A Modular Approach to Defense Aircraft – Transcript
On the Industry Forward Podcast, Dale had the opportunity to catch up with a longtime colleague and current founder and CEO of AERALIS, Tristan Crawford. Dale and Tristan talk about the origins of AERALIS, why breaking the cost curve is critical in modern aircraft development, the modular defense aircraft concept, and how digitalization can enable modular aircraft development, delivery, and support.
This blog presents a transcript of the conversation. You can also listen to both parts of the podcast below!
Dale Tutt
All right, well good afternoon Tristan. I’m excited to have you here on our podcast today, Industry Forward. And it’s great to see you again. You know, we’ve been talking airplanes for almost a decade now off and on. So I’m excited to talk about your project today. So thank you for joining us. And to get started, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be working in aerospace and ultimately decided to found Aeralis, which is such an interesting company right now.
Tristan Crawford
Sure, thank you Dale. And again, a great pleasure to be talking aircraft with you. Very privileged to have the opportunity to do this. Thank you for that. And absolutely would love to take you through a little bit about the story as to how we got to where we’ve got to. So the stories you can probably imagine is a little unconventional. I think probably the best place to start is my background in the commercial aerospace industry, which had nothing to do with the roles that we’re currently looking at within Aeralis. But working for a major European aircraft company in the commercial aerospace sector, it was very normal to be looking at how the fleet of aircraft as a whole that the customers were using could be consolidated and rationalized to really change the whole economics of the fleet for an airline operator. So that there was a very strong ethos of looking at commonality across aircraft, commonality of cockpits, commonality of training systems, commonality of software systems, commonality of spare parts. And really, I saw that change the industry to some extent. And really the industry really flip, if you will, to that kind of model of as to how they acquired and operated their commercial aircraft because it saved a lot of money. And at the same time, the availability of those aircraft was very high.
So in terms of getting away from the gate on time, and we all like to get away from the gate on time when we travel for leisure or business, that was getting better and better. So the airline industry kind of went down that road a while ago, talking 30, 40 years ago, and it was just kind of normal in the world that I grew up in. And it wasn’t until I decided to do something, I guess, a little drastic and I decided to switch, which is not terribly normal, I guess, from commercial aerospace into defense aerospace. Usually you tend to stay in one or the other. But I made that step to kind of go backwards a little bit and experience defense aerospace and aviation. And that’s kind of where it really hit me. And this is a true story. I took a more junior role doing flight tests to get whole aircraft experience on military aircraft. And that’s where I was looking out at the apron one day. And I just saw all of the jets sitting there not flying. And having come from a world where usually if the what they call the dispatcher liability of a jet is something like 98%, if it goes below 98%, people get very, very agitated. This was not the case at all in the world that I just moved into. So given the aircraft I was looking at were arguably a lot simpler, smaller to certify with less rigorous constraints than carrying passengers around the sky, it just seemed inconceivable to me that this should be the future of military aviation going forward. It’s when we have to get out there and do the mission. So I kind of put one and one together and said, you know, surely the kind of way commercial aerospace does this has a place here.
And I can probably bring out the doodle pad I brought out and started to sketch out how you would actually create a kind of a commercial aircraft approach to it, to a light jet, and in this case, a jet trainer, and really take the approach of a common course or a fuselage where you could modify the wing and the engine to give you the performance that you wanted without changing the expensive bit, the bit in the middle. And the more we looked at it with some colleagues and I, the more and more it made sense. And then I think probably just to bring this story to a close, I literally took a printout of my sketches into a government colleague of mine and asked if what I was thinking actually made sense, expecting to be told with a pat on the head, it’s a good idea, Tris, but you know, you’ve got a long way to go. And instead I was told, actually, there is a real issue with availability of defense aircraft, defense aviation, and there is a market gap for this kind of aircraft. So I was encouraged to keep looking at it. And so that’s how the story started.
Dale Tutt
That is so awesome. And honestly, as you’re telling your story again, it reminds me, it’s like one of the things when we met, I don’t know, 10 years ago or so that really, I think one of the reasons that we really hit it off that day, because we were both, I was working program at Textron Airland with the Scorpion Jet, where we were looking at applying commercial principles to military aircraft and how to use more off the shelf and how do you really change the paradigm so that you can drive a different cost factor into the defense industry. And that was one of the premises of what we were trying to achieve. And then, you know, as you were talking about what you were doing, and you were doing the same thing, you’re looking at what’s going on in the commercial industry that we can start to apply to the defense industry and really start to drive some better economics. And what you’ve done is such a, I think is a really great example of a way of thinking about it from a different approach or really from a different point of view. And when we think about, for our listeners that maybe are not aware, when you look at the aerospace industry today, there’s a lot of challenges with cost and the cost of a new program is increasing. And it always, you know, I think about Augustine’s laws and, you know, Norm Augustine was a aerospace executive and he’d come up with a lot of different laws. And one of his laws, you know, his 16th law stated that, like by the year 2050, that the US Department of Defense would be able to afford one aircraft. And they would share it three days a week between the Air Force and the Navy. And then during leap year, the Marines would get to use that airplane that one day. And that’s, you know, it turns out he was right. And that’s the trend that we’re on.
And as you look at his trends, and you look at the trends in aircraft price versus time, about every 20 years, every 20 to 25 years, the cost of a new aircraft program, especially for like, you know, fighter jets and trainer jets for the Defense Department goes up by a factor of 10. And so for the fifth generation fighter today, if we’re paying a million, or say like $100 million per aircraft, it would suggest that the sixth generation fighters could be almost a billion dollars apiece. And we all know that’s not sustainable. And it’s just becoming so burdensome that companies are now looking at how do they break the cost curve, you can no longer live with just, oh, we’re going to try to like, you know, save a few dollars here and there, we need something transformational. And so, you know, as I see it, you know, it’s a new reality for the industry. So how do you see the industry attempting to adapt to this new reality as well? You know, are there things in addition to like, some of the examples of what you’re doing? So what are your thoughts on that?
Tristan Crawford
Yeah, it’s, I think we kind of, that reality is starting to hit home. And I’ll just give a little example. I think it was in the, it was actually in the press a couple of days ago, how even at the level of strategic thinking for the US Air Force, there is some questions and starting to be circulated around the future of the next generation air dominance program. And where does that focus need to be? Does it need to be in a high-end platform? Or is it much more sort of a lower scale system of systems approach? And they’re starting to use the words such as modularity, commonality, and moving away from exactly that issue, which is the continual search for some high end platform that does everything for you, when actually what you want is spiral development, fast iteration, the ability to change what you’ve got, because once you pour all these vast sums of money into such a high end piece of equipment, you’re stuck with it, unless you can adapt it. And that’s, you know, that doesn’t work in today’s world anymore. And you know, we only need to look into the conflict in Europe right now that, you know, at the complete other end of the spectrum, that war is being fought with drones out of Amazon delivery boxes with a bit of munitions attached to them. So the whole paradigm is really getting questioned, I think.
So it’s I genuinely think at the moment for the defense industry, there is a question mark over the current configuration, the recent announcement of how combat collaborative air is going to be developed in the US recently went to two SMEs, small to medium sized enterprises with the big OEMs, I wouldn’t say locked out, but they were they were not top of the top of the list. So there’s definitely some questioning going on. And it’s a tough one. You know, the defense industry has been kind of set up in size to fight large conflicts with some arguably some still Cold War overhead, some Cold War infrastructure that we still use today to be able to produce this equipment. But going forwards, it’s too expensive. So I think personally, I think it’s going to be a question as to as to how the big guys decide they wish to evolve in this space. And there is already a kind of a, you know, a declination of the kind of platforms, whether it’s whether you can lose them. Whether they’re a treatable, treatable platforms, whether they’re sort of semi treatable or whether you can’t afford to lose them. This kind of vocabulary is entering into the into the lexicon. But it’s going to be down to how the large companies choose to evolve in this space and start to co-opt in other models and other technologies to be able to deliver it. I think for those that that can’t evolve into that space, you know, then, you know, that’s going to be tough. And I think the industry is going to have to is going to have to probably it’s going to have to do some pretty quick experimentation as to how to make this future reality work, because I don’t think anybody really knows.
But it’s definitely a combination of a family of different platforms that work together in a way that cannot be undermined and that can be evolved rapidly. And it’s going to have to involve some different thinking, some different models. And there’s going to be some there’s some questions in there as to how do you train your people to operate this system that’s going to be changing? Some of it will be autonomous, autonomous. Some of it won’t. What degree is autonomous? What degree isn’t? How do you cope with the fact that the fact that the fact that it’s going to change? There is no recipe for this other than I think to generate technology which kind of is agnostic as to which way it goes. And that’s really where I kind of bring it back to the reason we’re doing what we’re doing, which is to really think about having an open architecture mindset to the hardware and to the software so that no matter which direction the capability needs to go, the industry can move with it. And that for me is fundamental.
Dale Tutt
Yeah. Yeah, I have to agree with that. I, you know, as you were talking about, you know, some of the some of the challenges the industry, it’s you if you look back to the 1960s and early 1970s, the aerospace industry and the defense industry in particular, they were developing a lot of new products and they would produce them very quickly. And you look back at the really the most successful programs in history, that they were developed fairly quickly, fairly agile. I like the fact you referred to the spiral development. And you look at a program like the F-16 that has continued to evolve into much different mission sets from what it started out at as just one example. And you know, it was developed fairly quickly and it wasn’t a the, you know, it wasn’t set to be like the do all program that took 30 to, you know, 30 years to mature and develop, but they got a capability out there and then they continue to add to that. And so I think, you know, what you’re talking about, you know, and, you know, with your vision for your company is with this open architecture and the modular mindset is very differentiating. Do you want to maybe just elaborate a little bit more on that? What’s really helped making, you know, Aeralis different in the industry right now beyond the open architecture and some of these other concepts that you’ve talked about already?
Tristan Crawford
Yeah, I think I think probably the thing that that sets us apart a little bit is that is really how we’re taking a strong focus on the commercial innovation in the way we engineer an aircraft. So it’s not all about technology. It’s about the commercial reality of operating this hardware and making sure that’s really engineered into the airplane. So you know, the thing that I think we’re really passionate about is that, you know, when you when you look at the people who are coming into the front line who are there to serve their country, to use the equipment and to do to do what they need to do. And yet the equipment either isn’t available, or it’s too expensive. That’s not acceptable. And that’s what really drives us is that today with the kind of thinking that goes into the engineering of an aerospace system in the commercial world, you know, we get such high levels of delivery out of that out of that engineering. Whereas in the military side, it’s woefully short. The capability when it works is fantastic, but there’s a lot of time it doesn’t it doesn’t work because it’s not available.
So really, really what sets us apart and it’s part of the different road that we’re on is that unlike many aerospace projects, which are very technology focused because the equipment has to do something better than something else, that that drives an enormous amount of risk and delay. And that’s part of the problem. Whereas our engineering is much more focused on the commonality, the interoperability, the interchangeability of the hardware and the software, but also more than that is that it’s designed so that even private companies, commercial companies can operate this hardware and this software on behalf of the military customer. Because in that way, the industry and private industry, commercial industry can actually is actually motivated and incentivized to acquire and finance this equipment and operate it at a very high level of availability using a contract basis, which is incentivized to deliver output and outcomes. And if those outputs or outcomes don’t happen, they don’t get paid. That’s an enormous incentive for the private industry to do the job properly. And that that’s an enormous motivator to generate capacity and availability, availability, which is what the military really need.
You know, in our in our view, when you look at the history of conflict, it’s mostly won over by scale and by the continual delivery of effect over time. You know, there’s some good stories about when you look at the Battle of Britain, for example, in the United Kingdom, we all love the Spitfire, but it was actually the Hurricane that won the battle because we could produce so many more hurricanes than we could Spitfires. They were built using fabric rather than metal, they were built much more simply. They were much more rugged. You could you could shoot it a Hurricane, it would still fly while a Spitfire, you’d probably have to land. So it was a Hurricane that did the job. The F-16 is a is a great example of the fighter mafia in the Pentagon, which there’s some great stories about. I’m sure you come across there, which is which was really designed as that simple, straightforward light fighter that would be quick to develop and easy to change. And here it is. It’s the best-selling combat aircraft of all time. That’s what that’s what wins over in the final analysis.
So it’s about making sure we’re unlocking not only equipment, but business models that really allow the scaling up and the availability of equipment to be there whenever you needed to be there at the price that you that you can afford, because that’s the ultimate reason we’re doing this. So that that for us is where the innovation and what we’re doing really lies and what sets us apart from a traditional aerospace technology approach, if you will.
Dale Tutt
Yeah, that’s a great example. And I love the example, the Hurricane as well. That’s a you know, and as you know, and just as you talked about this, the service based offerings and, you know, being able to provide it and how that incentivizes really everybody to, you know, to really focus on how do they, you know, provide this capability in a different model? I, you know, just ask you real quick about the modularity of the design. There have been some attempts in the past right by programs to be modular. And you know, you can swap out certain parts of it. And, you know, they’ve had kind of mixed results so far. So you know, how’s your team been dealing with that as the requirements of the different types of aircraft have continued to mature? How are you how are you dealing with the modularity and really maintaining that that that true vision of true modularity in the design? It’s a daunting challenge, it seems to for many companies.
Tristan Crawford
Yeah, it’s a great question. And it’s definitely a technical challenge. I think it’s kind of important to understand what one means by modularity. And really, the best definition of modularity for us is the ability to not only configure but reconfigure equipment to deliver different roles all using a predefined set of components. So I guess the where previous attempts at this kind of creating a piece of equipment that can do lots of different jobs by calling it quotes modular, which means you can put different bits on it. It’s going to be challenged because it’s trying to be a jack of all trades and it’s a master of none. And the penalties you build into the system because of that those options is what kills it. And you pay too much to have that flexibility. So you kind of need to start off with a very clear bounded scope of the envelope that you’re trying to operate within. And you’ve got to be very, very clear with that from the get go. And you’ve got to be very, very clear about your trades in terms of what you’re willing to trade in terms of your weight penalty versus the performance gain that you get for the modular that you’re looking at for the module that you’re looking at.
So you need to start off in that space and where other programs I think have gone wrong is to say let’s take this equipment and make it able to do something else. And that scope hasn’t been there in our case. We’ve actually we did a lot of homework for several years, in fact, to really identify what we call the sweet spot in a design space where for a given weight of aircraft, a given what we call an empty weight of aircraft before you fill it with fuel and attach stuff to it that we wanted to find out where that sweet spot was so that when we changed a wing or when we changed an engine, that the weight penalty of being able to do that on the airplane didn’t actually affect the overall envelope of the system too much. So for example, let me take if you take a sweet spot of an airplane which has an empty mass of 10 tons, the penalty of that making of being able to change the wing or change the engine, you know, five percent is 500 kg. It’s a lot of it’s a lot of weight. So that’s a bad idea. If you if you find a market where there’s a sweet spot which is somewhere else, you know, somewhere in the two-to-three-ton area, then then you’re talking tens of 10 to 50 kgs.
And if you’re doing missions, which, you know, in the training end of the spectrum where you’re not you’re not operating in the corner point of the envelope because you’re training somebody or you’re doing some kind of support role, you’re not operating at what we call the bleeding edge of the of the of a system, then those kind of penalties don’t really people don’t bat an eyelid at that point because they’re much more interested in the price of the aircraft and can it just do what it needs to do. So we did a lot of homework to position this this system in that market. And absolutely, if you were to take our approach and try to make it do high end combat air, you wouldn’t do it. And that’s a given. But we found that in this this end of the market, absolutely, you can generate multiple variants and get great performance out of the system. And that’s where the game changing. That’s where the game changing nature what we’re doing really, really starts to happen.
Dale Tutt
That’s awesome. So maybe shift gears just a little bit in the past. In some of our past conversations, we’ve talked about digital transformation and how that’s enabling you and your team to, to both design the aircraft, but also to do it and really to set it up to be successful in the in the contract offering or the service-based offerings. So you know, how has your team embraced digital transformation and some of the advanced digital tools that are now available to help you overcome some of these challenges around the modular design and how do you see these same tools helping you with your future plans?
Tristan Crawford
It’s, yeah, it’s a I’ll start off with a slightly funny analogy or a story. So when we were conceiving this idea of a modular jet system, very early on, we were coming at it from all having worked for aircraft companies where kind of the aeroplane was always first and you had to make the aeroplane. And then you kind of had to find tools which helped you design the aeroplane and you, you borrowed a digital tool from over here and an application from over here and you tried to make them do something specific to help you with a trade or design a bit of structure. And then, you know, after all of this effort, the your aircraft struggled to kind of make sales in the market and it was a really tough, tough commercial program and then some of you got fired because it wasn’t making any money and it’s a really, you know, it’s a really risky business. So we came from this background to say, look, what let’s not let’s stop thinking about aeroplanes. I hate to say that because that’s what I that’s what I love. And that’s what Dale loves. And let’s start thinking about actually this being the aeroplane is just part of a digital system at the end of the day. The airplane is a piece of equipment which delivers a payload somewhere that does a mission, but it’s got to be operated within a system, right? It’s got to be operated by somebody controlling it, configuring it, maintaining it, scheduling it. It’s just performing a role within an ecosystem. So if we’ve got this kind of idea for a modular aeroplane system that’s going to do a whole bunch of roles, then there must be a massive opportunity to kind of reset the whole digital ecosystem that this thing is going to have to live in. And that’s really ultimately where the Big Kahuna opportunity is for this.
So if you’re going to certify a jet trainer and you’re also going to certify this variant to become a reconnaissance platform or a tanking platform or a combat platform, the digital responsibility of controlling the configuration of this system becomes enormous. But if you can do it, then in terms of the digital ecosystem you’ve used to control and configure this air system now means you can say, well, OK, I’ve got this full end to end enterprise now. Why don’t I plug in a maintenance application? Why don’t I plug in a flying training syllabus? Why don’t I plug in a midlife update and have everything talk to everything else? Because now, you know, surely with today, in today’s experience and this is where Dale, your organization obviously has great depth. But in terms of the automotive industry, for example, where this is already kind of this is standard in terms of the connectivity of the digital ecosystem to run an automotive industry. We’ve got this stuff now. So let’s just apply it in aerospace. And so you’ve now got this potential to stop doing it the old way where engineers are begging and borrowing bits of software to try and design an airplane and actually start with the full end to end digital ecosystem where I can literally say that’s my requirement. That’s the CAD engineering for my aircraft. That’s the component for the fuel system. That’s how I’m going to generate the safety case and the evidence against the certification basis. I can get the maintenance data from the fleet to talk back to this to compare the forecast data with the actual data. I’ve actually got live fleet data coming in. I’ve got how its usage is being how it’s being flown by the trainee students on a flight line somewhere. And all of this is just now talking to each other. And you can map the route that any data is taking through this ecosystem, whichever way you want to build it.
That is totally doable so long as you build it that way from the get go. So in our space, developing this modular air system, it’s an absolute must that we have this ecosystem from the get go that’s ready to talk end to end across the whole space to configure the air system. And that affords us massive potential to plug in applications through life into this ecosystem to make sure that data from whatever aspects of the system, wherever it’s coming from, can talk to another part of the system to evolve and develop the system as we need it to. So that is how our industry must evolve. And the proof in the pudding for me is when it comes to certification, we stop handing over binders of information and data drops to an authority, which, believe it or not, is still how it happens today. And an authority in the future can actually log into the system. They can see whatever data they want. They can see how the evidence stacks up, how it’s generated, how it links back to requirements. And let’s all modernize the way we certify airplanes because that’s the thing that’s really holding this industry back. And it shouldn’t be. With the digital technology we have today, it needs to be different. And that’s what we hope we’re doing here at Aeralis to really change the way that that’s done. Very exciting.
Dale Tutt
That is exciting. And I like the fact that you’re talking about this in the context of a very comprehensive and holistic view to all aspects of a project like this. And I think too often a lot of people, and maybe it’s part of the paradigms that as companies have grown and develop over time, they’re adding, there’s maybe been a focus on engineering or manufacturing areas. And some of these other areas and some of these other parts of a program have maybe lagged in their transformation to digital. So the fact that you’re coming in and you’re taking it from a holistic viewpoint and looking at the whole life cycle and the whole ecosystem is, I think it’s transformational. And I think it is key to helping you to achieve your reality of how you’re going to be able to cost effectively provide this. And I love your story about the certification. I remember the days of we’d print out 60,000 pages of reports and put them in the back of a truck and deliver them to our certification agencies. And that was even still in the days of when we could actually transmit them digitally, but they still wanted paper copies of it. And so we took over paper copies. And so it is coming a long ways, it’s developing, but in order to really have this digital ecosystem, based on your experience so far, and what are some of the qualities you’re looking for in a digitalization partner? I mean, imagine that you’re not only working with us, but you have other people that you’re working with as well. So as you’re looking at this, what are some of the big qualities that you look for in that partnership?
Tristan Crawford
I think I have to say that one thing that stands out for me is if the future you’re trying to create together with your digital partner is really an open architecture future, an open architecture, digital future, then your mindset must be open architecture. So what we have come across a lot of in discussing with potential partners how to do this is a lot of this is the software solution that we have, and that’s what you need. And we’ve kind of said that’s not the culture we’re actually looking to create. The culture we’re looking to create is a partner who has software expertise and competencies, but has got the mindset to say, look, we’ve got to break some of this stuff open. And even we don’t understand how it’s going to work or connect it, but we’ve got to break it open and we’ve got to figure this out, because that’s the only way open architecture and open architecture future is going to happen. And that’s tough. It’s tough for a partner to open that risk up when obviously you need to make money on your product and you have a product and it’s done, right? But we’ve closed down a number of potential partners because of that mindset not being correct. And nobody on this planet, I believe, has yet got a full end-to-end digital enterprise system that is where it needs to be for this industry to move forwards. And so you’ve got to find the right companies and partners who are happy to break some eggs to accept that the product they’ve got isn’t quite ready. It’s not quite functioning properly. It’s not actually compatible with the other applications we’ve got, but they’re happy to break it open and find a way of working together to both share the risk on that and to work the problem together. And that’s a quality I’m very happy to say, Dale, that we’ve enjoyed very much with the team in your organization. And that’s the only way this is going to work. And so far, I can safely say that we have a very close relationship over here in the UK on the defense side with the government, with the Ministry of Defense. That approach is working very well. The results we’re getting out of that mindset are certainly putting us ahead in the market in terms of the way Aeralis is building a digital enterprise. So long may that continue.
Dale Tutt
Yeah. No, that’s a great discussion on what you need in your partnerships for digital transformation. And it is, you know, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with a few discussions with the UK’s MoD and understanding and learning about what their motivations are to transform their own operations digitally. And so it’s good that, you know, to have a partner like that as well, because it is part of that ecosystem. You know, it’s easy to think about, you know, from a digital technology standpoint that you have Siemens and we’re partnered with SAP and we’re partnered with AWS and Microsoft and so many other companies. I mean, we recognize the fact that we can’t provide everything. You said it yourself. There’s like no one company that has the full digital enterprise. But to be able to develop this and have the companies working together in a way that can actually work with companies such as yourself, as well as the agencies such as the MoD, you know, that, you know, operate both as a buying and a certifying authority. So it is a lot of, you know, it does take a village and, you know, there are a lot of players that have to be able to participate in the system. So well, you know, I’d love to sit here and keep chatting. We have, you know, we could we probably didn’t talk enough about cool airplane technology, but maybe we’ll do that in the future. But, you know, just as we as we close out, what’s next for you and Aeralis? Anything on the horizon that you can that you’re able to share with us today?
Tristan Crawford
I think just going back to kind of where we started the discussion, I do really feel that we’re on the kind of cusp of a shift in in the way our systems are going to develop and evolve going into the middle of this decade and beyond. And we’re not just a UK MoD program. We’re not just a specific opportunity for a particular market. This is a mindset and an architecture which is which is needed to really transform defense aviation. I’m very keen on the John Boyd philosophy. If you ever heard of John Boyd, I’m pretty sure you’ll come across him. But him and his team back in the 50s and 60s were extreme advocates of a different basis of creating capability that is much more agile and focused on quick delivery, lower cost practical application to achieve the goal. And that that philosophy created the F-16 and the A-10 effectively. And those you know, those are the stores of combat air historically in the US. All of those rules still hold true today. So Aeralis is here to, you know, our organization, our mindset, our culture is about delivering that that shift in in in mentality and architecture and air system thinking so that wherever the industry needs to go, be it in Europe, be it in the US, be it in the UK, be it in Asia, this is what friendly forces are going to need to have. It’s why at the moment we’re seeing the platform of choice over in Ukraine is the F-16. It’s the way it’s the way that combat air for air support, air training has to go to make sure we generate scale and availability so that the guys and girls who are doing this job for us have what they need. And that is the most important thing. And we’re on the cusp of that, that starting to trigger now across all of these markets. So that’s the really exciting space that we are getting ready to expand into.
Dale Tutt
Excellent. And I wish you and your company the very best and not just in the success of your aircraft programs and what you’re offering. But I think as you as you noted at the beginning of the program, the some of the other transformations that are happening, you know, really throughout the world in terms of expectations for these platforms and how they operate in and in. I think it’s going to require a cultural shift, a mindset shift on how we develop these new programs. And I think that I think at some level, you guys are at the forefront of that right now and really helping to make that shift. And so I wish you the best of luck and all that. So I think as we wrap up, I just want to say, Tristan, again, thank you very much for joining the Industry Forward podcast today with us. And really thank you for your time. And it’s been great catching up with you again and chatting about airplanes as well as well as your program. So thank you very much for being here today.
Tristan Crawford
It’s been a great pleasure Dale. And I’m expecting many more conversations to come. Let’s keep them coming.
Dale Tutt
Absolutely. All right. We’ll talk to you soon.
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