Memorandum submitted by VTOL Technologies
Ltd
INTRODUCTION
VTOL Technologies Ltd has been researching and
developing VTOL UAV (Vertical Take-Off and Landing—Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle) technologies and systems for the past eight years,
for one of the fastest growing and largest global aerospace market
sectors. Within this high-growth market sector, there is overwhelming
evidence that in time; small, low-altitude VTOL UAV platforms
are likely to take the lions share (80%+) of the number of units
purchased across the board and deployed for urban, mountainous
and maritime environments by military, first-responder and commercial
market customers. However, technology credibility will be led
through initial investments being made via military end-customers
such as the MoD. Hence, for a high-technology start-up business,
it is imperative that technology funding support and investment
is secured through such channels.
The committee should also be aware that 80%
of the IED's targeted/identified in Afghanistan today,[46]
are being detected through the use of UAVs, many of them small
devices used at platoon level. However, the MoD technology in
use today is not only being imported from the USA, but has significant
operational limitations, all of which can be addressed with technology
under development by VTOL Technologies Ltd here in the UK.
The technology that VTOL Technologies has been developing
is equivalent to motor sport Formula 1 technology for the air,
in other words, advanced and expert technology that has taken
a huge investment in research, analysis, intelligence and design
validation to create. The company started early in research into
this domain, was and still is ahead of the field, but is losing
out because government decision makers are unable to understand
the importance of the technology, unwilling to support SME businesses
in the aerospace sector and will only invest in fully proven solutions
acquired from overseas companies. If UK government procurement
continues to take this approach, then our future high-technology
product-development and manufacturing capabilities from our SME
base will completely disappear overseas.
The effectiveness of government policies in supporting
these sectors
From an SME perspective, there has been minimal
credible government support within the aerospace and automotive
sectors and current government policies actively discourage SME
engagement, particularly in the Research & Development fields.
For the most part SME's have been sidelined, except in a supporting
"supplier role" either directly or via consortia proposals
led by the major players, who use their lobbying powers to great
effect. Why is this allowed to happen? Well, the primary reason
would appear to be a lack of understanding by our civil servants
with the direct responsibility for these sectors, (who for the
most part only engage with corporate industry) and are under the
impression that only corporates have the capabilities to play
a leading role within these industries. The general view is that
these sectors require such large investments that only financial
support directly to corporates is viable. This is a false conclusion.
Emerging technologies start off small (often
being developed by dedicated individuals or very small teams),
before they can grow and need to be nurtured, prior to engagement
with established industry is even considered. Take for example
many of the world's largest high-technology corporations today
such as Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard
started off in a garage in Silicon Valley with funding and SBRI
contract support from the US Government. Bill Gates took a technology
discarded by IBM to develop MS DOS and hence MS Windows into the
most successful global IT business the world has seen.
It is a false premise to assume in aerospace
and automotive, that our current corporate businesses are going
to deliver the next generation of technologies that will lead
the industry in years to come. Has anyone worked out the cost
of supporting high-technology start-up businesses and then working
with them to secure major contracts and production agreements
through larger corporations, ensuring that high-technology manufacturing
jobs stay in the UK? I think such a study/evaluation would throw
up some quite surprising results.
Ref: Ashley Bryant Unpublished Ingenia Article 06-12-09
How to maintain the UK's excellence in academic
research in aeronautical and automotive engineering and related
disciplines and how to extend relationships between universities
and business still further
One of the biggest misnomers in government thinking
and policy today, particularly in the field of engineering, is
that excellence in research can and is only carried out by academic
institutions and therefore funding support and technology spin-out
assistance needs to be focused entirely through academic channels.
Furthermore, academics rarely have the experience of commercialising
innovation, often hoarding IP and re-circulating it within the
University infrastructure, rather than doing anything constructive
with it in conjunction with the commercial sector.
What is consistently being missed by civil servants/administrators
of these programmes and funds, is that there is some real quality
research and business concepts (something that is for the most
part not delivered through our Universities), that are being created
through specialist SME businesses that deserve support. Unfortunately,
the civil service view is that SME's are not considered an important
part of our institutionalised framework and where neither appropriate
civil service experience nor expertise exists to identify and
support concepts with global potential.
We need to be thinking outside of the box and
turning these challenges in-side-out. For example, one significant
opportunity that is being missed is SME project development support
(or technology spin-in support) via Universities. The experience
that graduates of engineering and other disciplines can obtain
through this route would be just as valuable, if not more so,
than the provision of engineering training or job opportunities
through our large corporations. The problem is that civil servants
are so risk averse, not technically or commercially trained and
so concerned with the possibility of failure that they do not
want to back anything they don't understand and that potentially
poses risks that through their lack of experience, they are unable
to quantify. The net result being that many SMEs miss out on support
programmes that are often vital to their business operations.
University administrators prefer to work with
the larger companies/corporations and neither understand nor are
able to cope with the perceived risks of working with high-technology
start-up businesses. The current Full Ecomonic Cost policy today
excludes SME's engaging with Universities at any level, unless
it is on a KTP scheme, controlled by both the RDA's and Universities.
A single University graduate engaged through a university outside
of a KTP will cost between £120K to £140K per annum.
This is an impossible investment for an SME business. Enlightened
business people would hire three to four graduates directly, rather
than engage one graduate through a university research programme.
Ref: STFC group of documents.
The impact of the recession on motor sport and
aerospace industries
The impact of the recession on VTOL Technologies
has been catastrophic. The MoD was genuinely interested in funding
VTOL Technologies in the building of a Technology Demonstrator
through their Centre for Defence Enterprise. (Ref: MoD Documents:
1. MoD Interest in TD Funding 24-11-08). Yet, when the budgets
were cut, funding was terminated in preference for a corporate
concept/design.
Although one could point the finger at the MoD,
taking an overall perspective, the reaction was initiated by government
funding cuts and with the constant pressures on MoD and the desire
to show something innovative in this domain, CDE took the easier
route, one that would not be so difficult to justify and set up
a Defence Prime competition, satisfying the demands of the Defence
Primes. The unfortunate result of such decisions has been that
VTOL Technologies has had to be mothballed; I have been out of
work for 12 months whilst the resultant BAeSystems concept/design
has the potential I believe, to become a white elephant.
Ref: MoD and BAeSystems group of documents.
The role of SME's in the supply chain supporting
these sectors
Why are SME's seen purely in a support role,
why not a leading role in certain cases in these sectors with
specific technologies? There have been so many examples of SME's
engaging with corporates too early and being "thrown to the
lions". Even VTOL Technologies has had such experiences,
but due to contractual requirements, these must remain confidential.
The UK has a history of giving away world leading
technologies for overseas companies to build global businesses
and create tax revenues for their governments. Frank Whittle with
the jet engine is a case in point. There is an alternative to
such practise, but it will require a complete rethink by government
in the way that it invests and supports businesses that have next-generation
technology concepts, but require support to bring these concepts
to fruition, creating design, manufacturing and support jobs within
the UK. Chris Coles has spent many years researching this challenge
and has recently published a new approach to job creation titled:
The Road Ahead from a Grass Roots Perspective which sets out a
new way of funding new business start ups through what he describes
as a Capital Spillway Trust.
From my perspective, the government could play
a leadership role, by investing at the early stages in high-technology
concepts (funding the development of Technology Demonstrators
via truly viable SBRI programmes) and following successful demonstration,
work with both SME's and UK based corporate industry (according
to fair guidelines) to negotiate manufacturing, marketing and
sales agreements. In this way, the best of both worlds could be
achieved; support for new high-technology concepts through SME's
whilst providing continued success and wider exploitation of technology
for the benefit of UK plc through later engagement with corporate
industry, once the technology has been proven and the exploitation
routes are clear.
Ref: Business Case group of documents.
What barriers are there to further innovation
in these sectors and what can be done to overcome them
The barriers to further innovation in the aerospace
& automotive sectors are:
— Civil Service institutionalism and focus
on corporate industry.
— Inappropriate funding support and in
particular Technology Demonstrator funding support programmes
for SME businesses.
— A lack of co-ordination on high technology
procurement programmes between government departments that would
enable effective SBRI programmes to be assembled.
— Corporates rarely truly innovate; they
often acquire immature, but promising technologies from small
companies through acquisition.
— New designs, products and processes do
exist, but they are not perceived by government as being developed
through the right channels, (from their viewpoint, not from ours),
and are therefore being ignored.
What can be done to overcome them?
— There needs to be government technology
facilitators, who can operate at the highest levels of government
and pull funds/resources from multiple departments to solve particular
technology issues/challenges.
— Engage with the City and our Engineering
Institutions to develop engineering based Technology Demonstrator
funding programmes, providing inspiration and visibility that
engineering has a viable future in this country.
— Study, review and if appropriate support
the principles of the Capital Spillway Trust as a means of providing
funding for high-technology businesses.
Ref: Chris Coles and the Capital Spillway Trust
What steps can be taken to encourage the application
of technology development in both sectors to create new designs,
products and process in other industries
The critical issue is funding and in particular
Technology Demonstrator funding. Open engineering based Technology
Demonstrator competitions, that are neither time nor subject-matter
bounded, need to be run that will provide the Technology Demonstrator
funding imperative to pull through these exciting concepts.
Government departments need to start talking
with one another and develop new ways of combined funding. It
is very rare to see innovation or business creativity from Government
departments, because their skills lie in administration and politics,
not in the development of new designs, products and processes
to meet the needs of our rapidly changing world. It would often
appear that civil servants have a greater focus on being seen
to be doing the right thing, rather than doing the right thing.
There also needs to be far greater participation
from our engineering institutions, engaging more effectively with
government and a renewed effort to secure engineering investment
through such sources as the City of London. Is it not better to
fund 20 Technology Demonstrator programmes, rather than fund £20
million of bonuses for one City banker? Which of the two is more
likely to develop the long-term economic base for the UK?
Ref: Chris Coles & the Capital Spillway Trust
How successful existing initiatives such as the
Aerospace Innovation Networks and Aerospace Technology Validation
Programmes have been in transforming new concepts into marketable
technology
From an SME perspective, I would suggest that
the Aerospace Innovation Networks and Aerospace Technology Validation
Programmes have delivered nothing as far as high-technology SME's
are concerned. There has been neither any guidance of substance
nor support from the Technology Strategy Board, nor from SEEDA
(our particular RDA). I have also contacted the Department for
Business Innovation and Skills, but even here there has only been
a blank response.
Ref: TSB and SEEDA groups of documents.
Any other views stakeholders think the Committee
should be aware of
Engineering of any discipline, demands investment
support to enable "proof of concept" of innovative,
new products through Technology Demonstrators, prior to global
commercialisation. Chris Coles has been developing a new economic
model for the 21st Century that would provide such investment
funding. The model is called the Capital Spillway Trust and is
a new approach to create a free enterprise based, free market
in capital. It is a modern, highly effective means of raising
the finance required for creation of high-technology jobs within
the local community. Chris's ideas can be accessed via his website
at http://www.chriscoles.com/page3.html.
Polling of the professional UK engineering workforce.
If these highly-skilled engineers were polled individually, I
believe that the committee would be shocked by the results and
the level of feeling that engineering is neither valued nor appropriately
supported in the UK as well as providing some new, innovative
and valuable input as to how to put engineering in the UK back
on track, by those on the front line.
Ref: Chris Coles & the Capital Spillway Trust.
21 December 2009
| 2006 | 2007
| 2008 | 2009 |
41 | 78 | 152
| 259 |
Source: iCasualties.org
Ref: Technology Overview & Business Case group of documents.
| | | |
46
Note:
IEDs have been increasingly used by the Taliban since 2006
and are now being produced on an "industrial scale",
according to the MoD. ISAF deaths in Afghanistan attributed to
IEDs, per year:
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