(no audio) (upbeat music) - Drones and electric vertical takeoff and landing or eVTOL aircraft aim to be common modes of transportation and delivery.

- Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have the potential to completely change how we live and work.

- Small drones can deliver packages that can have life-changing effects, like medical supplies and medicine.

- Today, we essentially have flying laptops.

The possibilities of what they can do are limitless.

- With drones, DroneUp has changed the way Walmart is able to deliver its packages in a fraction of the time of traditional methods.

- It's access.

We are going to democratize speed and that's where drones come into play.

- I'm Dawn Zoldi, a former military attorney.

Even then I knew that drones were gonna change the world and today we see this coming to fruition.

It's so incredible to be a part of history in the making.

It's time to go "Behind the Wings."

Think about hailing an Uber or a Lyft.

Well, instead of getting into that car, you're gonna hop in one of these.

Instead of possibly sitting an hour in traffic, you're gonna get there in 10 minutes.

We're here at Archer's headquarters in Palo Alto, California for two big things today.

First, the flight test of The Maker.

In fact, it's the first transitional flight we're gonna see.

We're also gonna get a sneak peek at Archer's Midnight aircraft, that's their commercial model.

And the vision here is for it to be a ride share.

It's gonna change the face of transportation.

We're here inside the lab and behind me is The Maker.

- [Dawn] We're gonna see this aircraft fly later today.

It's a demonstrator and they're doing flight testing.

- So what they're gonna show today for the first time is transitional flight.

- [Dawn] That means taking off vertically in a hover to forward flight where the wings are providing most of the lift.

- So to understand better how this thing flies, we're gonna hear from the chief operations officer here at Archer, Tom Muniz.

- So I was a young engineer doing airplane design work and had the opportunity to start working on new exciting electric airplanes.

And back 10, 12 years ago, that was like a crazy idea.

Electric airplanes, like what does that even mean?

Right?

- Right.

- But batteries are continuing to get better.

Motors are continuing to get more lightweight and so, actually you could make a new type of airplane to do some really cool stuff, putting all the technology together.

So that's kinda what you see behind us here today.

- [Dawn] What's different about it than designing just a conventional aircraft?

- One of the unique things about the aircraft that we're developing here at Archer is that it's not just electric, but it also takes off and lands vertically.

So it doesn't need a runway, takes off like a helicopter.

But unlike a helicopter, it doesn't have one big rotor system.

It actually has many small propellers all around the aircraft.

And the way you can do that is by having electric motors, which you can scale down, and then you have this inherent redundancy in the system, meaning any of the motors can fail and the aircraft still flies safely.

That's only enabled by electrification, super cool.

- I imagine the lower cost for things like maintenance could also translate into savings for consumers.

Like someone wants to fly on this aircraft, like how does that translate?

- We envision these airplanes flying in networks where they're kind of hopping one flight to the next, doing lots of trips per day.

And what that translates into is really low operating costs and that translates into low ticket prices.

In the future you'll be able to get out the Archer app and you'll be able to say, "Hey, I'd like to go to this destination."

And then that'll reserve a seat on a flight like this.

Then you'll be able to go to the verti-port and then you'll take your Archer to wherever you want to go.

- So, think about hopping on a plane, virtually from anywhere, whether it's from a dock, a rooftop, or a parking lot.

And once you start cruising, they rotate down and fly like propellers on an airplane.

Here we are at the tail of the aircraft.

Now on a normal airplane, this is where the exhaust would normally come out.

Notice, there is none.

So what's so special about electric?

A couple of things, quieter, safer, more sustainable, and accessible, those are all bonuses.

On the downside, batteries can have limited lifespans and can be heavy.

We are at the airport right now.

We're getting ready for the flight test demo.

It's gonna be awesome.

So we made it to the Salinas Airport.

This is an active airfield and we're getting ready for the flight test of The Maker.

It is an uncrewed aircraft.

That's about 80% of the production model that Archer is putting out for urban air mobility.

They've gone through a small drone demonstrator to the larger Maker, 80% demonstrator to what we're gonna see later, their big production model for urban air mobility.

So the future is here.

(radio chatter) We've been cleared for takeoff and what we're seeing now is the plane is lifting vertically, it's gonna hover.

As it starts, the rotors are facing down, right?

And so when it gets up there in that hover, they start tilting forward and that's where you see the transition to forward movement.

This vehicle is uncrewed, right?

So there's nobody on board, there's no pilot up there, but you've got about six folks in a trailer, making sure that everything's on track.

This is a a real live flight test.

So they're proving their concept here and they're well on the road to FAA certification.

Really exciting times to see this in action here with The Maker.

We've seen the demonstration model called Maker.

In fact, we've seen it fly.

And now this is the production model called Midnight.

This is the one that's gonna fly you around New York City.

There are some similarities to the demonstration aircraft.

- [Dawn] Just like The Maker, this also has six rotors that tilt.

So that's what's gonna create the vertical lift.

- And this one's bigger.

The Maker is a literally 80% solution.

This is the full scale model that can fit four passengers and a pilot.

The vision is urban air mobility or UAM.

And this is flying people around cities, short distances.

- Great to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- You're well on the path to certification with the FAA.

In fact, today's flight demonstration with The Maker, can you explain the significance of that?

- The industry has largely been focused on research and development.

While the technology is really cool and we could build really fast, high flying planes, we want people to be able to use them and use them on an everyday basis.

We recently showed a flight test of our demonstrator aircraft Maker and that showed the capabilities of what these vehicles can do.

It shows you how fast they can fly, but importantly, it shows you how quiet they really are.

That was a big step in helping the public see that these vehicles are coming to market really soon.

We've recently partnered with United Airlines.

They've been a great partner to Archer where they're buying aircraft from us and helping us stand up this entire industry.

Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have the potential to completely change how we live and work.

So if you can imagine not just driving to work every day, but potentially flying to work every day, not just going long distances to take vacations, but flying somewhere locally and doing it on a more regular basis.

That's the world that I wanna live in.

- That's the world I wanna live in too.

And thank you so much for helping create it.

- [Dawn] As one example of many that we're seeing now.

- That was so amazing learning about these aircraft and also getting to see one fly.

You know the FAA always talks about a crawl, walk, run approach.

Well, guess what, everybody, we're flying.

- Small drones can have big impacts.

While electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft can carry people, small drones can carry packages that can be life-changing like medicines and medical supplies.

About 60 million Americans or one in five live in rural areas.

And drones can be the difference between hours to minutes to get those folks the urgent medical equipment that they need.

The Choctaw Nation's reservation in Oklahoma occupies about 11,000 square miles.

They are doing medical deliveries that are gonna change the world.

So James, what's at stake in terms of medical drone deliveries?

- Well, in terms of medical drone delivery, we are looking at solving that disparity that we have between urban and rural communities.

There's a lot of things that have happened with technology that have equalized the quality of life and quality health between urban, rural areas.

But transportation is the last part.

And that transportation challenge being a long way from medical clinics, medical services, being a long way away from emergency response personnel, those things impact health outcome.

Unfortunately in the 21st century, in the United States of America, we still have health outcomes that are determined a lot by your zip code.

Drones we believe are gonna help equalize that.

We represent what most rural communities look like.

Our reservation looks like other Native American reservations.

We look like other rural communities.

- Tell us a little bit about the medicines or the equipment that drones can bring to people in a quicker manner that can save lives.

- We looked at a simple case of access to EpiPens and potential for saving lives.

There are dozens and dozens of people every year that die because they don't have access.

Well, that's a very small, simple item, but getting it to somewhere quickly is the challenge in rural areas.

A lot of things that in the right situation, you need immediately, you can't wait 45 minutes or an hour.

Drones are perfect for that.

- So James, we're gonna see a demo of a medical drone delivery, but this package you're holding is something that could be used in a real world scenario.

So tell us a little bit about this.

- Yeah, it's surprising, in emergency situations, a lot of times it doesn't have to be very big packages or very much equipment.

And it's amazing what we can pack into these small packages like this.

- Well, let's see what we got here.

- We've got quite a bit.

There's multiple situations that we can deal with with this type of a kit.

But you could imagine something like this could also be packed with insulin, we could have it packed with EpiPens, we could have anti-venom, all sorts of things that to face situations that we might see in a rural area like this.

- So what you're gonna see is this drone that's going to have a five pound package loaded on it.

It's going to have bottles in there that are filled with liquid, which basically simulate either medicines or critical medical samples that need to get from one location to another.

We're gonna see it take off and then we're also gonna see it land.

- [Dawn] This test flight illustrates one of the hardest use cases where there are liquids on board, about five pounds.

The conditions are windy.

So the key here is to show the stability and reliability of the drone so it can fly and get these medicines to where they need to go safely.

- This is one of those examples where you're basically gonna simulate the hardest use case.

- We're gonna try to do the worst case scenario and that's what the FAA likes to see as well 'cause whenever they're testing they say, "Okay, what's the worst case of this situation and how are you gonna demonstrate you can do that safely?"

- Well, you did some of these flights, so could you give us a real world kind of example of if this was driven by car, how long this would've taken versus how long it actually took you to do the same delivery with a drone?

- Even if you're only flying at 30, 35 miles an hour, if you look at putting a car on the ground from the initial point to the destination and then compare that with the drone flight and we cut the time almost in half.

- That's significant, especially if we're talking about life and death situations.

As part of the Federal Aviation Administration or FAA's Beyond Program, companies can come to the Choctaw Ranch and safely test out the most difficult use cases, whether drone delivery beyond visual line of sight flight to make sure that they're doing this in a place where the air and ground risk is minimal and to inform decision making.

While the testing and experiments occurring here in the Choctaw Nation for drones and medical delivery are unique, the impacts they're going to have will be universal.

In Baltimore, Maryland, MissionGo is pushing the envelope even further for medical drone deliveries.

In 2019, they delivered the first organ by drone successfully to a transplant recipient.

- We see drones as a tool of the future.

Medical transport is critical.

Time is always of the essence.

Nobody wants to be waiting around for blood.

Nobody wants to be waiting around for their organ that they need.

Now, I'm not a doctor, I'm a pilot.

But what our doctors do tell us is that for every minute an organ is outside of the body, it's essentially degrading, it's dying.

The organs don't want to be outside of the body.

They want to be inside of the body.

Our organ transport and procurement transportation across the country, they do a really good job.

But that's not to say that it can't be better.

Uncrewed aircraft have a really unique role in making that whole process better and making the recipients on the other side, their quality of life better.

In 2019, Dr. Joe Scalea with the University of Maryland Medical Center came to us with a absolutely wild idea of transporting a human organ on board an unmanned aircraft.

What is the art of possible?

But we were up for the task and the challenge and we did just that.

- The long game with these technologies is that we'll be able to limit the amount of time that expires between explant and implant.

We'll also be able to reduce the cost of the shipment of organs, we'll have access to immediate transportation, certainly be more efficient.

And I think there are a lot of upsides.

In this initial series, just trying to organize the logistics I think, is really critical to moving forward.

So this is really about getting it right, working as a team, a group of surgeons, engineers, drone folks.

Yeah, that's a big group of people to bring together, but we've been able to do it at least here today.

So that's exciting.

- It's clear for launch, let's make some history.

- [Speaker] Launch.

- The night came of April, 2019 where we flew the first human kidney for transplant over the city of Baltimore.

Now mind you, the task of doing that was monumental.

It was not as easy as just somebody showed up with a kidney, we put on the aircraft, and pushed a button.

There was more than 400 people involved to make that happen.

It was a literal village to make this a success.

And in the end, while it was a short flight, it was around three miles in length.

The fact is, is that we did it and it was successful.

- Confirming hummel's active, temperature's appropriate, organ doesn't appear to be injured at all.

Looks like a perfectly transplantable organ.

- And it proved that uncrewed aircraft could be used for more than just taking pictures or flying around for fun.

But it could literally be used to save lives and transport a human organ in a safe manner to somebody who needs it and they need it right now.

It's an excellent tool that we can have in the box to supplement a huge endeavor that we're trying to create better quality of life for patients in the end.

- With medical delivery by drone, small packages can have a massive impact.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, drone delivery has really taken off, why?

Because they're the ultimate social distancers.

- In a small town in Arkansas, a revolution is taking place in the world of last mile delivery.

We all know the traditional way of shopping, you have to get in your car, drive to the store, pick up whatever it is you're looking to buy and then head on home.

But with drones, I could get any of this delivered right to my backyard, even a rotisserie chicken.

- As one example of many that we're seeing now across the country, Walmart has teamed up with DroneUp to bring a number of their products from the store to your door by drone more conveniently and quickly.

- Each one of these Walmarts becomes distribution centers with products that are custom fitted for the audience around them.

Being able to deliver from the Walmarts to those residences within that range allows us to serve millions of customers every day.

- Tom, how would you describe this moment in time in terms of the drone industry?

- If you think about where we are in the evolution of the drone industry, specifically related to drone delivery, prior to the pandemic, there were no drone delivery operations going on in the United States.

Today, in addition to what others in the industry are doing, we have 34 locations delivering to 4 million customers.

That's happened in just a few years.

And now with the FAA regulations evolving and the technology evolving and the community's realizing this is really happening, we had mayors of cities all over the country asking if we would come into their cities and do the very same thing.

You're seeing partnerships like the one we have with Walmart, I can't even imagine what you're gonna see over the next two to three years.

- From those initial days when you were doing these tests with Walmart for Covid-19 test deliveries to today, your operation has evolved so much.

How has it evolved?

- It's evolved a lot.

In those early days, there were no off the shelf drones designed for delivery.

Today we've got drones that are custom built and designed with all kinds of safety protocol, autonomous software, integrated with airspace management so that we can deconflict and maintain safe airspace.

Today looks nothing like it looked even two years ago.

- What is your vision of the future for drones?

- My vision of the future is that we're gonna be, within 10 years, we're gonna be delivering about 5 billion packages a year.

If you think about that, that's probably 25% of the total delivery market.

And that's from a technology that was not even being used just a few years ago.

When we talk about the last mile, we recognize drones aren't the final solution to the last mile.

Over the next 10 years, you're gonna see the last mile revolutionized and we believe that it's gonna be autonomous aerial, autonomous ground, and electric vehicles.

We know the part that we play in it and we know that we're gonna change the last mile over the next 10 years.

- DroneUp continues pushing the boundaries of drone delivery.

Its partnership with Walmart is gonna change the way we all receive packages.

It was so great to meet you.

- Prathibha, what kind of impact do you think drone delivery can have on everyday people?

- Our customers have told us that convenience and saving money is really important to them.

They want to have express delivery for things that they need in a pinch and that's where drones come into play.

It's access, we are going to democratize speed.

If somebody lives in rural America and wants access to prescription drugs and regulations allow us to deliver prescription drugs, we are able to do that.

And the third one is sustainability.

So drones mainly operate through electricity and it prioritizes planet and making sure we are being sustainable in how we use our resources.

- How do drones fit into your last mile delivery strategy?

- We've talked about Walmart's footprint.

4,700 stores within 10 miles of 90% of the US population.

So 120,000 SKUs or items are available for express delivery for our customers.

The maximum weight that we can deliver right now is 10 pounds.

But we are working with FAA, local state, regulators to expand that.

It's not about the technology itself, but what problems the technology is going to solve.

- So, in your experience, what are the top items that people are ordering for drone delivery right now?

- The top items are Cookies and Cream ice cream, paper towels, lemons, and then rotisserie chicken.

Isn't it fun that we are delivering rotisserie chicken to people's backyard?

- I personally can't wait to get my rotisserie chicken delivered to my backyard.

I mean, think about it.

With drone delivery, chickens really can fly.

- This sounds like it's gonna be in the future, but it's happening now in Bentonville and coming to a town near you.

Now that you both have explained how Walmart drone delivery works, I'm so excited to experience it for myself.

I'm getting s'mores drone style.

I'm here with Ken, he is the hub manager here at Bentonville, Arkansas, store 100 for Walmart.

And you're gonna show me how to place a delivery.

- Absolutely, it's easy as any web order you've ever made.

- Alright, let's do it.

- Alright.

- All you gotta do is click in your address.

- All right, here we go.

Okay, super easy.

I put in my address and now here's all the different things that I could order, but I wanna order stuff to make s'mores.

So what do I do?

- You just scroll to the items you want.

So in this case, you want s'mores.

So you just click on the item and add it to cart.

- Adding it to cart and it looks like we're good to go.

So then I go to my little cart.

- Yeah and then once you hit submit, the order process begins.

- Ken, that was so easy.

That took me less than two minutes.

- Yeah, nothing's different than any other order except how it gets to you.

- So I placed the order, Walmart got the goods, and now what happens next?

- Now we just load it up in the box and get it ready.

- Okay, very good.

- You wanna load it?

- Sure, all right.

In go the grams, in go the chocolates, and the mallows.

- All right, all that nice and centered in our box.

And close it up and that's it, let's get it flying.

- [Dawn] Package is loaded, what's next?

- Ready for takeoff.

- So Ken, we're up on the roof here of the hub, but what is this behind us?

- That's our remote pilot in command.

He's the one that manages the flight.

The aircraft is completely automated, but he still supervises all operations.

- [Dawn] Safety is job number one.

- [Ken] Of course.

- Good 'cause I sure hope that my s'mores arrive safely.

(upbeat music) There go my s'mores.

- [Dawn] In the air, we see the drone flying with precision and reliability to its ultimate destination.

On the ground, we got to witness firsthand the delivery by drone of goods right to the customer's doorstep.

- So here we are at the landing site to tell us what we're gonna see.

- It's gonna travel for us here at this hub.

We fly at 115 feet.

It'll fly in and it'll descend down to 80 feet, which is our safe delivery altitude.

And then it will repel down on a line your box.

- I think I see it coming right now.

- Yep, there it is.

It actually it is because there it is.

(laughs) - [Dawn] And the package is descending.

Well, that comes down pretty fast.

- Puck captured.

- All right, here it is, the big reveal.

And there they are fully intact.

So when you are at home and you do not want to go out but you have a hankering for a s'more drones are gonna make that happen for you.

So I got to experience this myself today.

Absolutely unbelievable, from order to delivery less than 30 minutes.

I can't wait until this comes to Colorado Springs.

- We look forward to visiting.

- From flying taxis to drone deliveries of groceries and even human organs, we've seen how drones and eVTOLs are transforming everyday life.

- There's a real opportunity here to be able to move a lot of people into the air and allow them to not only just save time, but actually figure out what they want to do with that time.

- Today people are using drone delivery as a convenience.

In the future, it will become something that people simply can't live without.

- Not only will we see our health benefit from it, but we'll see this convenience that will make our lives much more enjoyable.

- Flying is really not new.

We've been doing it for a long time now.

Artificial intelligence, sensors are all getting integrated today to make these flying laptops even smarter and more efficient than they ever have been.

- These technologies increase access, increase speed, and efficiency in ways we've never seen before.

They're on the way to becoming a huge part of our daily lives.

As this technology continues to mature, keep an eye in the sky for a drone near you.

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