In the inaugural episode 001 of Saturday Startup Stories, I got to “start on a high note,” featuring Magpie Aviation who were crazy enough to agree to doing a feature episode for a series that’s first episode didn’t exist at the time.

Magpie Aviation 101

• Creating a “truly zero carbon” solution for aviation using air towing from one electric plane filled with batteries to another electric payload plane.

• Cofounded in 2022 by Damon Vander Lind and Andrew Goessling

• Funding — very early stage 

  • (I have no clue as it doesn’t appear to be public but Damon if you’re reading this let me know and I’ll update it if you want lol)

• Team of around 10 people busy doing lots of design and flight tests

This idea sounds insane, but these are the perfect people to make it a reality

When I got connected to Damon for the first time, I was dumb, and did not look him up before talking on the phone with him.

To be fair, this was supposed to be a quick 5 minute pitch to then setup a longer “prewriting call” where I’d come very researched and prepared.

Damon answered the phone from his truck, driving back after a day on the airstrip. I pitched him the idea of being in the show, he agreed easily and seemed nonchalant about doing it — he more so wanted to talk about the mission and the current milestones for Magpie. Damon had a very “let’s not waste breath on stuff that isn’t about engineering or the series itself” manner about him which was, well, awesome.

I asked him how the hell he came up with this idea and he began to answer, “Well, when I was at Makani…” “Wait, what did you do at Makani? I’m a big fan of that documentary,” I interrupted.

Damon paused for a moment, and replied in a tone that indicated he was smiling, “Well I engineered the M600 and was Makani’s final CEO before we sold it to Google.”

And that folks is why I’ll never call someone for what is just a “quick pitch,” without having stalked them on the internet.

If you’re not familiar with Makani, the goal was to harness high-altitude wind power more efficiently and cost-effectively using energy kites. It’s an insane story and it’s worth watching the full documentary on YouTube.

Damon and Andrew met at Makani and went on to do absolutely mind bogglingly cool stuff at Kittyhawk as well, before founding Magpie.

Damon and Andrew clearly have a thing for putting things in the sky and attaching ropes to them. They did it at Makani and are proving it out now at Magpie where they recently crushed their “Active Hook” test.

No one in aviation is solving for a very real and quickly approaching deadline

Much like California’s law with electric-only cars being purchasable in 2035, the aviation industry has a similar goal for 2050 — “net zero emissions.”

People flipped out when this California 2035 electric-only thing came out despite electric cars being widely available with more than a decade to go. In aviation however, there is no zero emission solution for aviation to date.

What’s not mentioned in the episode, is that in addition to those solutions not being the best, they also aren’t net zero. This whole net zero aviation thing becomes quite the tough cookie.

Most people, like me, just bat their eyes and have faith that “science” or “industry” will figure this crap out, but Damon and Andy sat down and brainstormed how they could bring about a real solution to this problem.

They looked at a lot of ideas, the idea of air towing a payload plane with a tow plane came up a lot, and they “laughed it out of the room many times.” Well, here we are now.

Listen I could try to explain the idea in writing as well as they did in the episode but I have a 12:30pm showing of Oppenheimer to catch and it’s 11:49am so go watch the episode.

The idea is not that crazy, it’s actually a very proven technology

Ironic right? Turns out air towing is like, super common and tested in aviation. The one unique thing is the ability to connect, disconnect, and reconnect with a new hook in the same flight but, as shown above, they have proven the early technology for that.

Now, they’re focused on making a bigger and badder version of the Active Hook.

Passion + mission = value > following the market.

While filming with Damon I asked him what’s guided his very mission focused career versus one that chases money above all else.

His initial answer explained that he believed creating real value was what was important to humanity but that he also believed it created real monetary value and could bring up new markets rather than trailing behind existing ones.

Damon and Andy’s passion for sustainable energy, building hard stuff, and flight is clear. It’s especially clear in this clip of Damon that didn’t make the cut for the episode.

Alright, I really need to get going to that Oppenheimer showing.

Thanks for watching and thanks for reading. Keep on building the future.

Jason