EP 121 — Tidal Flight's Jude Augustine On Building The First Clean Sheet Seaplane In Decades

 Seaplane design hasn't changed since the 1950s. ⁠Jude Augustine⁠, Co-Founder and CEO of ⁠Tidal Flight⁠, is building Polaris, a hybrid electric amphibious aircraft designed to turn a four-hour coastal trip into two hours door to door while giving the military runway independence in the Pacific. Polaris is the launchpad for Tidal to grow into a next-generation aircraft manufacturer with a vision for aircraft across categories. 

Before even raising a seed round , Jude and his Georgia Tech co-founders secured 10 letters of intent from seaplane and commuter airlines worldwide. Their dual use approach pairs commercial coastal mobility with contested logistics capability, backed by a supplier model that keeps capital needs low and risk focused on the novel systems that matter most.

Topics discussed:

- Why Tidal Flight is building a next-generation aircraft manufacturer, and why seaplanes are the right first market to tackle 

- Why seaplane operating costs stayed high for decades and what changes now

- Choosing a supplier model over vertical integration after seeing Beta Technologies

- Securing 10 airline letters of intent before raising a seed round

- Building a series hybrid powertrain using the DeltaHawk compression ignition engine

- Flying three 1:6 scale prototypes to prove hull hydrodynamics

- Dual use strategy pairing commercial coastal mobility with Pacific defense missions

- Saying no to defense funding that pulls away from the core aircraft program

- Designing for autonomy readiness without building an autonomy suite

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