Listen to Ian Smith of Commercial Drones FM catch up with Travis Mason, VP and Head of Certification & Regulation, Urban Air Mobility at Airbus. Travis most recently was MC at AUVSI’s XPONENTIAL Conference 2019—the largest global gathering of unmanned systems technology in the world.

Travis previously was Chief of Staff at Google X and worked with the Wing team on delivery drones. He’s passionate about policy—and that’s key—as he is charged with helping Airbus’ Urban Air Mobility (UAM) technology launch globally. You may know UAM from other popular terminologies, such as but not limited to: flying cars, eVTOL, air taxis, passenger drones, and many more.

The UAM challenge touches nearly all facets of policy, technology, society, and even ethics issues (what happens if a passenger-carrying eVTOL aircraft has to choose between saving the souls onboard or bystanders that might be on the ground?)

Travis and Ian discuss a variety of issues and challenges around drones, on-demand urban aerial transport, and even the omnipresent urban scooters.