Aiming to help people and the environment, NANCo Aero is pioneering vertical vehicles that can access skyscrapers or tackle wildfires
“The biggest wake-up for me was 9/11,” says Shern Peters, visionary engineer and CEO of vertical-vehicle pioneers NANco Aero, referring to the Twin Towers in New York that were targeted in a terrorist attack in 2001. “People were jumping from those top floors. There was no way out and nobody could get to them. If there was an aircraft that could reach them, that could fly up to those windows, well, that would change the world.”
Aware of the myriad possibilities inherent in flying cars, Shern places Blade Runner-cool second to saving lives. A Pittsburgh native, he now heads a team of five in Space City (Houston, Texas) who since 2021 have provided drones and advanced air vehicles to small businesses, government and non-profit organisations.
Now at the small-scale prototype stage of their Rapid Intervention Vehicles for Immediate Response (RIVIR), the company’s large-scale prototype is due for completion at the end of 2023. “Two years after that is our goal for commercial certification on the first four-seater large vehicle,” says Shern. “Once we pass that, we can start to be approved for public safety – we envisage our air ambulance being in use by 2028.”
The goal for NANCo is to get people anywhere within a city, and to ditch the bulky main propeller that has held so many vertical vehicles back. “A plane still has a 20- to 30-foot wingspan; you’re not going to land that just anywhere, nor could you get close to any structures. So NANCo is about removing that large open blade, which is dangerous, and protecting the smaller remaining four propellers so you can get close to things. You should be able to fly to the top of a building safely, into a parking lot, into your backyard.”
Shern has earned eight patents for his work in the industry. NANCo, he explains, is otherwise known as New Age Nerds Corporation, Aerospace Division. “I refer to myself as a new-age nerd,” he says. “Nerds were always seen as uncool or weak. And I thought no, we’re a different breed now, we can change the way things are.”
A fan of Rolls-Royce, he wants NANCo Aero to be considered in a similar way in terms of quality and craftsmanship. “As an entrepreneur, I’ve been looking back in history to follow the early pioneers of Rolls-Royce,” he explains. “Their entrepreneurial stories are what made me fall in love with the brand – they were engineers with a drive to prove they could do it through working out the kinks, getting their first sales, and, ultimately, knowing nobody else had done quite what they were doing.”
Shern’s future goal is to use the technology he is honing to help humanity and the planet. “Think of it as a lifesaver,” he says. “I don’t want to bring about an aircraft just because it’s cool. I don’t need to bring more convenience to an already highly convenient society. I want them to save us from ourselves and protect us from danger. There is no reason why a swarm of drones can’t monitor the potential force of a wildfire, for example. The minute they see smoke, they’re off. A fire has to start with one tree, one plume of smoke. By the time the Fire Department sees it, 100 trees are already burning. Then it’s too late.”
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