable of carrying up to 90 passengers over distances of 1,000 kilometers. This is certainly a bold proposition, but one that, Daniel explains, is well grounded in science and engineering principles laid out by two papers co-authored by researchers at the Technical University of Delft, in The Netherlands. What’s more, Elysian Aircraft is backed by Panta Holdings, a company that is no strangers to the world of aviation since it is the owner of Fokker Services Group, which is the remaining part of the iconic Dutch aircraft maker of the same name, now providing a range of MRO and other technical services to aircraft operators. Elysian’s take on the future of zero emissions aircraft has also attracted the interest of consolidated industry players such as the Air France-KLM group and leasing firm TrueNoord, both of which have signed collaboration agreements with Elysian Aircraft with a view to potentially using the E9X aircraft one day in the future. This will, for now, have to wait a few years, as Elysian Aircraft refines its concept and builds and tests its first prototypes. In the meantime, though, we can listen to Elysian Aircraft’s co-founder and co-CEO, Daniel Rosen Jacobson, explaining the key elements of this projected aircraft and the role he expects it to play in the future of commercial aviation!

  4. 13/10/2025

    The Allplane Podcast #132: Airships w/ Michael Kendrick, Mark Dorey & James Dexter (Straightline Aviation)

    Is the airship ready for a big comeback? This is not some sort of retro-futurist sci-fi scenario, since there are a handful of companies working to develop a new generation modern-day iteration of this iconic type of aircraft. But, in fact, airships and, more generally, lighter than air aircraft never fully went away. The US Navy, for example, operated blimps until 1962 (and experimented with them again in the 2000s). Airships have also been used for advertising purposes and, for some time, even Richard Branson’s Virgin Group had an airship division. Our guests today know all this very well because they experienced it first hand. In fact, I doubt there are many other people in the world right now with the sort of experience and knowledge about how to operate an airship. Mike Kendrick, Mark Dorey and James Dexter boast decades of combined experience managing airships and they are now the management team of Straighline Aviation, a British startup that aims to become the world’s top airship operator. If there is a technological advance that has prompted this renewed interest in the airship category, it is the development of the Air Cushion Landing System (ACLS), which enables airships to land, load and unload at pretty much any flat spot that is large enough. This double-chambered airship concept has been under development by Lockheed Martin and, later by, a spin-off company called AT² Aerospace, for about two decades. As this technology approaches maturity, Straightline Aviation has been also refining its plans to deploy it commercially, with the plan to become the world’s first airship-based air cargo operator. On today’s episode we assess what are the chances of this happening soon and what are the requirements for a successful commercial air ship operation. We also talk about Mike Kendrick’s earlier ventures in the airship space and how the team is preparing for a nonstop circumnavigation of the globe as soon as the first unit of this novel airship type becomes available. So, tune in for a fascinating talk about airships and the role they may play in the future of aviation.

  5. 07/09/2025

    The Allplane Podcast #130 with Mukund Karanjikar, CleanJoule founder and CEO

    The world badly needs sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and, fortunately, there is not shortage of entrepreneurs willing to take on the challenge to scale up production. Now, are all SAF pathways the same? Of course not. Today on the podcast we will talk with Mukund Karanjikar, founder and CEO of CleanJoule, a SAF startup based in Utah that is developing a SAF production method that delivers more joules of energy per unit of fuel mass than other traditional biogenic pathways. What’s more, not content with powering a commercial aviation industry that is thirsty for SAF, CleanJoule is also developing biogenic SAF for space travel. So, when it comes to CleanJoule, you could well say that the sky is not the limit! The prospect of clean space travel is quite interesting by itself, but, of course, there are other considerations too, such as cost and strategic independence and, on these two counts, CleanJoule is also ready to deliver, says Mukund. So, in today’s episode we are going to learn a bit more about CycloSAF and CycloRP, the two flavours of sustainable aviation fuel that CleanJoule is developing (for the aviation and space industries, respectively) and how CleanJoule plans to roll out and scale production before the end of this decade. We will also talk about the positioning of CleanJoule is the broader and constantly evolving SAF industry landscape and why this startup has got the attention of prominent investors such as Indigo Partners (a private equity firm which owns a global portfolio of low-cost airlines) and Temasek (one of Singapore’s most prominent groups). So, tune in for a fascinating talk with Mukund Karanjikar of CleanJoule about one of the most promising technologies I have seen so far in the field of SAF!

  6. The Allplane Podcast #128 with Otto Aviation COO Scott Drennan

    22/07/2025

    The Allplane Podcast #128 with Otto Aviation COO Scott Drennan

    In this episode of the podcast we’ll explore one of the most truly disruptive clean-sheet aircraft projects currently underway. Scott Drennan is President and Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Otto Aviation, a US startup aircraft maker that is developing an ultra-efficient executive jet. The Phantom 3500 uses a teardrop-shaped design to take full advantage of the laminar flow principle and reduce drag to a minimum. Otto Aviation is, in fact, not a newcomer. The firm has been working on this concept for more than a decade, although in the last few years it has pivoted from the original idea, the Celera 500L propeller aircraft for the general aviation market, to the Phantom 3500, a fully-fledged business jet which aims to compete in the super-mid-size category of business jets. With Scott we talk about Otto Aviation’s disruptive approach to aircraft design, how laminar flow can be mastered to achieve some unprecedented fuel efficiency gains and what this involves in terms of financial and environmental performance. We also touch upon one of the most eye-catching features of the Phantom 3500: the absence of windows for extra aerodynamical gains and how Otto Aviation is responding with a new way to conceive the passenger experience. And, following the announcement, made during the 2025 Paris Air Show, that Otto Aviation is investing in a greenfield manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida, we also discuss the company’s investment plans and go-to-market strategy. How many aircraft is it planning to build per year? Who is it planning to primarily compete with and how? Tune in for a fascinating conversation that combines technical and commercial insights about the unique Phantom 3500 business jet, a flying bullet which may change how we think about aerodynamics and aircraft construction!

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The Allplane Podcast is all about commercial aviation and air travel. Every episode features an aviation professional that opens up for the audience a different aspect of the aviation industry.