Rebuilding Aerospace Education Around eVTOL Systems Thinking

Over two decades of aviation engineering experience across Australia and China underpin the career of Yon Wui Ng. He began as an aeronautical engineer and weight and balance manager in Perth, Western Australia, before joining Airbus (Beijing) Engineering Centre, where he spent more than four years in senior roles, including Program Director, Head of Engineering and Transformation Leader. He later served as Vice General Manager at Geely Terrafugia.

In 2021, he founded TCab Tech, a Shanghai-based eVTOL developer, together with a group of fellow engineers. The company is developing the E20, a piloted five-seat tilt-rotor aircraft, and has built a full-scale prototype, completed transition testing and begun type certification with China's civil aviation regulator.

Ng holds an aerospace engineering degree from RMIT University and an MBA from the University of Western Australia. He has spoken at the Singapore Airshow and Dubai Airshow, and has been featured in Aviation Week and AeroTime.

In an interaction with M R Yuvatha, Editor, Asia Education Review, Yon Wui Ng shares insights on how universities can rebuild aerospace education around systems thinking, certification-aware design, and real-world engineering exposure to prepare students for the eVTOL and Advanced Air Mobility industry.

For decades, aviation education has been built on the principles of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft. That foundation still matters. But electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and the wider field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) raise a harder question for universities: what must change in how engineers are taught, beyond simply adding new topics to the syllabus?

From the industry's side, the answer lies less in new subjects than in how existing ones are connected. Developers building passenger-carrying eVTOLs face aircraft that cannot be designed in pieces, a workforce drawn from many fields, a certification process that touches every decision, and a growing talent gap in China's low-altitude economy. Each of these points to the same conclusion: aircraft should be taught as integrated engineering and commercial systems, not as collections of separate subjects.

An Aircraft That Cannot Be Designed in Pieces

A passenger-carrying eVTOL is a highly complex, technology-intensive product. It must comply with comprehensive civil aviation safety requirements while incorporating advances in electrification and intelligent technologies. Developing one draws on aircraft-level design, aerodynamics and structures, batteries and electric motors, high-voltage electrical systems, thermal management, distributed electric propulsion, flight-control systems, avionics software, communication and navigation systems, and airworthiness and safety.

In an actual program, these decisions are rarely made in isolation. A change intended to improve range, for example, may affect weight, thermal management, structural design, safety margins and ultimately certification. Engineers therefore need to understand the trade-offs among safety, weight, range, payload, noise, cost and manufacturability at the level of the whole aircraft.

Traditional aerospace disciplines such as aerodynamics, flight mechanics, structural design and propulsion remain fundamental. What should change is the way they are connected. In practical coursework, universities could start with a specific use case and concept of operations, then guide students through requirements analysis, system architecture, safety assessment, modeling and simulation, prototype development, ground testing and flight testing. This would help students see how engineering evidence is built progressively to support airworthiness certification.

"For an eVTOL aircraft, the ability to fly is only the starting point, whether it can operate economically in commercial service matters just as much".

Bringing operational economics into the curriculum alongside flight fundamentals would show students how payload, range, battery energy density and operating cost per seat-kilometer together determine commercial viability. Graduates would then see an aircraft as both an engineering system and a commercial product.

Also Read: Cebu Flight School Elevates Aviation Education in the Philippines

A Workforce Built From Many Disciplines

Much of the eVTOL industry today is being built by engineers who trained in traditional aerospace, automotive or even consumer electronics, rather than in a dedicated 'eVTOL degree'. That is entirely natural for an emerging field, and it says more about how the technology developed than about any failure of education.

At its core, eVTOL development is still about building an aircraft. Its safety, reliability and airworthiness requirements remain rooted in established aerospace engineering principles, so a strong foundation in traditional aviation stays essential.

At the same time, other industries have shaped the field. Advances in the electric vehicle industry have accelerated progress in batteries, electric motors and control systems. Artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and consumer electronics have contributed innovations in software, sensors and human-machine interaction. The convergence of these technologies with aerospace engineering has helped drive eVTOL development.

Industry also tends to evolve faster than academic programs can adapt, and the gap is particularly visible in fast-moving fields such as eVTOL and AAM. At TCab Tech, a significant majority of the workforce is focused on R&D. Experienced aviation professionals form the core of the team, working alongside specialists and researchers from fields such as electric vehicles and unmanned aerial systems. The lesson is that eVTOL development calls for multidisciplinary teams with complementary expertise rather than one single educational background.

For universities, this suggests placing greater emphasis on 'T-shaped' professionals: graduates with depth in one discipline and a working knowledge of related fields. Existing programs in aerospace, mechanical, electrical and software engineering could incorporate a stronger systems perspective on eVTOL, supported by cross-disciplinary project work. Joint research, hands-on learning, industry internships and real-world engineering case studies would give students earlier exposure to how aircraft programs actually work.

Certification as Part of Design, Not an Afterthought

Airworthiness certification is essential to bringing an eVTOL aircraft from R&D into commercial operation. Certification considerations shape every stage of development, from program initiation and requirements definition to system design, component selection, supply-chain management, testing and verification.

When airworthiness is taught only as a standalone course on regulations, students may find it difficult to connect the subject with practical engineering work. A better approach is to integrate certification into courses on aircraft-level design, structures, flight controls, propulsion, software and testing, so that students learn to treat airworthiness as part of engineering decision-making throughout the development lifecycle.

This matters particularly for eVTOLs because of their novel features. These include electric and distributed propulsion, complex flight-control architectures, and the transition between vertical and forward flight in a tiltrotor configuration. Such features require established airworthiness principles to be applied and, where necessary, adapted to new aircraft architectures. Students should understand how a certification basis is established, how safety objectives are translated into engineering requirements, how means of compliance are selected, and how analysis, testing and documentation are brought together into a complete and traceable body of evidence.

Case-based teaching built around real or simulated certification projects could reinforce this. Students could practice requirements traceability, safety assessment, compliance planning, configuration management, test design and technical documentation. These exercises would give them a far more realistic understanding of the safety responsibilities and regulatory discipline that accompany aviation innovation.

The Talent Gap Taking Shape

As the low-altitude economy becomes a genuine policy priority in China, the mismatch between what universities produce and what companies need is becoming clearer. Based on its experience in recruitment and team management, TCab Tech sees the gaps as most evident in three areas.

Talent supply is not keeping pace with industry demand. Industry reports have shown rapid growth in hiring across China's low-altitude economy, while senior industry leaders, frontline skilled personnel and professionals with cross-industry, multidisciplinary expertise remain in short supply.

Graduates need stronger cross-disciplinary skills. Universities typically educate students in specialized areas such as aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, control systems and electronics. In real aircraft programs, however, these systems are tightly interconnected. A change in one area may affect weight, energy consumption, flight performance, safety and airworthiness compliance. Students need to understand these cross-system effects earlier and learn to solve problems alongside engineers from other disciplines.

Students need more exposure to real-world aviation engineering. eVTOL development is highly experience-driven, and many key roles require extensive project training before engineers are ready to take full responsibility. Universities could strengthen simulation platforms, testing facilities, industry internships and project-based learning, allowing students to work through the development cycle from requirements analysis and concept design to testing and verification.

TCab Tech has already begun addressing this gap through postgraduate training bases established with universities including the Civil Aviation Flight University of China and Fudan University. These partnerships give students opportunities to take part in research and engineering projects and to build the ability to solve practical engineering problems.

Building an Aerospace Program From Scratch Today

For a university designing an aerospace program today, the issue is not that the relevant subjects are taught nowhere. The bigger gap is that they are rarely taught as one integrated aircraft-development and operational system. Building on the core subjects of traditional aerospace engineering, three areas deserve focus.

Electrification and intelligent systems. Electric aviation is evolving rapidly. Universities could systematically introduce eVTOL-relevant subjects such as battery systems, electric motors, distributed electric propulsion and intelligent flight-control systems.

System safety and airworthiness. Universities could bring in aviation specialists with hands-on certification experience, along with industry engineers, to teach focused modules. These could draw on publicly available or appropriately anonymized real-world case studies.

Industrialization and operations. Advanced Air Mobility is an ecosystem that brings together aircraft, operational frameworks, infrastructure, personnel training and regulation. Courses could cover supply-chain management, manufacturability, maintainability, operating economics, pilot training, low-altitude infrastructure, airspace management and commercial use cases.

On teaching method, a project-based learning track running throughout the degree program would tie these areas together. Students from different disciplines could work in joint project teams, taking on discipline-specific tasks within a shared aircraft or AAM project shaped by real market needs, with guidance from both university faculty and industry practitioners.

The Takeaway!

The industry's message is not that traditional aerospace education has failed. It is that the subjects must now be connected differently. Aerodynamics, structures and propulsion remain the foundation, but eVTOL and AAM add systems thinking, certification built into design, commercial awareness and sustained exposure to real engineering projects. Universities that build these into their programs will be better placed to supply the multidisciplinary talent that China's low-altitude economy needs.