After a medical degree and an MBA, Reza Mia focused on a passion for aeroplanes in his dissertation for an MSc in London. That sparked a lengthy project which has resulted in a South African-driven attempt to revolutionise luxury travel with a vertical takeoff jet that combines the best of fixed wings with the convenience of a helicopter. Mia, well known among Johannesburg’s beautiful people as an aesthetic medicine specialist, is in London pitching his invention to Airbus. Biznews.com‘s Alec Hogg caught up with him outside the Montcalm hotel in Mayfair.
It’s an interesting story Reza and we’ll get into it all in a moment but what you’re presenting to Airbus could be revolutionary in business travel.
Yes, it’s the world’s first vertical business jet, so it takes off like a helicopter, flies like a plane but at the speed of a business jet. It’s much faster than any helicopter in the world.
And will it work?
It will, yes, so far all of our conceptual designs, studies and independent design and reviews, the engineering work we’ve done, mathematically as well as with competition or fluid dynamics. They all support the concept and it looks very positive. They had a call for proposals – almost just you entered with a video that you make. I made one on my computer. I sent it in. I guess they were pleased with what they saw.
Where was it all designed?
South Africa – it was something I just came up with one day and I found some engineers who shared my belief, who were able to explore the different possibilities and produce something that will actually work.
Just to understand this, at the moment when business people travel they will take their business jets, and then pick up a helicopter and fly to a helipad, wherever that might be. This design or this invention of yours would replace it.
Well what you’ll do is you can take off from a rooftop or a yacht, any helipad because we use cool air fans and it’s safe to land on grass or on wooden decks. If you think about a military vertical take-off plane, like an F35 or a Harrier, they use very hot gases and if you landed that even on a tile road you could melt the tile. So with this you can take off from virtually anywhere. Fly at the speed and range of a business jet and then land wherever you need it to, directly at your doorstop. You’re replacing two separate aeroplanes with one beautiful aeroplane.
With computerisation and technology nowadays you don’t have to actually build something to make sure that it works.
Well, when it comes to certification we would build one, test it and do all the flight testing but it saves a lot of money. Compared to the old days where you needed to build, and break, and test. Now most of your work is done on computer before you actually build your first prototype. In fact many of the new aircraft designers sell that first prototype as a completed product. After my MBA I did a masters in finance and when I was doing it I had already just started working on the concept of the vertical business jet, so I used as a case study in my dissertation, which I think killed two birds with one stone. I came up with the idea in 2012, when we were invited to Georgia to look at various investments.
It’s not Georgia in America, it’s the Georgia near the old Soviet Union.
That is the ex-Soviet Union Georgia and they had a light jet program that they wanted to restart. I was thinking of taking the plan back to South Africa and building it there but it wasn’t anything fantastic. I don’t think it would have had great market appeal. On the way back home I started just brainstorming ideas about what would make a new aeroplane attractive. It needed to be unique. It couldn’t just be a copy of a Gulfstream or a Lear Jet and vertical take-off stood out for me and that’s when I just started looking into it.
So you did your research academically and progressed it from there. How much have you invested to this point?
Well surprisingly less than I had expected to invest. Initially I had tried to approach the South African Government for funding because I expected it to be a lot more but almost their delays were a blessing for me because what I said to the engineers was ‘let’s just start’. There’s a great guy, his name is Matthew Buttle. He’s been working on our plane since the beginning and I said let’s just start. We’ll do at my rate, whatever I can afford. They’ve been quite accommodating, so we progressed and as we progressed the more we did and the more we learnt, the cheaper it actually got.
Is this a thing of South Africa being a place where there’s smart people but low costs that you can compete with people in other parts of the world?
I find that our engineers are very, reasonably priced and they’re quite innovative and smart, so the only barrier really that I can see for South African aviation is that Government support is lacking. If you look at the likes of Brazil for example, or France or the US the government is very, actively involved in promoting new ideas. They take that risk at the beginning. Whereas the South Africa Government wants a prototype before they can support the project, which is like as I mentioned when it comes to aviation by the type you’ve got a prototype your work is already done. The second thing is our bilateral agreement, so if the CAA was to certify a plane, we wouldn’t be able to get FAA sign-on.
So CAA is our South African Civil Aviation Authority, which would have to certify a plane to fly in South Africa. The FAA is the American, I guess equivalent and here in the UK and Europe there’s EISAI, so EISAI, the FAA – they have a very good bilateral agreement. So if one of them certifies a plane it is very likely that the other will, with a few amendments, sign off on the plane. Our bilateral agreement was signed, I think in the 50’s and it allows for a US certified plane to manufactured in SA and exported but not for a SA certified plane to get US FAI acceptance. The only way to do it is to is to certify it international, as either an American company or a British or a European company, which is a little sad.
But that’s why you’re in London.
That’s why we’re here. I was also at the Farnborough Air Show also to look for various suppliers. For example windshield, there are experts in each of those areas. It would be inefficient to try to redesign or reinventing wheels that are already existent, so that’s why I went to the air show as well yesterday.
Let’s just say you knock them off their feet at their presentation.What happens next?
So we’re at a fork in the road here. If they like the project what they’ll do is they’ll invite us to join the accelerator. They’ll give us an office for six months, along with legal, marketing, and all sorts of engineering support and facilities, prototyping equipment and they’ll help us develop the program into a more substantial business. If they, for whatever reason fail to see the brilliance in the project, then we’ll carry on as we have been with our design process.
And looking for other partners perhaps?
In time to come, for now we’re just progressing on our own, at our pace, if I had to wait for somebody to bite earlier on, we would still be waiting with a few sketches. We wouldn’t have what we have now. I think the universe has a way of showing us where we need to go, so we just keep progressing as best we can.
It’s a massive entrepreneurial idea.
No, but my dad has always taught us entrepreneurial spirit. I watched him as a child, going from strength to strength, always trying new businesses and new ideas. He built the trade route in more in Lenasia and a number of property adventures. My mum, she’s got a PhD in physiology, so I guess that’s where the bug for studying came from. Both of them, just really led by example and then my siblings as well, also it was normal for them to say we need to sacrifice going here or there because we’ve got work to do and I think it kind of just rubbed off on me.
You’re well known in South Africa though for aesthetic health, plastic surgery. You studied as a doctor.
I studied medicine and then I went on to do the various courses that you need to do to aesthetic medicine. It’s different to plastic surgery in that it’s the minimally invasive things. It’s the stuff you can do with a needle, and I like to think of them as little paint brushes. You can do so much just by… You’re taking advantage of the way our brains interpret faces.
Reza, a lot of people would have stopped at medicine, and then you went on to aesthetic medicine or health as you said. Then you went on and got a MBA and then you did further studies. Are you now comfortable that you’re suitably qualified to continue your entrepreneurial pursuits?
I think it’s an important part of development to not stagnate. Everybody has a lot more potential inside them than they realise and even if you slowly study part-time. For instance, right now I’m not enrolled in any programs but I’m reading out on aviation, engineering, business and medicine and if I find something that I think is really worth in a formal way, then I’ll do it. I find that’s how you keep your brain moving and growing. I once went to MENSA meeting and the chairman said something quite enlightening. He said that in the world you fine real genius when you take something from one field and apply to another unrelated field to come up with something creative and new. I think that if more people study widely they’d be able to make good contributions to the world.
Yes, because medicine is a long way from aeronautics.
It is but there are so many overlaps and again, I think it’s just that one statement that he made at that meeting that’s given me more motivation or understanding about why I like to study here broadly.
Now there’s another very famous South African Elon Musk, who’s also in the aeronautical industry with rockets and hyper loops and all kinds of other things. Has he been an inspiration?
He has been. There’s been many inspirations but he has definitely one of them because of the way he things of something that’s very out the box. Some people would look at him and say ‘this is not going to work’, and they’re very doubtful and he’ll go and prove them wrong. I think that’s part of the exciting journey is to prove that the naysayers is wrong.
Read also: MUST WATCH: The transport revolution – from Musk’s ‘Sandshark’ to 007 jetpacks
Are there are naysayers because this is a revolutionary project.
Definitely, from the beginning there were people who said vertical takeoff won’t work. This is 30 years away but it’s not. We’re doing it now. We’ve proven many of the concepts and I guess it’s one of those things that the further along you get it become exponentially more attractive and the naysayers will disappear with time, I guess. I guess we will just take pleasure in proving them wrong.
I guess it’s all about resilience, which is a big part of entrepreneurship?
Well, if you believe in an idea, you can’t let anybody take it away from you. If someone body comes a long and says they don’t believe in what you are doing, it’s just for you to understand that’s it’s because they don’t understand what you are thinking about. Like I say, you just take your time, prove them wrong and hopefully with your next idea they’ll be more supportive.
Patience is also a virtue on that perspective. Your company is called Pegasus. Where did that name come from?
It’s Pegasus Universal Aerospace, there are so many companies names Pegasus this or that that I had to actually choose a nice, complicated name, so that it would stand out and be different. At first I thought about calling it Pegasus South African Aeroplanes but then I thought no, it should be global. Maybe one day we’ll do spaceships, so it should be universal, so that is why it became Pegasus Universal Aerospace. The actual Pegasus – one day I bent down to tie my shoelace and I’m almost certain I heard something go ‘psst’ and I looked up and there was a Pegasus engraving on a desk. At the time I was busy thinking about what to call the company and it just kind of stuck from there.
Spaceships?
Eventually, we’ll get there.
Do you think Elon Musk will land a spaceship on Mars that is, of course, his big dream?
I think if he has his way he will.
But if he doesn’t you might.
We might and beyond.
This Airbus A350's near-vertical takeoff is jaw-dropping https://t.co/VIrOEvNRMT pic.twitter.com/38RTLrUF8k
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) July 13, 2016
So that’s the way you’re thinking. You’re not just thinking that this is a big step, if you can get this vertical take-off business plane, carrying up to eight passengers. If you get that off the ground, but will it always be in that field. Is that’s what’s actually grabbed you?
There is a bit of an innovation pipeline within Pegasus of different types of aeroplanes and new concepts to explore as we progress. I never would limit myself to one field. Wherever I am able to find inspiration I’ll take advantage of it.
Would you be able to manufacture these in South Africa in time?
Eventually, I think if we have FAA and DIASA’s certification we might be able to manufacture them, so that we can export. The major market is not in South Africa. We do have expertise. We do have the capability to do it but it’s more about just Government interactions and that’s what would be the main barrier to stopping us from actually just building it in South Africa.
What will these planes cost when they’re finally are made?
We’ve been working, basing all our financial calculations and models on $8.5m but that’s very cheap. If you compare to a three engine helicopter, you’re looking at around $24m. Again, a helicopter will fly a third of the speed, a third of the range, so I think that people will value these at around $15m to $16m at least. I will just wait and see and sell them for what the market is willing to pay for, but for the meantime, we’re keeping our calculations to a conservative $8.5m, so that if it works at $8.5m it will work at $16m.
Would you see very rich people being the buyers or companies being the buyers or something like NetJets for instance?
I think charter companies, air taxis, smaller airlines, helicopter operators, mining, oil wells off shore, private flyers definitely wealthy individuals, companies and governments. Anybody who currently operates a business jet now would be a potential buyer. The interesting thing is many people will buy a turbine prop to be able to land on and unprepared strips, such as at a game farm or in the bush. Our plane would fly faster than a turbine prop and be able to still land on unprepared strips. Well even better, you don’t need a strip at all. The target market overlaps between business jets, helicopters and turbo props.
You also have vehicles, which I saw on your website. Very nicely decked out, almost like the insight of a private jet. That’s an extension.
That’s something we call the Pegasus Roadlet. It’s a Sprinter van that we convert to look like an inside of an aeroplane, with the full capability – fold out tables, WiFi, Smart TVs, fridges, air-conditioning and special shocks to make the ride softer. Just so that people once they land in the business jet instead of putting them into a car or a minibus they can now continue their meeting in that kind of environment, with club seating, right until their final destination.
What kind of people would invest in those vehicles?
Surprisingly again, we expected that to come in at a much higher cost. If you look at something similar from the US by the time you get it imported into South Africa you’d pay probably around $15m. We sell them for not more than $2m, so it doesn’t break the bank and again, its people who want to have meetings on the go, businessmen. I’ve used the ones that we’ve made – I’ve used them to take people to Pretoria, for example. By the time we get there we’ve already had a briefing. On the way back we have another debriefing, so it just turns your traffic time into a very productive time.
You’ve already produced these and you’ve already sold some?
We’ve sold our first one to my brother in fact. He saw us working on the concept and thought that’s fantastic let me get one. He runs a hedge fund and also uses it to get to his gigs.
