The Vertical Space

Hosted by Jim Barry, Peter Shannon & Luka Tomljenovic

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Episodes

111

Latest episode

May 2026

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EN-US

About the show

The Vertical Space is a podcast at the intersection of technology and flight, featuring deep dives with innovators, early adopters, and industry leaders. We talk about the radical impact that technology is creating as it disrupts flight, enabling new ways to access the vertical space to improve our lives - from small drones to large aircraft. Our guests are operators and innovators across the value chain: airframers, technologists, data and service providers, as well as end users.

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June 15, 2026Episode 1121 hr 8 min

#112 Lauren Flanagan, Sesame Solar: The fuel convoy is the target

In this episode we speak with Lauren Flanagan, CEO of Sesame Solar, which builds mobile nanogrids. The product is a self-contained unit that generates its own power from solar, batteries, and stored hydrogen, set up by one person in fifteen minutes. The company started in emergency response and extreme weather, and has moved increasingly into defense. The newer focus, and the one we spent most of the episode on, is using these nanogrids to refuel hydrogen drones in the field.Most of the conversation was about whether that case holds up. Lauren's argument is that contested logistics have changed the math: fuel at the edge can run a thousand dollars a gallon all-in, the resupply convoy is a target, and the real cost is the lives spent guarding it, so making power where you stand becomes a strategic question rather than an efficiency one. We pushed on the parts that are harder to defend, the energy losses on the hydrogen path versus batteries, how thick the market for long-endurance hydrogen-powered flight actually is, and how you get from a fifty-day reserve to a six-month operational promise that's still backed by simulation rather than field data. Lauren was candid about what's proven and what isn't, and about which problems are physics and which are just adoption friction.

May 25, 2026Episode 11156 min

#111 Libby Bahat, Israel Civil Aviation Authority: Flying civilians into a war zone

Libby Bahat returns to The Vertical Space. Last time we talked to him about building an airspace for drones in peacetime. This time he's the regulator who decides whether a 777 full of people lands in a country under missile fire. As Head of the Aerial Infrastructure Department at the Israel Civil Aviation Authority, Libby is one of a small number of people anywhere who has had to build a quantitative framework, debris models, interception zones, penetration probabilities, that lets a civil aviation authority make its own war risk call. Most regulators don't have to do this. Israel does, and Libby is the guy.We spent most of the conversation not on the war but on the judgment underneath it: where the numbers actually come from, how wide the error bars really are, the levers a CAA actually controls, the friendly-fire failure mode etc. Libby was honest about what he wishes he had ("I wish I had a criteria, like an engineer, very specific numbers") and about what he doesn't get to have. It's a rare look at how a serious regulator reasons when the only data point that would prove him wrong is the one he's organized his entire career to never see.

May 6, 2026Episode 11058 min

#110 Mike Stengel, AeroDynamic Advisory: Gulf crisis impact on air travel

We sat down with Mike Stengel of AeroDynamic Advisory to discuss what the US-Iran conflict is doing to aviation. The Middle East moves about 20% of global crude, and with the Strait of Hormuz closed and Gulf refining capacity damaged, jet fuel stocks in Asia-Pacific and Europe are drawing down while crack spreads widen in ways hedging contracts don't cover. Mike explains why US shale isn't the easy substitute, why Spirit just liquidated and JetBlue looks fragile, and why Delta's once-mocked Monroe refinery acquisition suddenly looks prescient.The bigger question we get into is whether this is a temporary pricing event or a more permanent regime change? For the first time in decades, commercial, military, and business aviation are all riding supply-constrained tailwinds at once, but the industry spent 30 years optimizing for cheap energy and stable airspace. We dig into what fragility looks like when those assumptions break, aging fleets, narrowing corridors between unusable Middle East and Russian airspace, what the conflict is doing for SAF, and where the next contrarian bet might come from.

April 20, 2026Episode 10952 min

#109 Admiral Phil Kenul: What flying into hurricanes taught him about drone regulation

Admiral Phil Kenul spent decades flying NOAA aircraft into some of the most dangerous weather on earth, including multiple seasons as a P-3 Orion hurricane hunter, before transitioning into the world of UAS standards, where he now serves as Vice Chair of ASTM Committee F38. That path gives him a perspective on unmanned aviation that most people in the industry don't have. He's been the guy in the cockpit, the program manager trying to replace the cockpit with a Global Hawk, and now the person writing the standards that determine whether any of this scales commercially.His take on the industry is refreshing. Technology, he argues, is no longer what's holding the drone industry back. Operations, regulatory approvals, and integration with legacy airspace systems are. He sees Part 108 as a genuine inflection point, one that will finally let operators fly by regulations and industry consensus standards rather than one-off waivers. But he's equally clear that getting there will take longer and cost more than most people expect, and that when the dust settles, success will go to the best operators, not the best aircraft.

March 17, 2026Episode 1081 hr 8 min

#108 Alex List, FlyShirley: 'Shirley' there's an opportunity for AI in the flight deck

In this episode we sit down with Alex List, CEO and founder of FlyShirley, a startup building an AI copilot for the cockpit. Alex walks through what AI in aviation actually looks like today: the practical reality of a ground-based language model accessed via iPad helping pilots handle strategic, non-time-critical tasks like looking up service bulletins mid-flight, transcribing ATC clearances, finding alternates, and synthesizing information that would otherwise require a pilot to dig through a POH while managing weather and workload. He's candid about where the technology still falls short and articulates a clear architectural thesis: frontier intelligence lives on the ground, state management lives on the device, and a 56-kilobit connection is all you need in between.The conversation broadens into the harder questions facing anyone building in this space: how do you design for pilot augmentation without creating dependency? How do you handle liability for an advisory system that is occasionally wrong? And how do you build a defensible business in a market that is, honestly, pretty small? Alex is refreshingly honest about the GA market math and where the real opportunity lies. The hosts bring their own investor and operator lens to the discussion, flagging the classic failure modes of aviation startups.

February 17, 2026Episode 1071 hr 15 min

#107 Robert Rose, Reliable Robotics: Congressional testimony and conveyor belts in the sky

In this episode we reconnect with Robert Rose, CEO of Reliable Robotics, fresh off his testimony before Congress on the state of advanced air mobility. Robert shares what most people misunderstand about FAA certification, i.e. that the regulator isn't there to coach you through it, they're just calling balls and strikes. We explore why Reliable has spent eight years building autonomous systems within existing regulations rather than waiting for new rules, how they've convinced the FAA that zero-visibility automated landing standards can scale from wide-body jets down to Cessna Caravans, and why the "cargo first" narrative that dominates autonomy discussions is largely a regulatory myth.We also dig into Reliable's new Pentagon contract to deploy autonomous cargo aircraft for contested logistics in the Indo-Pacific, what the military calls building "conveyor belts in the sky." Robert explains why military logistics actually demands commercial-grade safety in ways most people don't appreciate, how their solid-state radar technology became an unexpected multibillion-dollar opportunity for existing airlines, and what changed at the FAA after years of low morale and congressional scrutiny. It's a grounded, technically rigorous conversation about what it actually takes to certify autonomy, why operational risk assessments don't work for aircraft above a certain weight class, and how Reliable is grinding through hundreds of compliance submissions to prove that autonomy isn't some distant dream but it's ready now.

February 3, 2026Episode 1061 hr 13 min

#106 Koen De Vos: U-Space, U-Space… Where Art Thou?

In this episode we sit down with Koen De Vos, Secretary General of GUTMA, to unpack why U-Space still feels more aspirational than operational, and what aviation can learn from industries that have at least partially managed to digitize at scale. Drawing on parallels with the automotive sector, Koen explores how green technologies, automation, and system-level thinking could, and should, reshape aviation if the institutional and political pieces ever align.We dive into why U-Space has not meaningfully materialized in Europe yet, the evolving role of regulators like EASA, and how European and US approaches to UTM diverge in both philosophy and execution. Koen also shares his perspective on air risk mitigation, whether U-Space is being used as a safety crutch, and perhaps most provocatively, who is actually willing to pay for UTM and why many business cases quietly fall apart. A clear-eyed conversation about political will, practical constraints, and what UTM might look like if we were brave enough to start from scratch.

December 16, 2025Episode 1051 hr 6 min

#105 Ben Ivers, Boeing: Airspace modernization

In this episode, we sit down with Ben Ivers (Boeing’s Director of Emerging Technologies & Regulatory Strategy) to unpack a deceptively simple idea: airspace modernization isn’t optional anymore and the tech to enable “automated flight rules” (AFR) is largely ready today. Ben argues the hard part isn’t the technology, but introducing a new flight mode alongside VFR and IFR that can scale drones, eVTOLs, and future autonomous operations without turning the sky into sanitized corridors reserved for “new entrants.” He explains why Boeing is forced to think in decades and why action now matters if modernization isn’t to remain perpetually out of reach.We get practical on what AFR actually means: less “AI making decisions,” more machine-guided coordination built on trusted data exchange and automated conflict management. Ben connects AFR to UTM/U-space (“crawl, walk, run”), walks through “before vs after” scenarios across GA, airlines, drones, and urban air mobility, and pinpoints the real bottlenecks, i.e. reliable communications, latency, surveillance, micro-weather, and certified digital services. We close on where value may accrue in a digitized airspace: new third-party services, higher throughput, and an “additive” roadmap that grows the aviation ecosystem rather than excluding parts of it.

December 4, 2025Episode 1041 hr 12 min

#104 Edward Barraclough, Drone-Hand: Why ranching will scale autonomy before defense

Autonomy may scale in agriculture long before it does in defense or UAM, and today’s guest makes a compelling case why. We speak with Edward Barraclough, founder and CEO of Drone-Hand, about applying autonomous drones and on-device AI to the realities of livestock operations across Australia, New Zealand, North America, and beyond.Edward explains why ranching is the perfect proving ground for autonomy: massive land areas, urgent labor shortages, permissive operating environments, and ROI that’s measured in days - not years. We explore how drones are already replacing helicopters on million-acre cattle stations, why biological data creates one of the deepest moats in autonomy, the role of trust and repeatability for producers, and how CASA’s regulatory evolution compares to FAA and EASA. It’s a rare look at autonomy where economics, biology, and geography collide.

October 30, 2025Episode 10353 min

#103 Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines: Raising the ceiling of possibility

In this episode, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian breaks down what truly differentiates a great airline: people and culture. Ed shares why “take care of your people first” isn’t a slogan (it’s Delta’s operating system!) and how that shows up in reliability, premium customer experience, and everyday leadership. We get a candid look at running a 100,000-person, 5,000-flights-a-day operation; the metrics he checks first (on-time arrivals and cash); and why accessibility and listening are his non-negotiables as a leader.We also dive into Delta’s broader vision: a connected, premium travel ecosystem that spans free fast Wi-Fi and new entertainment partnerships to deeper integrations with Uber, Wheels Up and, soon, eVTOL links with Joby. Ed frames AI as “augmented intelligence” that empowers frontline teams, outlines how Delta thinks about fortress balance sheets and long-cycle bets, and makes the case that air travel isn’t a commodity but an experience people will choose and pay for. Founders will appreciate his clear wishlist of problems to solve in ops efficiency, maintenance, and crew utilization, and his invitation to bring real solutions, not just ideas.