Speaker
Dr. Rashid Ali, Coventry University, UK
Dr. Rashid Ali is a Senior Lecturer at Coventry University, UK with over four decades of combined academic and industrial experience in aerospace engineering, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), flight dynamics, and control.
About
Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) is arguably the foundation of Advanced and Urban Air Mobility (AAM/UAM). Promising cleaner, faster, and more connected skies, these systems are increasingly facing the challenges of certification. Four critical dimensions of viability — technical, functional, operational, and societal —determine whether eVTOLs can transition from prototypes to practical transport. Challenges discussed include rotor control authority, autorotation and emergency descent capability, power management, transition stability, as well as the operational fragility of urban vertiport logistics, weather sensitivity, maintenance cycles, and pilot workload. Beyond the flight deck, the talk explores regulatory ambiguity, economic sustainability, public acceptance, and infrastructure readiness — the often-ignored obstacles to mass adoption. The conclusion is both technical and philosophical: with engineering excellence, we may have answered “Can we build it?”, but we continue to dodge the harder questions — “Should we?” and “Who for?” Dr. Ali provocatively argues, the aircraft may soon be ready, but the world they want to fly in, is not.
Language
English
Location and date
- 11.06.2026, 17:30
- TUM Campus Garching, MW 1801, Boltzmannstraße 15, 85748 Garching bei München
Registration
The lecture is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use the blue registration button on the right-hand side.