Kriya Shortt joined Textron eAviation in August as its new president and CEO, after a 27-year career at Textron Aviation. She talks about her new role, the company’s goals and challenges and provides an update on Pipistrel’s Velis electric aircraft. Hosted by Molly McMillin, editor of business aviation for the Aviation Week Network.
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Rush Transcript:
Molly McMillin: Hello and welcome to our BCA Podcast live from Textron eAviation's offices in Wichita, Kansas. I'm Molly McMillin, Aviation Week Managing Editor for Business Aviation, and I'm joined today by Kriya Shortt, President & CEO of Textron eAviation. Kriya assumed the position from Rob Scholl back in August following Rob's appointment as President and CEO of Textron's specialized vehicles.
Welcome Kriya.
Kriya Shortt: Thank you so much Molly
Molly McMillin: Kriya, you've held a number of positions at Textron over what, 27 years there I believe, and you most recently served as senior vice president of Global Parts Distribution. In your new position here with eAviation, what is your charge? What are your goals?
Kriya Shortt: Well, our charge is really simple in that Textron eAviation's business segment is really focused on ensuring that Textron's brands are present as we move into this new space in aerospace around sustainability. We're doing that through Pipistrel, which is our company based in Slovenia, who of course, as you probably know, I think you've flown in our Velis, we have the world's only certified electric trainer, and we're continuing to evolve our technology and make sure that we're going to be at the forefront of sustainability.
At Pipistrel, we're really focused on continuing to evolve the battery technology that we have in the Velis. We're moving into our Nuuva, which is going to be a very large cargo carrying drone. It is an electric vertical takeoff and conventional forward lift. And we're able to take those technologies and share those across even into our Nexus eVTOL platform that we're working on here at Textron eAviation.
Molly McMillin: Kriya, what interested you in taking this position?
Kriya Shortt: Well, I've been following what's happening in the sustainability space around the eVTOLs for the past several years, and so it is something that is interesting to me personally. As well as every move I've made within my career has been to continue to evolve and learn and grow as a person, as a leader, to be able to contribute and bring together the learnings to support the ultimate goals of supporting our team and supporting our customers. And so when this opportunity presented itself, I'm kind of a huge challenge junkie, so two of my buckets really are around learning and being challenged and also having an impact. And so those three areas, coupled with being able to continue those relationships with empowering and enabling teams to support customers, made it a simple yes for me.
Molly McMillin: You mentioned loving a challenge and wanting part of that. What do you see as your biggest challenges?
Kriya Shortt: My personal biggest challenge is the learning curve. Obviously, 27 years in traditional aerospace, I have new things to learn coming into this space because we are using novel technologies and coming up to speed on those aspects as well as just understanding the regulatory environment. But the great thing is that I have a tremendous team who have been willing to pour into me and let me ask questions. And I feel like that's the best way to learn, is just to ask a lot of questions, to observe and to learn.
One of the very first things that I did in the role was to head over to Slovenia to meet that team. In fact, in the past 60 days, I've had 10 different experiences where I've been out meeting with the team, meeting with the industry, advocating for the team, for our customers. And in that kind of regulatory space I've met with some competitors to understand what they're doing, and I’ve also been listening to customers. So I think that's all aiding in that learning curve.
If I step back for myself and think about just this space and where we are in it, the challenge that we face continues to be around just the novel technologies that we're employing. Those technologies need to continue to mature so that the products that we're bringing to market will really serve the use cases that our customers want and need. We have to continue to advocate and to cooperate with industry as well as with regulators to ensure that the rules that we're bringing into the space as we incorporate into the airspace that already exist are well met. And then we need to continue to influence across what that infrastructure need is going to be to support the products that we are branding to market.
Molly McMillin: Last spring I took a ride in the Velis with Rob Scholl here at Beech Field in Wichita, and it was so quiet and just a different experience. It was a lot of fun actually.
I know the FAA hasn't certified that product yet, even though it is certified in Europe. Where is that process? Do you have a light at the end of the tunnel or any type of estimate on when it will be U.S. certified, or what do you think?
Kriya Shortt: Well, we're continuing to make great progress on the Velis. Maybe you even saw last week that we were announced to have been selected by AFWERX and MTSI to be part of the United States Air Force Agility Prime Program, so that they can continue to explore. So the Velis is being used in spite of the fact that we have not quite gotten our exemption yet.
The good news is that we are working and cooperating with the FAA on that exemption. I recently was on a panel where the FAA said, "We've got that. We know that we're working through that." And so I can't give you a specific timeline, but we certainly believe that there's a good path towards that. And we're eagerly anticipating that exemption because we really see the Velis as being something that can be incorporated very easily into flight schools.
When we think about where we are as an industry, we hear a lot about the pilot shortages about pilot training. As you know Molly, I sat on the Department of Transportation's Advisory Councils to the FAA on gender diversity for aviation. And while we were looking at gender diversity, we were really looking at what are the things that cause us concern from a workforce perspective in aviation. And one of the barriers that we noted was really around cost. And so as we think about the pilot shortage, as we think about the cost to obtain a pilot certificate, we see the Velis as being something that can be coupled with other aircraft to ensure that that cost barrier can be reduced greatly.
And so we're super excited for that exemption when it comes through, and to begin really seeing the Velis take off in flight schools across the US.
Molly McMillin: Is the biggest challenge as an industry in the area of batteries? When do you think there will be a battery that will be able to provide more power, more range? Do you have a sense of that?
Kriya Shortt: I would say it's an iterative approach, certainly, and that's a true statement. When I talk about working with novel technologies, the battery power is something that we continue to work through. Certainly for the Velis you've seen, our duration is right around the 50 minutes with reserve requirements. Our team at Pipistrel, in particular, continues to work on that. We are working on next generations of batteries, and as that technology evolves we'll be able to employ that to increase durations to support additional flight operations.
Molly McMillin: Well, I think that's all the time we have today. Thank you Kriya for joining us and for your insight. And thank you all for joining us on this podcast.
Jeremy Kariuki: This week's episode was produced by Jeremy Kariuki and Andrea Copley-Smith. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to follow, like, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. Thanks for listening to the BCA Podcast. We'll see you next time.
