This segment is a unique and cool talk show that showcases individuals and companies in the community and is focused on leadership and giving back. Our goal is to interview guests that are doing great things in their business and in their community. Today, our host, Morgan Allen, spoke with James Thurman.
James Thurman
CEO at Portal Aircraft Company
Website Address: https://portalaircraft.com/
Short company description:
We build gas turbine powered vertical take off and land aircraft (VTOL)
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
My greatest accomplishment was a Navy career that combined operational flying, advanced engineering, and real-world mission planning. Flying as a Naval aviator, teaching aerospace engineering at the Naval Academy, and planning Tomahawk strike missions.
What’s The Biggest Challenge you are facing in your business or industry?
The biggest challenge is scaling fast enough — securing capital, building a full-time team, and compressing development and manufacturing timelines. The demand for practical manned VTOL aircraft is real today, but bringing hardware to market requires upfront investment and experienced people. We’re focused on accelerating execution so proven concepts can move into production as quickly and responsibly as possible.
How do you see your field evolving in the next 3-5 years
Over the next 3–5 years, aviation will move away from headline-driven concepts and toward aircraft that actually operate at scale. We’ll see increased emphasis on range, endurance, maintainability, and certification reality rather than pure electrification. Hybrid and turbine-powered VTOL platforms that can use existing fuel infrastructure and fit into today’s regulatory frameworks will gain momentum, especially for defense, logistics, and owner-operated manned aircraft.
Who in your industry do you see as a trend setter and why
The real trend setters aren’t individual companies as much as a shift in philosophy. The industry is moving away from purely battery-electric concepts toward platforms that can actually operate at scale — using existing fuel infrastructure and fitting into today’s regulatory environment. That shift toward practicality is the most important trend I see.
Transcript:
Morgan:
Welcome back to another episode of Ask the Expert. I’m Morgan Allen, joined today by James Thurman with Portal Aircraft Company. James, thank you so much for being here.
James:
Thanks for inviting me.
Morgan:
Absolutely. So, James, tell me about Portal Aircraft Company and the great work that you’re doing. Supporting aircraft companies a new start up.
James:
It’s only about a year old. However, we’ve had a tremendous amount of traction in just that short period of time. What we do is we actually build gas turbine powered, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. We’re starting out with drones, but we’re eventually going to move to manned aircraft, with that.
And, we were actually just signed last week, our first Army contract. And it’s called a phase one, SBIR contract that we’re going to be working. And that period performance starts on April 1st for that. So with that, we’re going to be working on showing, you know, you know, proving to the Army why we should build this, this aircraft.
And in the meantime, we’re actually building a, our first drone right now, which will be ready in the August timeframe.
Morgan:
Wow, that is absolutely incredible. And pretty, groundbreaking. Not, I mean, air breaking, but groundbreaking. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. So you are. You are. Your resume is about as long as the Bible. Tell me about how you got into this industry overall.
James:
Yeah, I started out, I went to college at Tuskegee University. And so I started out there. I started working on getting my pilot’s license. Eventually, I transferred, but I also ended up going into the Navy as a and became a naval aviator. So I flew at least in the Navy. I think flying helicopters well over 1000 hours.
Did a few deployments, like to Iraq, South America, and also did engineering too. So, in general engineering, but, no commentaries. Well, I was mainly all focused on the aerospace, on space systems and also aeronautical engineering.
And then eventually I went, when I got out the military, I went to go work for Lockheed Martin, too, as a system engineer. And I still did a lot of flying in between there. I, own aircrafts. I flew military aircraft on my own aircraft, and it it’s.
And all that experience pretty much led me to where I’m at with this company. Pretty much wanted to come up with my own design and solve the problems that, that I saw in the vertical takeoff and land, space of the aircraft.
Morgan:
Well, it’s amazing how you’ve taken it all, and you’ve created this, new opportunity for our military.
So what are some of the things that you see this helping with in the Army? Primarily like break it down for our civilians watching.
James:
Okay, so right now, there’s really a few types of aircraft that can take off and land vertically. So there’s the helicopter, which I’ve got over 1000 hours flying helicopters. And the thing about helicopters is they can fly long range.
They have long endurance, extended their long time lift heavy payloads, but they’re pretty complex and pretty expensive. So the route that aviation is went is more of this multi copter route or drones that are electric and they are simple. They’re low maintenance.
But the issue with them is they have very short range and endurance. Usually the range is in tens of miles less than 100 miles. It can fly. Maybe you know 20 minutes or so with any type of payload.
So what our company solves is, is the problem, of this with the drones. So instead of using electric power for our drones and batteries, we actually use a gas turbine engine, literally a jet engine to power it, directly.
And we actually used what you call instead of distributed electric motors. We’re using distributed turbines instead. So the benefit you get with that, using a drone, without the weaknesses to go to, like, rushing and punching the drone that can stay in the air for hours, it can fly hundreds of miles and it can lift extremely heavy payloads.
Right now we’re working on an aircraft that can lift, four times its weight. Right now, that’s that’s going to be the first, prototype. We we come up with this this, summer and the August time frame.
Morgan:
Wow. That is fantastic. So I love to hear, how that is so beneficial to everyone in the army. I can see that being so useful when there’s so much to do over in the Middle East right now and everything going on.
It’s been, a lot with the political agenda right now. So I love to hear it that you’re creating these solutions.
So as the expert in your industry, where do you see the aviation and drone industry heading in the future?
James:
Well, I definitely see it heading in the direction we’re going, at least for a portion of the market.
So where we can see things going right now, there are a lot of battery powered. You know, what we call EV tall drones? The direction it’s going right now is that they’re still going to keep those.
But they do realize that batteries can’t really serve every mission where you want to go long range, long endurance and lift extremely heavy payloads.
So where they’re going is a lot of companies are doing a hybrid route where they have to have the electric V tall and but they use, say, a gas turbine engine to power an electric system or a piston engine like your car.
But where we’re going is we’re cutting out the electric portion of that. We’re not creating a hybrid system. We’re creating a system that’s just directly powered by gas, gas turbine engine.
So we’re I see it going there. Is it I see, you know, there’s going to be a lot of those type to craft our aircraft, hybrid aircraft, in terms of, say, military especially what’s going on, you know, in the Middle East.
Now, I’ve seen it. The military is a tribal type aircraft that are super expensive that they can afford to lose. Is where I see things going. And that’s the direction and portal aircraft is going as well.
Morgan:
Yeah. Okay. I can see it. I can see it.
Thank you so much, James, for sharing your expertise with us today and for coming on the show.
James:
Okay. Thank you.
Morgan:
Yes. And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode. If you want more information on Portal Aircraft Company, head on over to DailyNewsNetwork.com and we have it right there. We’ll see you in the next episode of Ask the Expert.
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