Joby Aviation to work with CAE on eVTOL aircraft pilot training and develop and qualify flight simulation devices

Joby Avi­a­tion has part­nered with CAE to devel­op and qual­i­fy flight sim­u­la­tion train­ing devices that will be used to train future pilots of Joby’s com­mer­cial eVTOL air­craft.

The com­pa­ny intends to both man­u­fac­ture and oper­ate its air­craft, a move which will require Joby to train a new gen­er­a­tion of pilots. The air­craft will have a max­i­mum range of 150 miles on a sin­gle charge and can trans­port a pilot and four pas­sen­gers at speeds of up to 200 mph. 

As flight sim­u­la­tors become an inte­gral part of ready­ing pilots to fly this type of air­craft, by lever­ag­ing the core sim­u­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy Joby has been devel­op­ing for the past five years, CAE will work with Joby to devel­op pilot train­ing devices specif­i­cal­ly for its air­craft. 

Bon­ny Simi, Head of Air Oper­a­tions and Peo­ple for Joby, said: “CAE has a ster­ling rep­u­ta­tion for deliv­er­ing excel­lent sim­u­la­tion and train­ing solu­tions. We look for­ward to a world where thou­sands of Joby pilots are fly­ing our air­craft every day and we couldn’t ask for a bet­ter part­ner to help make that a real­i­ty.”

CAE recent­ly announced Project Resilience, a CAD$1 bil­lion invest­ment into avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies of the future. The invest­ment accel­er­ates CAE’s role as a leader in end-to-end tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, oper­a­tional sup­port and train­ing solu­tions for eVTOL pilots and Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty.

Nick Leon­tidis, CAE’s Group Pres­i­dent, Civ­il Avi­a­tion Train­ing Solu­tions, said: “We are thrilled to part­ner with Joby to help bring their pio­neer­ing vision to life. With more than 75 years of expe­ri­ence in the design, devel­op­ment, and man­u­fac­ture of flight sim­u­la­tors, CAE brings exten­sive exper­tise with new air­craft types to sup­port the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Joby’s eVTOL fixed base flight train­ing device and full flight sim­u­la­tor with the FAA.”

Joby is cur­rent­ly work­ing with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion to secure its Part 135 Air Car­ri­er Cer­tifi­cate, estab­lish­ing the process­es and reg­u­la­to­ry approvals nec­es­sary for the com­pa­ny to oper­ate com­mer­cial­ly ahead of ser­vice launch.

With its low noise pro­file, Joby’s eVTOL air­craft is designed to make fast, emis­sions-free, and con­ve­nient air trav­el an every­day real­i­ty in cities and com­mu­ni­ties around the world. Joby’s fly-by-wire air­craft employs a uni­fied flight con­trol sys­tem and uses con­trols that are sim­i­lar to fixed-wing air­craft, result­ing in a smooth tran­si­tion for pilots.

Simi adds: “We believe many pilots will con­sid­er fly­ing for Joby to be a great career oppor­tu­ni­ty. In addi­tion to fly­ing an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly air­craft with a great pilot­ing expe­ri­ence, we’ll offer pilots a reli­able sched­ule that allows them to be home every evening, a lux­u­ry not avail­able to most pro­fes­sion­al pilots.”