In June, we announced important new partnerships with energy, infrastructure, and operating partners in Hawaii—Pacific Current and Mokulele Airlines—that will enable REGENT to build out one of the first seaglider networks in the United States. This announcement—the culmination of nearly a year engaging with stakeholders across public, private, and civic sectors in Hawaii—marks important progress for our ecosystems and together with our $6B in orders, affirms the commercial viability for seagliders as a new category of electric coastal transportation.
What else we're looking forward to in the next few months:
Summer: 1) Wind tunnel testing with technical demonstrator 2) Approval in Principle for WIG (wing-in-ground) classification with Bureau Veritas 3) Full-scale wing test stand completed
Fall: 1) Coast Guard Design Basis Agreement 2) Paladin (full scale prototype) propulsion testing 3) Selection of major technical suppliers
We continue to test our technical demonstrator, a 1/4 scale prototype this summer as we prepare for sea trials of human-carrying full-scale seagliders (our Paladin prototype) by the end of next year.
Thank you for your continued support!
Testing Update—Float, FOIL, Fly
We unveiled Squire, our 1/4 scale seaglider prototype live and in-person at CoMotion Miami, for the first time. Along with the prototype, we shared this video of our technical demonstrator foiling on the waters of Florida's Tampa Bay. We've learned a great deal from operating the world’s first integrated seaglider system. We refined our control methodologies and honed our rapid engineering processes and toolchains as we prepare the full-scale Paladin seaglider prototype program.
Business Development
Total orders including firm deposits have a combined value of $6B across 344 vehicles (including Viceroy and Monarch seaglider models).
Pictured left to right: Wilco Van Der Linden, Nicholas Belle, Alan Klanac, Billy Thalheimer, and Adam Triolo
Commercial Highlights
Split Express: The Croatian fast ferry operator converted the first of their existing purchase rights to a firm deposit. They also added to their existing order by committing to an additional 5 Viceroys and 5 Monarchs in a deal valued at more than $200M USD.
CoMotion Miami: From global mayors and public transportation leaders to leading technologists, CoMotion Miami became the hub for urban mobility stakeholders last month. I gave a keynote speech and the team hosted a ceremonial signing of one of the largest transportation deals in New Zealand history with Shah Aslam and John Hamilton of Air Napier’s new dedicated seaglider-operating subsidiary: Ocean Flyer.
Shippax Keynote: I joined the European sales team and gave a keynote speech at the annual Shippax Conference this month for 407 delegates representing more than 220 companies and customers across the maritime landscape.
Government Highlights
We signed our first Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Special Operations Forces Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Program Executive Office-Maritime (SOF AT&L PEO Maritime). The CRADA explores seaglider signature management, a key focus of special forces and a key advantage of seagliders, which have the opportunity for very low radar/acoustic signatures flying so close to the water.
The team recently returned from some important defense conferences, Modern Day Marine (Wash DC) and SOFIC (Tampa), which provided an opportunity for REGENT to demonstrate testing campaign progress to a host of critical DoD stakeholders.
Certification
REGENT’s engineering team has been actively engaged with Bureau Veritas to develop the Viceroy Approval in Principle (AIP) documentation. The AIP is so important because it (a) represents the first major milestone in our maritime certification plan and (b) it truly does represent BV approving our designs and safety standards "in principle.” Now we need to design and build it to spec and we will receive the stamp of BV class notation (e.g. certification). In the AIP development process, we have been integrating applicable design safety standards from both the aerospace and maritime regulations to ensure we have a safe, robust product across our operational envelope.
Team Growth
We continue to scale quickly—our full-time team is now 30 and counting! Meet some of our recent hires:
Shadi El Abdallah, Business Development for Middle East and Africa, brings aviation experience in military UAV programs, aircraft engines, and commercial drone logistics to the REGENT business development team. Before REGENT Shadi was a business development leader for Volansi and GE Aviation, and prior to that led flight test activities as an engineering director for Northrup Grumman.
Mark Lyon,Head of Flight Software, joins us from Draper Laboratory where he helped design and deploy mission and safety critical underwater, flight, and space software for NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Navy and other sponsors. Mark previously worked at Avidyne where he helped develop FAA certified glass cockpits for general aviation.
Paul Fogel, Principal Electrical Engineer, is leading the Avionics IPT focusing on electrical design, analysis, integration and test for components and electrical systems. Paul has over 25 years of electrical engineering experiencing ranging from space propulsion, military and commercial robotics and power systems. Paul’s joins us from Busek Inc., Accion Systems and Bluefin Robotics where he worked on designing electrical hardware for next generation products.
Amy Kundrat, Head of Brand and Communications, has experience leading marketing and communications teams most recently at Yale where she also completed her MBA with a focus in sustainability. Prior to Yale, she led public relations for a Financial Times technology start-up and external affairs for museum launches and capital campaigns.
Matthew Paul, FP&A Manager, is responsible for supporting strategic operations with financial modeling and forecasting at REGENT. Matt joins us from Amherst Holdings where he worked as the Director, Head of Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis, leading the corporate FP&A team to meet stakeholder reporting requirements.
