The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Kyle Clark emerges in this interview as a textbook Pioneer, a leader who treats uncharted territory as the only territory worth inhabiting. Clark narrates a decades-long pursuit of electric aviation before the market existed, self-funding adjacent ventures and an investment banking license purely to keep the dream viable.
“Yeah, we started with a fixed-wing drone design with eight rotors that took off vertically, thrust vectored forward. That means the rotors tilt in the air to push the air backwards after it's pushing it down. And we designed, built, and flew a 4,000-pound version of this with me in it after 10 months, and we kept our promise.”
“Down the wing and on the four corners of those two long tubes are 12 foot diameter rotors with motors underneath them. And that's what picks the airplane straight up in the air. And then right at the tail, there's a conventional propeller with another electric motor.”
“Yeah, and it's neat. It's fascinating thing where here in the US, when you go and you propose a new thing and a regulated environment, the first question is, how does that relate to our entire mental inertia and prejudice of what regulation means in the context of what's already been certified?”
“Yeah, I mean, she said to me, there's no sense in creating an unlimited supply of lungs to save people's lives if we're going to destroy our environment.”
Money Maze Podcast: “The Future of Flight? Building an Electric Aviation Business with the Man in the Pilot’s Seat - Kyle Clark, CEO & Founder, BETA Technologies”
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