Dr. Tracy Lamb has an impressive 28-year career in commercial aviation. With 7500 hours as an international airline pilot on Boeing 767 widebody freighters, 757 combi aircraft, and 737 aircraft, she has flown corporate jets, helicopters, and was a senior flight instructor for over 11 years. Not only piloting, she has an extensive background in aviation safety auditing and compliance, human factors, safety system integration, and safety data analytics. She actively contributed her expertise to the development of guidance and standards for ICAO, the FAA, RTCA, SAE, and audited to ISO 90001, 31000, 41000, ISO BAO, BARS aviation standards.
Tracy Lamb’s multifaceted expertise and industry leadership have afforded her the prestigious Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS) title, and she is in the Hall of Fame for Women in Emerging Aviation Technologies. She serves as the Vice Chair of the Board for the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) and has won several industry awards for aviation program development and business excellence. She is also one of very few officially designated Subject Matter Experts in uncrewed aircraft safety and regulatory affairs by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Tracy is a thought leader and innovator committed to advancing the safety and operational excellence of the Advanced Air Mobility industry – the focus of her Ph.D. from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
The S-A2 is the second iteration of the Supernal concept design for Urban Air Mobility. This all-electric, battery powered vehicle seats 4 passengers and a pilot, and provides for 1,000 lbs. payload. It is designed for the future as a fully autonomous aircraft, with a range of 52 nm and a cruise speed of 157 knots. Eight tilting rotors provide redundancy, increase aircraft efficiency and deliver a smoother flight while promising less than 65 dBA noise at hover and less than 45 dBA noise at cruise. The batteries are expected to allow fast recharge – 5 to 7 minutes, and the aircraft will be fully IFR compliant. The aircraft is modular allowing for easy reconfiguration for cargo, two-passenger, four-passenger and other operations.
For Dr. Tracy Lamb, the aircraft is not only extremely safe but provides an important element for the traveler: the experience. “It’s not just the time savings. That’s one aspect of this. But it’s the fact that you’ve got to be able to get into our aircraft, put your headphones on and take back some time for yourself. Whether that’s time to meditate, or time to read, or time to watch a podcast, listen to music, disconnect, or time to be with your family in the aircraft, or even virtually. There’s the time saved not stuck in traffic, but we’re missing the big picture of why we love Uber so much. It’s because we don’t have to drive ourselves. We don’t have to give our precious time to the task of getting from point A to B. We can take back that time and use that time to just sit and enjoy our coffee, have a quiet few moments – even if it’s only ten or fifteen minutes; that’s more precious to some people and you can’t get that when you’re driving a car, because you have to concentrate on the road. But, you’ll be able to get that in our aircraft and know that you’re going to get there safely. And I think that message is really powerful.”
Information obtained at the Supernal website, supernal.aero/aircraft.
Throughout this evolution, safety has been highlighted as the first and most important feature of the aircraft.
In July 2024, Dr. Tracy Lamb took the position of Safety and Quality Officer at Supernal – a significantly important role as the company moves towards a 2028 entry into the Advanced Air Mobility market. I was able to have a detailed one-on-one conversation with Tracy, a member of the inaugural cadre 2022 Women and Drones Hall of Fame for Women in Emerging Aviation Technology. The conversation focused on her new responsibilities, the key safety aspects of the S-A2 and Supernal as a company, as well as the steps the company was taking to ensure public acceptance of their product.
Bill: You’ve just entered into this position. Do you feel like you have your feet on the ground?
Dr. Lamb: I certainly do. My feet hit the ground running and I feel like I’ve been here at least a year already. And you know that’s not an uncommon feeling. Others who have joined the company recently also say the same thing, which tells me there’s a very good atmosphere of being proactive and engaged and passionate about the work.
Bill: It sounds a lot like any start-up, innovative start-up, you have to be moving, have to be moving quickly, particularly in this industry. It’s good to see the culture is one of proactive movement and getting their people on board and moving forward.
Dr. Lamb: Supernal has been operating for over four years now and I think initially that start-up culture was present, which is essential and very important – as you said, that very positive, proactive, leaning in, passion about the job. The one thing that I feel is very different – we are growing out of that start-up culture now and I’ve joined at the right time – and we’re moving, we’re no longer a start-up, we are maturing into a real aviation OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer. Therefore, evolving into a culture of aviation, but a very new kind of aviation seems to be emerging before us, and it’s really interesting for me to see this cultural evolution where innovation meets aviation. This is a cultural shift that evolves when you start to mature into aviation principles.
Having said that, it is an evolution, and I don’t think that shift has entirely been made. We are and will continue maturing into a very unique aviation organization. There’s a twist to that as well…that is bringing in that heavy emphasis on the quality principles side trying to learn and adopt from the automotive industry – and that’s something new that I haven’t seen in such a consistent, prominent way in the UAS or traditional aviation. This heavy focus on quality and quality assurance processes are the very genetics that underpin safety.
We say here at Supernal, that safety and quality is our number one priority, and it is part of everything we do. Our mantra is… “Safety Always and Quality Throughout”. And I think it’s a good mantra and philosophy for the aviation industry; if you focus heavily on quality, you’re going to by default set the foundation on which to build safety.
Bill: Let’s go into the questions then. We’ll be touching on, and hopefully covering, a lot of those aspects in a little more granularity. What do you see as your most important responsibility as the Chief Safety Officer for Supernal?
Dr. Lamb: It’s a good question Bill. What’s most important to me is really harnessing the teams in Supernal to actually come together under this new innovative, safety culture that we just discussed. Bringing in and coalescing that new kind of safety culture that has not been done before, because this is a new industry. It’s a totally new type of aircraft that we are making; none of these aircraft are currently flying and none of these operators are currently operating. So, we are making something pretty special out of elements of automotive and aviation; merging quality principles with the tech and start-up mindsets. We have incredible team members from many other industries coming together. It’s important we work together as One Supernal. In fact, that’s one of our mantras – One Supernal – working together as one really powerful force to deliver a superior product – that being our aircraft – which is extremely robust, high quality, reliable, advanced, and will be extremely safe. So, my key goal, I see, is to ensure that we have all the ingredients, including the safety culture, to deliver that vehicle.
Bill: That’s the embodiment of the culture. That’s the tangible aspect of the culture.
Dr. Lamb: That’s right. So, one of my most important responsibilities is to support the culture; some may even suggest it is the number one responsibility. The other important responsibilities are all of the technical enablers. That is, developing and implementing our rigorous process, procedures; having a safety management system that is rooted in aviation but has the features of scalability; agility that is innovative to encompass aviation and harnesses other features you see in automotive. Innovation is really the key. You can see humans’ ability to innovate in historic achievements when things have come together and worked well: developing the first aircraft, landing on the moon, supersonic flight, as just a few examples of innovation achieving something great, and evolving to make it safe.
Bill: What are the key elements that Supernal is putting in place to ensure both a safe aircraft and a safe culture within the company? What do you see as the key elements?
Dr. Lamb: I think we, that is our people, are one vital key element. Firstly, we’ve got really good people. I’ve been very lucky, in the Safety and Quality Department, to attract good people since I’ve joined the company. We have seven new hires in our department, and as we speak, are looking for one more. They’re new like me and they bring into the organization the values and core principles that we really emphasize at Supernal. So, definitely, the people. My personal career experiences have sharpened my skills for this role. And I see that in everyone that has joined my team especially. But it is noticeable across other departments also. Supernal attracts well-rounded, experienced individuals with higher qualifications that are very sharp. The sharp end of the spear, as I like to call it. We, as humans, are the sharp end of the spear, and working together means that iron sharpens iron; so, together we are accomplishing incredible things. And we really are attracting and able to provide an exciting career opportunity for these very talented professionals.
The other thing I think that is very key for us is the way we are going about building this aircraft. Every step of the way, from a very robust quality assurance standpoint and safety standpoint feed into our ultimate goal of airline level of safety. Our aircraft will be as safe – if not safer – as a commercial airliner, and you will recognize that as soon as you get onboard. So that goes into every element of the way that we are building our aircraft. And the people support that. So, you have good people and they can do really good things. Especially if they have the underpinning fabric of a culture to support that.
Those are three things right there: incredibly sharp people, an aircraft that’s built to airline standards following rigorous quality assurance processes, and the forward leaning. One Supernal culture.
Therefore, one of the best enablers or key elements of a safety culture, corporate culture or a company culture is open communication. The ability to feel freely that you can report any concern either anonymously, confidentially or just through the standard mechanism or by coming to the safety and quality officer or managers directly. What has really surprised me about Supernal since I’ve joined is that people aren’t afraid to speak up about safety. Yes, we do get some anonymous safety reports, but most of our reports are not anonymous. Therefore, we can go back and have deeper conversations and risk mitigation discussions with the person who put in the report, because that person is a good professional who has a serious issue to raise. We focus on the system elements that need fixing and have a strong ‘no blame’ ethos when it comes to safety. The great thing is that it allows us the opportunity to come in and solve that issue as a team. And even better news is, as a result, those challenges are recorded so that we can ensure we are tighter, better, more efficient and safer moving forward. So, we’re capturing what would seemingly be incidental concerns, about even productivity, and we’re turning them into an enabler to make our safety systems more robust, our safety more robust, and our quality more robust. This means the systems become more efficient and that in itself builds from the very beginning – a robust safety management system that we will look back on in five years, see how far we’ve come and where we are going. We’ll be in a much stronger place than if we just put in our safety management system when we are required to enter into service. So, I think that’s one of our key elements – that it’s very future proof, very forward leaning and not just satisfying the present.
Bill: That’s truly powerful. Given the importance that safety will have with public acceptance of any eVTOL like Supernal’s, how do you see Supernal informing the public about the safety aspects of their product?
Dr. Lamb: Absolutely, this is probably my favorite topic because during my PhD studies, I had the privilege of working with the leaders in the academic industry for research on public acceptance and willingness to fly. From this research there are specific factors that contribute to critical mass of UAM adoptions. Understanding the science behind public acceptance and willingness to fly puts us in a very strong position to develop our strategies to help support public acceptance and willingness to fly in this industry. The most important factor, through all my research, that kept coming up over and over and over again is trust. The general public has to not only trust our aircraft but, they have to trust our company, they have to trust our people working in the company, they have to trust the airspace, they have to trust the mechanics of everything that’s gone into building the aircraft, and how it will perform within the ecosystem.
So for our passengers and customers, we will highlight what we are doing to earn and build trust, including educating, outreach, showcasing our research, development and rigorous test standards. You know, everyone says, “Safety is the number one priority,” and I ask “Really? How do you prove that?” Because that’s what the passengers want to see and be reassured about. I have had discussions where others will say, “How can you demonstrate safety when the industry is so new, and these aircraft haven’t even started flying yet?” That is where we at Supernal, I feel, have a strong advantage, because we have taken a slower, methodical, robust approach. We can say that we demonstrate safety by all the rigorous research and development and the testing that we’ve done before we put this aircraft into service. The amount of testing including flight testing and our advanced technology applications support a demonstrable level of safety on the same continuum of commercial airline safety before we even get into service.
So, relating to this continuum of airline safety, it is sometimes described by a metric of 10-9. Keep in mind the traditional aviation industry – that’s been going for over a hundred years – the airlines started heavily focusing on global data driven safety metrics in the1960s, with the catalyst being one of the De Havilland Comet accidents. Those accidents kicked off a new hyper focus on safety data analytics for the commercial aviation industry which set in motion the evolution of dedicated aviation safety disciplines, which at first, primarily focused on mechanical issues. As it evolved through the 80s, the concept of pilot error, and crew resource management emerged. Then through the 90s and the 2000s, aviation safety experts started to find that there is more to accident causation than just the pilot. So, the roles, responsibilities and behaviors of the flight mechanics, air traffic controllers, and flight attendants started to be explored for their effect on the causal chain of accidents. In the late 1990s, and the beginning of the 2000s, aviation safety analytics evolved into accident root causes actually starting in the boardroom – decisions, actions and behaviors at the corporate level! And, this includes the culture of the organization. It is widely accepted today, when you have failures at the corporate level, it will likely, and often does, manifest down the chain into accidents at the sharp end of the spear – the flight line.
Understanding the whole evolution of safety, not only from the mechanical perspective, helps us to understand the genetics of safety metrics, and where this concept of 10-9 came from. 10-9 is essentially a mean time between failure, looking at the reliability of airworthiness aircraft componentry. But just like the 10-9 concept of safety evolved from there, essentially what it delivered in our day and age is that airline level of safety. The concept of having an airline commercial level of safety is often referred to as the 10-9 concept. It’s a concept for assigning a value on that continuum level of safety. 10-9 assigns a value of a one in a billion failure rate on, not only one component, but on the whole system! And that, I believe, is where the FAA is wanting us as a new industry to look at and examine our whole system. Indeed, ICAO supports this whole system-wide safety concept, which must include the advanced technology interfaces and interactions. This is especially important in aviation with increased automation, autonomy, and AI starting to be designed into our aircraft and airspace systems.
And that’s one of the areas, back to your questions: how do we inform the public about our safety? Not only are our aircraft going to be airline level of safe but they are going to be safe because we are targeting that 10-9 continuum. We’re doing that through a whole system wide approach to safety including our autonomy and our automation. These aircraft are going to be extremely easy to fly – having flown our simulator, I can tell you – it is extremely easy to master even after one flight. And, the safety features designed into the handling characteristics and protections support safety to the highest level of any commercial aircraft that I have ever flown. One example is our digital parachute.
What is a digital parachute? A digital parachute is when the automation detects potential issues or anomalies in the aircraft and compensates with the correct adjustments or actions before a human pilot would even detect, recognize, then hopefully, correctly apply the right solution. This technology automatically compensates for any failures in the system. This is just one feature that works in conjunction with the onboard redundancy of our systems, which incidentally, have triple or more redundancy than a commercial airliner.
So, if the public, our passengers and our customers are aware of the fact that our aircraft is safe because of our onboard automation, our digital parachute, the way that it’s built, that will go a long way to foster customer and passenger trust.
We have a pretty impressive simulator and will one day enjoy sharing this with our passengers and customers. They will be able to get in and actually touch and feel, sit in our aircraft, fly our simulator, actually experience and learn about all of our safety systems firsthand. When they can see that, actually, we say, ‘We’re safe,’ but we’re proving it because we demonstrate that through the processes I’ve just told you. I think that will definitely go a long way to support trust and confidence in our passengers and our customers.
The other thing I think is important – and part of that is tying back into that at the front end – the research, the development, the testing. We are very active in several standards bodies, including the Radio, Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) which make the standards for the altimetry, the detect and avoid equipment, and other aviation safety standards, including the GPS used in most commercial and private aircraft today. We also are heavily involved with the FAA. In fact, we hosted a large delegation from the FAA safety management team here last month, helping us to really embed our safety management systems into everything we do, even though we aren’t required to do that for another thirty-six months or a little longer. We’re getting a jump start on that.
We are heavily involved in ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization); I’ve been heavily involved in ICAO since 2015. I was on the Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) panel for many years. I was actually living in London when I first started contributing to the RPAS working group, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) in Australia before that; and for the last nine years, contributing to RTCA and ICAO in my research efforts through the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, which I’m proud to say is one of the universities that we [Supernal] partner with.
So collaboration I think is the final point.
Bill: With those other outside entities that then can sort of give the public that view that you are not just drinking your own bath water.
Dr. Lamb: That’s right.
Bill: Really looking at you and giving you honest appraisals. And that’s absolutely important. It sounds like getting that stimulator out there, getting the word out.
This is a bit off script, but I’m just wondering how you think marketing should be done from a safety aspect in particular?
Dr. Lamb: I’m definitely not a marketer, but I think from a safety standpoint, I know what the general public wants; this was clear from my research data. I understand what factors contribute to supporting what they need to make them feel trustworthy and comfortable to get on our aircraft. And, from my perspective, and my fantastic team’s perspective, I know that we’re focusing on building them the best aircraft they can possibly get. We’re focused on delivering the best aircraft the traveling aircraft can have for the best experience.
Bill: So, the last question – is now that you are here, you’ve had that four months, you’ve gotten your feet under you – What are you most excited about with your new position?
Dr. Lamb: Definitely to see our aircraft enter into service, will probably be one of the happiest days of my career; and I’ve had a lot of really happy days in my career – they’ve been personal and professional. The thing about aviation, if you love aviation and aviation is in your blood, your professional achievements become your personal achievements very much. A lot of pilots will say well being a pilot is not what I do, it’s who I am. You get that; you know, you’re a pilot, you know what that’s like. I, of course, want to fly this thing! Not full time, because I love my role in safety, quality, culture, all of the research and being part of making this aircraft safe, but I don’t keep it a secret, I want to be our first female commercial eVTOL pilot. I stopped flying commercially when I joined Supernal and it’s allowing me to finish my commercial helicopter rating; I get to fly our simulator, and our other flight tools for testing and training. I will fly helicopters for fun, as that has been a lifelong goal of mine. But I have over 7500 hours of real time flight experience in various commercial environments, so hopefully, they will let me occasionally fly our eVTOL aircraft. Because, I think it’s important to ‘walk the walk and talk the talk.’ I want to fly our aircraft because I want to experience something that is going to be truly magical, truly game changing and an industry first. I think to be able to outwardly demonstrate that I put myself and my family on this aircraft, I fly this aircraft as often as I can. That is something very impactful to me and perhaps to others also.
I said in the very opening statement of the interview, not only myself, but everyone who I meet at Supernal, seems to have had their whole career leading up to achieving the goals that we have laid out before us in this company. My focus has always been aviation safety; even when I was working as a commercial pilot. My extracurricular activities always involved improving my knowledge, skills and my experience to influence safety wherever I have worked. We are talking about almost 30 years of study. All of my previous roles and, of course, ultimately gaining the PhD in human factors and safety with an emphasis on eVTOL, Vertiports and passenger acceptance, I honestly believe, this is the best position that I could ever be placed in. I feel that I’m where I’m supposed to be at this very important critical time in aviation.
I’m going to be very excited to do a follow-up interview in about 3 years. And when I’m actually out or just coming back from flying our eVTOL somewhere,
Bill: I hope we can have that interview while I’m in the eVTOL with you!
Dr. Lamb: Let’s do that. The next interview is me flying you somewhere, having a coffee or lunch somewhere and then flying back!
Bill: That would be exciting; I would love that! I truly, truly hope that we can get to that stage. I’m an enthusiast. You know in some of my writing – you’ve probably read some of my posts, I do have a pragmatic view on it. There’s an awful lot to go on before we get there and I love the point you made – such an important issue. You are the right person, in the right time, right now and that’s what makes you excited. That’s so good to hear, because we need people like you leading the way in the safety culture of this new evolution of Advanced Air Mobility.
Hyundai Motor Group entered the Advanced Air Mobility market with its prototype eVTOL S-1A at the 2020 CES expo. Subsequently, Hyundai announced the formation of a separate subsidiary, Supernal, to take this concept to market. In 2024, Supernal brought their most recent production concept, the S-2A to CES 2024 and the 2024 Farnborough Airshow.
