Dive Brief:
- Joby Aviation reported April 29 it had accomplished flights of its electrically powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a full transition from vertical to cruise flight, and back again, with a pilot onboard. The first flight took place April 22, with more following.
- The air taxi manufacturer said it has reached 62% of the fourth of five stages in the Federal Aviation Administration’s certification process. Joby founder and Chief Executive Officer JoeBen Bevirt said on the company’s May 7 earnings call that he expects to begin flights for the FAA’s Type Inspection Authorization within 12 months.
- Bevirt said that with government support on the state and federal level, “we are securing America’s leadership role in the adoption of this important new technology.”
Dive Insight:
The public had a chance last year to see Joby’s air taxi on display in California at the Santa Monica Airport and The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles and at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Joby is flight testing its aircraft at its facility in Marina, California, and at Edwards Air Force Base in California. “This last quarter was our busiest yet for flight test, with five aircraft and two full flight test crews performing flights” at these locations, Bevirt said.
“The seamless transition between vertical and horizontal flight has long been considered one of the most challenging technological feats in aerospace, but as our chief test pilot, Buddy [Denham] put it, the aircraft flew exactly as we expected with excellent handling qualities and low pilot workload,” Bevirt added.
Joby also conducted flight tests in failure mode. “In separate tests, we disabled one of the two tilt mechanisms on each propeller, one of the four battery packs, and two of the six propulsion stations. And in each case, we were able to maintain safe flight and execute a vertical landing with no changes to the procedures that our pilots use to fly the aircraft,” Bevirt said.
The company announced this morning it has successfully flown two aircraft simultaneously on May 9 in Marina, where its pilot production facility is located. A larger manufacturing plant is under construction in Dayton, Ohio, which will be capable of producing up to 500 eVTOL aircraft annually.
Bevirt told investors on the earnings call he had recently spent time in the nation’s capital, meeting with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau along with other FAA officials, members of Congress and Director Michael Kratsios from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “In every case, we heard strong support for ensuring there is a clear path to certification and commercial operations for Joby,” Bevirt said.
Asked about the ability of the U.S. air traffic control system to manage coming air taxi operations, given recent events in Washington, D.C., Newark Liberty International Airport and elsewhere, Joby Executive Chairman Paul Sciarra said, “The number of aircraft that the sky can handle is dramatically larger than what is currently flying. But we need the right systems and tools in place to augment the incredible work that our air traffic controllers do today.”
Joby Aviation also entered a partnership with Virgin Atlantic to establish air taxi service at the airline’s two United Kingdom hubs, Heathrow Airport and Manchester Airport.
