PODCAST: Natilus co-founder Matyushev on the Kona drone

In this week’s episode of the “Cargo Facts Connect” podcast, Cargo Facts Associate Editor Andrew Crider sits down with Natilus co-founder and Chief Executive Aleksey Matyushev to discuss the development of the company’s Kona cargo drone. Natilus recently announced a deal with ZeroAvia and unveiled a hydrogen-powered engine option for its blended-wing cargo drone. This development comes after headline-making orders from Ameriflight and Volatus Aerospace . Matyushev addresses the challenges of drone production, what recent scale-model test flights have taught Natilus and how the company is growing. Tune in for a discussion of these topics and more for the week ending May 26, 2023. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host Andrew Crider, and today I'm joined by a special guest. Aleksey Matyushev, the CEO and co founder of Natilus. Aleksey, Great to have you. Aleksey Matyushev Thank you so much for having me, Andrew. Andrew Crider Congratulations. Earlier this week, Natilus announced a partnership with zero avia for hydrogen power plants for your Kona cargo aircraft. Now, my take on the drone industry is there's a lot of demand for hydrogen. But some say as far as the larger aircraft goes, doing both unmanned aircraft, removing the pilot from that, from the flight deck and pursuing sustainable efforts such as hydrogen. That's a challenge. How do you How are you gonna address that challenge? Aleksey Matyushev It's a great question, Andrew. So from our perspective, being the airframer our goal is to integrate engine technology into the airplane. Obviously, we're partnering with Pratt and Whitney Canada as well. So the zero Avia engine is a is an option for a future customers that are a little bit more forward thinking on sustainability efforts. So my perspective as an airframer, you know, our focus is on autonomy and getting the planet when the body design working. But you know, integrating an engine is something that we do every day, especially this solution that zero Avia proposed, it's very traditional in a lot of ways, it naturally fits into the blender Wing Body airframe. And especially, you know, hydrogen is focused on volume, whether it's cryogenic or gaseous. And so being a blended wing body design, we still have open bays within the airplane. And so it allows us to do a very simple integration of hydrogen technology. When zero Avia comes onto the market with certification, Andrew Crider You mentioned that hydrogen plays well into the blended wing body design, but why hydrogen as opposed to electric? Aleksey Matyushev So hydrogen is not that sensitive to weights or batteries. Our latest battery technology is sitting at 250 Watt hours per kilogram, you know, Jet A is still about 12,000 Watt hours per kilogram. So we're very far away from electrification for large scale airplanes. I know there's a lot of companies working on that. So the near term is likely hybrid, but Nautilus wants to focus, you know, not on the hybrid side of things, either, you know, we get something done today, which will be the Pratt and Whitney solution, which was SAF or we move directly into the next generation, I would say a proportion of which in our opinion is hydrogen. So just kind of closing the loop on that is hydrogen is not as weight sensitive as battery lithium technology is today. Andrew Crider Now, zero avia. This is the ZA 600. Engine. Tell Tell me what you think of that, that there that engines performance, it's so far, it's still early in its its development. Aleksey Matyushev It is early in its development, but it's been in a variety of tests dance. So there's performance data available on it. We get excited about that data. I think it performs very favorably, I would say against other kerosene based engines. What really is cool about that engine is that it's very modular. So you know, the way that they have it kind of figured out is that the core blocks are there but you can add more core blocks together to either increase or decrease horsepower or kilowatt hours, certainly kilowatt hours per kilowatt engine performance to get you to the right level where you want to be so although it's you know, early stages still and the airplane Kona will debut with you know, kerosene base PT six, eight engines. Shortly after, where we do see an opportunity to really start thinking about a type of supplemental type certificate with with the G I'm sorry, the Jets, the zero Avia technology. But yeah, we do believe this solution that they have going on on the modular side, as well as where they're positioned in the market is really what's creating this opportunity for not only our platform, as a company, but also for you know, forward thinking sustainability customers. Andrew Crider Now, did do you think there's going to be a change or significant change in performance between the PT six A's and the zero avia platform? Aleksey Matyushev I think zero obvious engineering team is very, they're really cognizant of the current engine technology based on the kerosene based engines and so they tried to match that as as well as they could. And so I think there is a little to no difference from an aeroplane performance perspective when switching from the hydrogen solution to kerosene or vice versa on the airframe side. Andrew Crider Now, one of the reasons why I asked you about performance was by my track, the Kona has improved its performance slightly as we've been publishing stories about its development over the past year. It was originally 3.8 tonnes. Now, you're looking somewhere close to the ballpark of what was 4.2, I believe? Aleksey Matyushev Yeah, I think it's 4.3. But you're right there on the mark. So when we usually design airplanes, from our experience, as engineers, we usually publish, you know, because we don't know too much about the airplane, when we get started, we published more conservative data. And obviously, as the airplane gets more mature, we learn more about it, we pull some of the conservatism back. And it's only gonna get better, I think, for our future customers. So it's, I guess, in our engineering speak, or the way that Nautilus performs, it's a natural way of, you know, opening up the performance of the airplane to the world. Andrew Crider You mentioned, learning about the aircraft. And it was about a week and a half or so ago that you announced that you had a test flight of your scale prototype. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, what's been going on? And as far as the testing that you've, you've gone, and what does that telling you? Aleksey Matyushev Right, so the testing of the scale prototype, did a couple of things for us, Natilus has been through three really great windtunnel tests, we've learned a lot. But it was also time to kind of put that more into, I guess, experimental test setting. So building the scale prototype really allowed us to understand how accurate the wind tunnel data is against actual build, as well as start to think a little bit further of how you integrate the autopilot inside of that during flight testing. So this small RC airplane, we have very big plans for it, especially working with the auto pilot group on our side, and helping integrate that into flight. And so that's really what I think the learning lessons from us was the takeaway was, it was really close to wind tunnel data testing, we figured out which areas were a little bit more sensitive on as far as manufacturing for the larger build, and then moving towards the future, we see this platform kind of being a really good testbed for the autopilot group, Andrew Crider how would the platform help test the autopilot. Aleksey Matyushev So from my perspective, you know, the the airplane was designed to be flown without any complex autopilot system. So it's essentially open loop, which is required by the FAA. But we wanted to expand that further is with the autopilot team is literally closing the loop and allowing full autonomy to actually drive the airplane. So right now where we are, is we have the windtunnel data feeding into a simulated environment. And we can fly the airplane through all phases of flight fully autonomously in that simulated environment. But when you actually start putting hardware with that simulation, there is a lag during servos. You know, sensors have different noise levels, it kind of brings it on to the more realistic level where we start to see actual realistic flight test data, feeding the autopilot, which then controls the airplane. And there's a lot of learning to do on that side. Andrew Crider That's that's, that's incredible. You know, when you would first when there's drone companies that test scale models or prototypes, there's, there's a sense that it's involved with capital, fundraising or general investments to keep people on the line to think, yes, we're developing a product, but this This is sounding like a scientific platform. And for that, I'm wondering, how is it that your, your staff knows how to interact, interpolate this data from the scale model into programming as autopilot? Aleksey Matyushev Right. So our team is, you know, very experienced, I would say, especially in the autopilot regime, we've been through quite a bit of flight testing programs. And you know, knowing the value of moving away from simulation into the actual hardware, I'll be it's scaled, allows the autopilot team to start preparing the autopilot for that noise and then again, lag within certain configurations, as well as mistakes that the autopilot could make, essentially failure case scenarios that helps us guard against flight testing in the future aeroplane. Now, with that being said, we understand that the full scale airplane is going to have its own, you know, different sensors and actuators and things like that. But at least the building blocks of how those filters set up within the autopilot code. And those demos exist allows us to take that next step forward. Andrew Crider And you mentioned the team I know it's hard to believe that you only moved to new headquarters or your new hanger at Browns field last year and so much has happened since but where's the team at how large Have you have you grown? Have you shrunk? Where where's the team at at its growth? Aleksey Matyushev Yeah, we're still kind of the same level today, we're making really good progress of where we are. But we're starting to scale up, I imagine we're going to be about 30 heads before the end of the year, and then likely in another six months, so in a year will be about 40 heads. And that's a really comfortable number for us. We tend to hire more experienced engineers. So for us, it's, you know, keeping the team smaller and tighter, which allows us to push through with really great progress without getting the bureaucracy really involved Andrew Crider That's a small, tight team, but you have quite an impressive resume of orders. I know. The I was at Nashville for the air freight forwarders air cargo conference on 2023, shortly after America flight had announced their order. And that's that sent shockwaves through the crowd, you also have orders from volatiles who told me last last week that they were they were mulling ordering more. So these are some head turning customers for the drone market for the greater airfreight community, how are you marketing such a visionary platform? Aleksey Matyushev Well, I think it goes back to the numbers. So the numbers and the performance metrics behind the airplane speak for themselves. And it's not that we cast magic shadows and say, Oh, my gosh, drag is gonna be 70% less, or you know, the weight of the airplane is gonna be magically weighed less than any other you're playing on the market. It's just the way we package the technology. And so you know, really push the blood out when body towards this very specific niche in the market, specifically, cargo really allows us without, you know, doing a lot of black swan type of stuff, create believers out of our customers. So the numbers themselves make a lot of sense. And that's really what gets our customers excited. As well as our progress. You mentioned the RC flight. You know, obviously, it's an engineering milestone, but you know, customers seeing and believing that this configuration can actually fly without any complex autopilot systems really moves the needle as far as sales goes as well. Andrew Crider And as far as seen as actually capable of flight moving into physical construction. Now, we've just reported that you had begun the manufacture of its flight control surfaces Tell me a little bit about that process, what it's like to take something from design to actual construction. Aleksey Matyushev So we did it with the vertical tails. That was a crew of maybe two or three engineers who designed the vertical tail and then moves into the hangar facility and actually built it, you know, minimal tooling and minimal supplier base. So it was it was really done in house, which is I'm really proud of as a team, that we were able to accomplish that. So the two vertical tails are done. Moving forward, I had even though the majority of the prototype structure is actually carbon. See, metal is one of our internal capabilities. So as we move across the control surfaces, they're really easy first picking for making them out of sheet metal. So those rungs have been already released for the ailerons. And so we're starting to build ailerons over the next couple of weeks. We just recently brought CNC machining capability and how so that now we're not dependent on CNC suppliers. And we're making it happen. I mean, it's the it's what we know how to do is build things. Andrew Crider And when you're when you're building the flight controls for a blended wing body, and she's new aircraft type, how does that differ or change from a conventional aircraft? Aleksey Matyushev Well, we have different positions. So we don't have horizontal tail as an example. But we still have you know, elevators turned into elevations we call them so we have two elevations on either side of the wing, we still have traditional ailerons. So certain things do change. More of what the control surface does less than what it looks like. Andrew Crider Sure. It's the same control surfaces on your scale model. Aleksey Matyushev Exactly right. Yep. Andrew Crider Reason why I ask is on my RV 12 by a flaperons and there's a nasty nose down pitch whenever you engage the first set and the it is important to know those those nuances of the of the model from real world flying. So you have that with your scale. Aleksey Matyushev Exactly right. So a lot of that know how comes from the windtunnel testing and you know, the external world is really good at building and then fixing things in flight. You know, our airplane is so big, we kind of had to get ahead of it. So that Windtunnel testing, we made sure that there's no nasty pitch changes, no gotchas. And then that's kind of what was mimicked in the RC, you know subscale model as well. So it kind of gives us a really good feeling that we're on the right track and we know kind of what to expect when the first full scale prototype actually gets on gear. Andrew Crider Now, the the Kona has become popular on for cargo operators who currently already operate a fleet of conventional aircraft and I think it's very common for any cargo airline to wonder how will a new type, whether that would be an Airbus or a Boeing integrate with their current arrangements. Now they're still on in development. But how do you think the Kona integrates? Aleksey Matyushev It's a great conversation to have with our customers. I think the key technologies, obviously the airplane looks different. But what really, when you open up the skins, and you actually look on the internals, we use exactly the same supplier base, as a lot of you know, these other airplanes that are in the current fleet. So when you think about maintenance, operations, all of those components inside the airplane are very well understood and familiar. Like an example of cargo loading system is coming in from Collins in Jamestown, so it's a bonus system with latches, everybody understands how that works, how it looks, how to maintain it, what to expect from it. So it's really just the unique shape. And the way the airplane, again, really just looks is the new novel thinking. But from an operations perspective, as well, as you know, bringing the airplane into a fleet of other airplanes. It's as I would say, it's very benign and very well understood and accepted. And we did a great job as far as that goes. I mean, we use existing ground support equipment, whether it be high loaders, or things like that standard air freight containers, as an example, existing engine technology for the kerosene based stuff. So I you know, it looks different, but on the inside and the way you work it, it's, it's the same. Andrew Crider Well, before we wrap up, let me ask you very open ended. What's next? Aleksey Matyushev That's a good question. I think we'll have some really exciting announcements before the end of the summer, working a lot of angles right now with a lot of future customers and other different opportunities as well for the company and our products, and really looking forward to announcing them. So I think you'll see a lot more in the business side. And then also on the technology side. I think before the end of the summer, we'll have some really big news to to also announce. Andrew Crider Perfect well, we'll be on the lookout for that news. That is all the time we have for today. For more multimedia coverage like this search cargofacts.com and Cargo facts connect on iTunes and spotify. Aleksey, thank you so very much for joining me this evening. Aleksey Matyushev Thank you Andrew. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor .

PODCAST: Natilus co-founder Matyushev on the Kona drone

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