Jump Aero Founder Makes Case For Emergency Response eVTOL
September 03, 2025
Jump Aero founder Carl Dietrich believes his company’s unique single-person aircraft and associated business model can provide customers with the greatest value-to-cost ratio among the crowded field of eVTOL aspirants.
Founded in 2019, Jump is developing the JA1 Pulse, a single-person tailsitter eVTOL designed to transport a first responder to the site of an accident or emergency to stabilize a victim until the ground or air ambulance arrives. The aircraft is designed to carry a paramedic and associated equipment over a 30-mi. radius in 8-min., substantially better than the average response time of 14.5 min. average for rural Americans.
The JA1 Pulse would be brought to market as a MOSAIC Light Sport Aircraft and operated under FAR Part 91 (not 135 like most helicopter air ambulances). The pilot would also be the medic who is the first “boots on the ground” with the job of stabilizing the patient, so there would not be a team to prepare the landing zone prior to a JA1 Pulse landing. On the return, the aircraft would be hitched to the back of a retrieval truck that can charge it on its way back to the base – returning it to a “ready state” as quickly as possible. This unique concept of operations marks a radical departure from how crews of helicopter air ambulances traditionally operate.
But a major challenge for Jump Aero is the reality that rural emergency response crews are conservative by nature, and adding a radically new class of aircraft, with an unfamiliar business model and concept of operations, has proven difficult.
“A common criticism we get is that we can’t transport a patient so we can’t be competitive–but that misses entirely the point of what we’re doing,” Dietrich tells Aviation Week. “This is about rapid stabilization–not patient transportation. The fact that we can get to emergencies faster than any helicopter and stabilize a patient – and that this complementary mission will be even more lifesaving than just replacing a helicopter with an eVTOL– is something that many people have a hard time grasping.”
Dealing with investors has been no easier, Dietrich says.
“What we neglected to account for is the fact that investors don’t like when you have to explain things like this. They want it simple,” he says. “If I was making a better air taxi than Joby–that’s something straightforward they can get behind. The reality is aerospace is not simple, but investors want the punchline that it is simple. ”
Asked about the challenge of attracting investment, Dietrich concedes that his arguments to date have been somewhat academic in nature. A white paper published by Jump in January suggested that the JA1 Pulse will deliver the most value to operators for the least cost–far more so than the eVTOL air taxis that have attracted tens of billions in combined investment. Furthermore, he says that market survey research demonstrates that rural Americans would be willing to pay for a subscription service–and eventually, he expects the life-saving EMS services enabled by the JA1 Pulse to be taxpayer funded in rural areas, reducing the cost per head to mere pennies each month.
“My argument is that the private subscription operators have the potential to make quite a bit more money and have a lot more liquid assets floating around and therefore be a lot more adventurous with their investments in this use case than in the air taxi space,” he says. “Now the problem is I’ve got to convince people of that, and I’m fairly confident that I’m right about the academic argument based on the market research data, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t harness the resources necessary to actually close the gap between the reality and the opportunity.”
Dietrich is confident that his experience as founder and former CEO of Terrafugia provides the lessons learned and experience to plow ahead.
He also cites key partnerships with EMS companies Falck and Osage Nation Emergency Management as reinforcing the rural demand signal and providing a concrete path to trial operations.
“It’s going to be very interesting to see how this all pans out,” Dietrich says. “With Terrafugia, we never had more than nine months of money in the bank prior to our acquisition. So, I’ve done this before. It’s tough, it’s a slog, but this is what I do. I’m an aviation startup guy, and it’s a tough business to be in. But we’re pushing ahead."
"We’ve been able to attract some additional funds recently to pursue some new opportunities – which keep us out of that red zone," he adds. "Jump Aero has actually been quite a bit more attractive to the capital markets than Terrafugia was, but we still have a long road in front of us, and the more complicated story has made attracting the hundred-million dollar deals of the air-taxi startups impractical to date. In the meantime, we find strength in the partners we have brought on board who believe in our mission.”