The Allplane Podcast

The popularity of flight tracking apps has transcended the boundaries of the aviation community and truly become mainstream.
I guess most of our readers and listeners are familiar with the market leader in this space, but what if I told you the competitive landscaspe in this space is far from static?
Alex Lungu is the CEO of Wingbits, a ventur capital-backed Swedish startup that is aiming to disrupt the flight tracking industry by introducing a new model to build a flight tracking community which shares differently the value it creates.
It is precisely the way incentives are built into its system that has allowed Wingbits to grow fast in a matter of just over a couple of years, from a few dozen tracking stations when it launched in 2023 to some 6,000 worldwide, as we recorded this conversation.
In this episode of the podcast, Alex will explain what Wingbits is doing differently from its competitors and what factors have allowed this company to grow that fast.
We also discussed, more generally, how flight tracking works and how the huge amounts of data generated by the flight tracking community hold immense value that can be put to good use if the right tools are available.
And this is, precisely, what Wingbits has set to do, because Alex describes Wingbits as, essentially, a data business at its core.
So, tune in for a deep dive into the flight tracking business with our guest today, Alex Lungu, CEO of Wingbits!

The popularity of flight tracking apps has transcended the boundaries of the aviation community and truly become mainstream.
I guess most of our readers and listeners are familiar with the market leader in this space, but what if I told you the competitive landscaspe in this space is far from static?
Alex Lungu is the CEO of Wingbits, a ventur capital-backed Swedish startup that is aiming to disrupt the flight tracking industry by introducing a new model to build a flight tracking community which shares differently the value it creates.
It is precisely the way incentives are built into its system that has allowed Wingbits to grow fast in a matter of just over a couple of years, from a few dozen tracking stations when it launched in 2023 to some 6,000 worldwide, as we recorded this conversation.
In this episode of the podcast, Alex will explain what Wingbits is doing differently from its competitors and what factors have allowed this company to grow that fast.
We also discussed, more generally, how flight tracking works and how the huge amounts of data generated by the flight tracking community hold immense value that can be put to good use if the right tools are available.
And this is, precisely, what Wingbits has set to do, because Alex describes Wingbits as, essentially, a data business at its core.
So, tune in for a deep dive into the flight tracking business with our guest today, Alex Lungu, CEO of Wingbits!

Every now and then is good to stop for a second, and take some time to think and assess what’s going on around you.
If you are following the advanced air mobility industry on a day to day basis it is easy to get carried away by a deluge of triumphalist announcements and press releases.
But what is real and what is mere hype?
Adrian Norris is someone that not only knows the aviation industry inside out after decades of experience in different capacities, but he’s also been an aircraft entrepreneur prior to becoming a consultant. So, he knows a thing or two about the challenges of developing and marketing a new aircraft type from scratch!
I’ve been following Adrian’s writings on Linkedin for quite some time. In the, he shares his critical analysis, based on objective, known facts, of some of the most prominent aviation projects going on in the world right now.
Does hydrogen aviation have a future? What are the prospects for electric aircraft developers? Who’s going to win the eVTOL race, if anyone?
These are just some of the topics we discuss with Adrian in today’s episode. What’s more, rather than remain in the domain of the abstract and general, we are going to name specific companies and try to assess their chances of success.
So, buckle up for a ride through the volatile world of advanced air mobility. We'll try to separate hype from reality in an industry in which high hopes and promising tech collide with challenging human and physical laws, challenging economics and shifting investor sentiment!

What if the lowest-hanging fruit in aviation decarbonization was not in the air, but waiting right in front of us, on the ground?
This is what David Valaer, founder and CEO of Green Taxi Aerospace thinks.
A pilot since the age of 16, David has spent his whole life surrounded by aircraft, either spending summers a bush pilot in Alaska, flying F-16 fighter jets for the US Air Force or, later on, scaling up and selling a successful helicopter tech company.
A few years ago, David became intrigued by the possibilities that a new generation of electric motors offered to solve one of the issues of everyday commercial aircraft operations: the amount of fuel wasted while taxiing inefficiently through airports.
Did you know that between 5 and 20% of fuel is consumed by airliners while they are on the ground? This happens because most of the time aircraft use their engines to move while on the tarmac, an incredibly wasteful process which in addition to producing unnecessary carbon emissions, also strains aircraft brakes and exposes the engines to foreign object damage.
What if the taxiing could be done with electric motors instead? Green Taxi is working on a system that, David promises, will be able to cut down drastically the amount of fuel aircraft consumer while taxiing. Airlines could be saving in the region of $250-300k per aircraft per year if this technology is finally implemented, not to speak of the related drop in emissions and wear and tear of equipment.
I was also intrigued by this story, so after speaking with David a few times at industry conferences in the last few months, I thought it was best if he could come onto the podcast to share all the details about this promising new technology that his company is developing.
So, tune in for an interesting chat about what Green Taxi can do for the environment and for the bottom line of airlines! (and also for some fascinating details about David’s earlier adventures in aviation!)

What is building a large scale battery-powered aircraft was more feasible than originally thought?
Our guest on this episode of the podcast, Daniel Rosen Jacobson co-founder and co-CEO of Elysian Aircraft, has come on the podcast to explain how asking the right questions and conducting scientific research laid the groundwork for the truly ambitious project that is the E9X electric airliner.
While most electric aircraft projects have focused on the development of smaller aircraft, Elysian Aircraft is taking on the mainstream air travel market with a zero-emissions aircraft concept capable of carrying up to 90 passengers over distances of 1,000 kilometers.
This is certainly a bold proposition, but one that, Daniel explains, is well grounded in science and engineering principles laid out by two papers co-authored by researchers at the Technical University of Delft, in The Netherlands.
What’s more, Elysian Aircraft is backed by Panta Holdings, a company that is no strangers to the world of aviation since it is the owner of Fokker Services Group, which is the remaining part of the iconic Dutch aircraft maker of the same name, now providing a range of MRO and other technical services to aircraft operators.
Elysian’s take on the future of zero emissions aircraft has also attracted the interest of consolidated industry players such as the Air France-KLM group and leasing firm TrueNoord, both of which have signed collaboration agreements with Elysian Aircraft with a view to potentially using the E9X aircraft one day in the future.
This will, for now, have to wait a few years, as Elysian Aircraft refines its concept and builds and tests its first prototypes.
In the meantime, though, we can listen to Elysian Aircraft’s co-founder and co-CEO, Daniel Rosen Jacobson, explaining the key elements of this projected aircraft and the role he expects it to play in the future of commercial aviation!