AAM interview: Sunil Budhdeo

April 2022 was a strange time. Across the world people were shaking off the shackles of lockdown, emerging from their homes and daring to hope again. Fittingly, perhaps, that month saw a strange, circus tent-like structure appear in a Coventry car park, heralding a transport future far beyond the average imagination.

The ‘tent’ was Air One, the world’s first fully operational Urban-Air Port for drones and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Air One was always intended to be a temporary fixture, transport innovation manager Sunil Budhdeo explained. Its existence in Coventry may have been brief, but the impact was enormous, and extended well beyond the life of the project. “We saw a massive uptake [in terms of visitors], and the publicity it received globally was absolutely superb,” he said. “It brought the drone sector right to the forefront, not just in Coventry, but globally.”

Budhdeo admits, however, to wishing Air One had been left in situ. Its site, which saw so much wonder and excitement over that three-week period, is once more ‘just the same car park’ it’s always been.

As far as the Council is concerned, Air One was a valuable stepping stone to where it finds itself today in terms of a broader advanced air mobility landscape. Budhdeo explained: “Seeing is believing and we had drones demonstrating taking off and landing.”

Air One was directly under the flight paths of Coventry and Birmingham airports, which ruled out more complex manoeuvres, but seeing drones just taking off and landing straight away was enough to give the public a flavour of what the aircraft could do. Budhdeo recalls how the visitors ranged from teens to the long-retired. The latter, he said, were particularly taken with the technology, and remarked that while they couldn’t see it having much impact on their own lives, they could imagine how it would benefit their grandchildren. It was a question of showing people how drones and advanced air mobility (AAM) could make their lives, easier, faster, even cheaper.

Beyond 2022

The impact of Air One continues to be felt by those who worked on the project. Budhdeo told Vertiports: “Since dismantling it, we haven’t lost sight of our vision. What we did on the back of that and what we’re currently doing is to engage with other drone operators and other cities. We are funded by the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund [a UK government initiative which provided the Council with £268,175], and are creating a framework document about drone-ready cities.”

“We understand that we may not be ready for passenger-carrying drones or flying taxis as yet, but drones and drone technology in its current state are already being used. People are working with them but not publicising it, so there is no structure to it.”

He mentions energy supply companies and their use of drones. E.ON, for example, began using drones in 2022, surveying property roofs and surroundings to assess whether buildings are suitable for solar panels and the like. The company also uses drones to survey its network of pylons. Another utility firm namechecked by Budhdeo is Severn Trent Water, which uses drones for everything from surveying pipe bridges – work which has often proved hazardous to humans – to more general inspections of its assets.

First steps

Budhdeo notes that, being a public sector organisation, the Council has environmental targets to meet. Coventry has committed to being a ‘green city’ by 2025, and for Budhdeo it’s a matter of working out how drones can playa part in this.

He said: “Our first mission was to monitor medical drone deliveries [carrying everything from organs to insulin] between University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust’s sites in Coventry and Rugby.” The initiative, carried out by Skyfarer and Medical Logistics UK, saw more than 1,189km of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights conducted along the 32km corridor connecting the facilities.

Budhdeo continued: “Then we have the Skyway Project, which also involves flying beyond visual line of sight.” Skyway, which is coming to an end, is looking into the potential for drones to undertake longer distance deliveries along pre-determined corridors.

Infrastructure is at the heart of this vision. Again, the Council is learning as it goes. Budhdeo told Vertiports: “If you tell us to build roads, as a council we know what to do. If you told us to build a housing estate, we would know. But for drones we don’t have that experience, so we’ve decided to test the market and to see what we can do.”

Applying for the Regulators’ Pioneer Fund has given Coventry the tools it needs to work with other cities. As Budhdeo said: “If as a city I’m doing it on my own, it isn’t going to work.”

He added: “I need to build that superhighway. I need the other cities surrounding me to engage and to understand what is needed.

“We need to start to use the passenger-carrying drone instead of the helicopter for carrying a patient between hospitals, because it’s a lot greener. However, we are taking an incremental approach. We have begun by using drones for traffic monitoring but they could work for any service within the council.

“The latest people to contact us were from the bereavement services team. They want to use drones to survey cemeteries,” he said.

Budhdeo also notes the benefits of using drones for preliminary surveys, for example. Not only are there cost savings to be made, but using drones means that bridges and roads need not be closed during surveys. 

While Coventry City Council and its partners, among them the Midlands Aerospace Alliance, are focusing on a framework, there has been a proliferation of what Budhdeo calls ‘rogue operators’ – companies that have led the public to believe that it is just a matter of time before multiple drone-delivered parcels will be dropping onto their door steps.

Budhdeo also notes the benefits of using drones for preliminary surveys, for example. Not only are there cost savings to be made, but using drones means that bridges and roads need not be closed during surveys. 

While Coventry City Council and its partners, among them the Midlands Aerospace Alliance, are focusing on a framework, there has been a proliferation of what Budhdeo calls ‘rogue operators’ – companies that have led the public to believe that it is just a matter of time before multiple drone-delivered parcels will be dropping onto their door steps.

“We won’t allow that, because you know all of a sudden it will be like a swarm of bees in the sky, and it will just take that one incident, like a drone falling out of the sky, to kill the market,” he cautioned. “The whole idea of creating this framework is to take it to the local authority, just to say ‘look, there is this framework, these are the regulations, this is the process you need to follow and you need to enforce it’.”

Autonomous technology

Autonomous transport is an option, too. Budhdeo notes that it is “coming in quite fast and furious, with autonomous vehicles, autonomous delivery pods”. He continued: “Combining all of that together with a virtual or an intelligent transport hub would be ideal. Your deliveries would come to that hub, where they could be distributed, then delivered via a drone. The last-mile delivery could be by autonomous vehicles – or partly autonomous, depending on the size of the parcel.

“Even if it takes 50 vehicles off the roads on that estate, that will add up to a [substantial] reduction in congestion.”

A new mindset

Budhdeo believes it is time for a radical rethink on travel and transportation in the UK. He speaks of a recent drive home where he was struck by both the levels of congestion and the damage done to road surfaces by articulated lorries. According to Budhdeo, the problem is that the people who need to steer traffic policies away from dependence on roads are refusing to change the way they have been working for the last 25 years.

“That’s the challenge with local authorities. People will just not budge. And I find it very, very frustrating to try and get them to engage and change their vision, and their view of life,” he said, although he was quick to stress the backing the Council gave the Air One project.

Words of wisdom

Asked what advice he would give a local authority planning to develop a vertiport, Budhdeo said, somewhat unexpectedly: “Don’t worry about building a vertiport: introduce drones first. A drone doesn’t need a vertiport to take off and land. Use the drone sector that’s already established. Building a vertiport will come once you’ve changed public perception.”

He believes that people seeing drones flying regularly in their city will be the first stage of acceptance of the technology. Budhdeo also insists that AAM needs to be factored into town planning.

He said: “When you’re doing planning applications for a greenfield site, and you’re looking at building 400 houses, [you need to work out] where most drone deliveries will be made.

“Someone could collect the parcels and distribute them across the site using micromobility vehicles [for instance bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters, or electric skateboards], which is a greener option. Residents could also embrace a more active lifestyle by walking to the port and collecting their parcels.”

He also suggested that a vertiport could be part of a medical centre, for example, with drones delivering medical supplies and transporting blood samples.

“That vision has to open up for people in the planning sector. We need to put it [facilities for drones] in our planning conditions now, so that the housing estates that we’re building can accommodate it. Current planning conditions say you have to have a children’s playground, and a certain amount of green space. This needs to happen now for drones. That will then give you the opportunity to seamlessly transition from small drones to large drones.”

Budhdeo notes that at present the industry is very much focused on building vertiports at airports. “In my opinion, it’s the wrong approach. Airports are already geared up for flights,” he told Vertiports.

He is firmly of the opinion that air passengers do not need a vertiport for their onward journey. They have trains, taxis, even buses. Where Budhdeo is concerned, ferrying passengers home from the airport is not where AAM can be of the greatest benefit.

Vertiports are needed locally, where parcels are being delivered, Budhdeo believes. He said: “Since the pandemic, you’ve got thousands and thousands of vehicles on the roads just delivering parcels every day. If you open your curtains, you will see probably 30 or 40 delivery vehicles – all from the same company.

“I think if I hit that target first [getting vehicles off the roads], then I’ve achieved some of the [environmental] goals being set by the government. I will have helped change public perception of AAM.”

Asked what regions or countries are furthest ahead in preparing for AAM, Budhdeo concedes that the United States has done some good work. His personal opinion, he told Vertiports, is that “The UK is a good leader. People will rely on the UK’s regulations and safety cases as a benchmark. I think that’s where we should exploit our standing in the market for UK PLC.

“Where people within the global AAM industry are concerned, if something is developed to a UK standard, it’s regarded as being of very high standard. So I think we should exploit it. And that’s where I think we are.”