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Joby Aviation becomes first eVTOL aircraft company to submit area-specific certification plan

Joby Avi­a­tion has sub­mit­ted its first area-spe­cif­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan to the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA). 

Believed to be an indus­try first, the plan is the first of sev­er­al that Joby will be required to sub­mit, bring­ing the com­pa­ny one step clos­er to receiv­ing type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its air­craft.

This includes lay­ing out the com­bi­na­tion of design reports, analy­sis and test­ing that it will employ to demon­strate com­pli­ance with rig­or­ous FAA safe­ty stan­dards for one func­tion­al area of the air­craft.

“Today’s mile­stone is the result of many years of hard work by both the Joby team and the FAA,” said Didi­er Papadopou­los, Head of Pro­grams and Sys­tems at Joby. 

“It is also anoth­er indi­ca­tion of the great momen­tum we have on the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion front. With more than two thirds of our means of com­pli­ance now agreed with the FAA, we’re look­ing for­ward to main­tain­ing that momen­tum with the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plans in the near future.”

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan sub­mit­ted ear­li­er this week focus­es on cab­in safe­ty, the integri­ty of mate­ri­als, seats, and occu­pant restraints used in the inte­ri­or of the air­craft.

In Feb­ru­ary, Joby announced it had com­plet­ed its first series of FAA con­for­mi­ty tests to con­firm the mate­r­i­al strength of the com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al com­pris­ing the aerostruc­ture of the air­craft. 

In 2020, Joby became the first and only eVTOL air­craft com­pa­ny to sign a G‑1 (stage 4) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis with the FAA, hav­ing received an ini­tial (stage 2) signed G‑1 from the FAA in 2019.

Joby’s pilot­ed five-seat eVTOL air­craft can car­ry four pas­sen­gers at speeds of up to 200 mph, with a max­i­mum range of 150 miles on a sin­gle charge. 

With more than 10 years of devel­op­ment and over a thou­sand flight tests com­plet­ed, Joby is tar­get­ing the launch of its aer­i­al rideshar­ing ser­vice in 2024.

Joby will also release its Q4 2021 earn­ings results after mar­ket close tomor­row (Thurs­day), where man­age­ment will dis­cuss the results on the con­fer­ence call at 5pm ET.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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