David McBride, a veteran of NASA, has been named the Chief Technology Officer at Supernal, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group. In this new role, McBride will be responsible for leading the development and certification of Supernal’s proposed electric air taxi. He will manage around 400 employees in the engineering and technology division and report to CEO Jaiwon Shin.
Supernal announced on March 25 that McBride would oversee technology strategy and aircraft development. The company is moving into a new phase of development following the debut of its conceptual SA-2 air taxi at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Shin expressed excitement about McBride joining the team and his ability to help bring Supernal’s scalable eVTOL vehicle to market by 2028.
McBride has an impressive background in aerospace technology, having served as the director of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. In this role, he played a key role in various missions, such as achieving full operational capability of the Boeing 747SP aircraft. He also contributed to advancing aerospace knowledge through projects like the solar-powered Helios aircraft and the X-57 Maxwell all-electric aircraft.
McBride expressed his enthusiasm for joining Supernal to work on bringing the SA-2 air taxi to market. The SA-2 is designed to accommodate four passengers and will feature a V-tail and a distributed electric propulsion system with eight tiltrotors. It will cruise at 104kt and be optimized for flights between 40km and 64km.
Supernal plans to leverage Hyundai’s manufacturing capabilities in scaling the production of their eVTOL vehicle. The company aims to complete a first flight with a technology demonstrator by the end of 2024 and assemble a production prototype by 2026.
