Page 24 - AAA March / April 2024 Digital Magazine | GBP
P. 24
INTERVIEW
AAM Needs to Demonstrate Safety Levels
Commensurate to Commercial Aviation
Standards for Widespread Adoption
Jaiwon Shin, Supernal CEO
Jaiwon Shin, President of complexity and weight, so we generate lift or drag (depending
Hyundai Motor Group and CEO have avoided that. on their orientation). This will
of Supernal, tells Atul Chandra impact the ride quality and also
in an interview that eVTOL The other beauty of our design be very inefficient.
operations must prove itself to concept is the tilt rotors are
be as safe as commercial avia- always working unlike in some So, our approach of tilting
tion for market acceptance. Shin other designs, which make rotors will provide maximum
also added that considerations use of Lift Fans, which can efficiency and also passenger
related to safety, efficiency, only work during take-off and comfort. Our engineers also put
manufacturability and affordabil- landing. As a result, they act as a lot of thought and consider-
ity are key challenges for the dead weight for the rest of the ation into the rear end design
Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) flight. The lift fan blades also
industry. of the air vehicle. This section
is reserved for the battery
Q What is the importance of pack. Battery technologies will
the new SA-2 concept unveiled continue to improve in coming
at CES? years and as a result we did
not want to integrate the battery
The S-A2 concept will be very system into the centre fuselage
close to the final product. To and wings of the aircraft. First
come to this final concept, we of all, it’s very difficult to intro-
researched over 100 different duce new and more advanced
concepts, many of which batteries structurally,
quite frankly were quite which will also require
wild. We finalised the additional certification
concept after four years because you’re actually
of effort and a lot of anal- changing the structure.
ysis and development. Supernal’s engineers
This is why we believe have come up with a
that the final product design, in which the
will probably preserve batteries can just be
the S-A2 concept’s swapped out without
major features like making any structural
eight tilting rotors, the changes or requiring
wings and fixed land-
ing gears. Retractable going through a certi-
landing gears adds fication process.
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