THIN AIR
SYSTEMS
Who we are
Aerospace Engineer/Founder
Justin Armer
Justin is an aerospace engineer, commercial pilot, skydiver and all around flight nerd. He began specializing in autonomous flight in 2009. With a focus on the bottom end of the flight envelope, his work naturally gravitated toward takeoff and landing. Working primarily with the Piccolo autopilot, Justin gained expertise as an external safety pilot, an internal vehicle operator, factory certified instructor, flight test engineer, gain tuning SME, and ultimately went on to design and code custom flight controls through factory licensed firmware. Prior to launching BSFA, Justin was part of the team which developed the Hybrid VTOL flight controller in use around the world today. Since then, he's been focused on finding better ways to go into the sky and come back safely.
Aerospace Engineer/Founder
Michael Balthazar
Michael is an aerospace engineer, auto racing enthusiast, computer programmer and all around aerodynamics expert. Michael was an aeronautics instructor and researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson while obtaining his Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering. During his research, he worked extensively with wind tunnels, water tunnels, computational simulation and free flight experiments, focusing on active flow control and laminar-turbulent transition. After completing his degree, Michael became the lead engineer for flight controls development for the NAVAIR RQ-23 program. He then went on to lead the software development effort for the Hybrid VTOL flight controller developed by L3Harris which is in use today on hybrid VTOL aircraft operating around the world.
What we do
Starting with what became the RQ-23 program, we spent years building, tuning, and ultimately deploying the auto landing system in use on that aircraft today. By the end of that effort, the ATOL system was so effective that human pilots were statistically more likely to incur a mishap on landing than the ATOL system. We are very proud of that work. Distilling the lessons learned there, we went on to develop a process for enabling this capability safely and consistently to a wide range of aircraft.
The key to our success is our process. Over the past decade BSFA has developed a proven system for safely, quickly and efficiently enabling turn key auto takeoff and landing (ATOL). Our goal at BSFA, is to implement a new ATOL capability safer, faster, and less expensively than anyone else. So whether you’re building a new aircraft, adding autonomy to an existing vehicle, or just looking to boost the precision and reliability of your current auto landing system, BSFA has got you covered.
HOW WE DO IT
Over the past decade, BSFA has developed a highly effective process for implementing autonomous takeoff and landing (ATOL) for unmanned fixed wing aircraft. We have applied this process to a wide variety of aircraft for a range of commercial and military customers. Focusing on repeatability and reliability, we've delivered significant reductions in launch and recovery mishap rate while simultaneously eliminating the costs associated with hiring, training, and maintaining a manual launch and recovery skillset.
Here's the quick version. Like anything, the real work is in the planning. We systematically analyze the aircraft design, flight performance data, and mission requirements to ensure that the aircraft is configured in a way that will prepare it for successful auto takeoff and recovery. Once the system has met all the conditions for flight, we go put it through its paces.
No doubt you have more questions about this process. We'd love to answer them. Call us anytime. We'd be happy to talk to you about your aircraft.