FeaturedNews

Joby begins final assembly of first company-conforming eVTOL

Joby Avi­a­tion has begun final assem­bly of what it believes to be the world’s first com­pa­ny-con­form­ing eVTOL air­craft, the first to be pro­duced at Joby’s pilot man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia.

Con­for­mi­ty means that a prod­uct has been built accord­ing to its intend­ed design in two stages: first, com­pa­ny-con­form­ing, where the air­craft is built accord­ing to released designs and under the purview of a ful­ly-imple­ment­ed qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem, and sec­ond, FAA-con­form­ing, where the air­craft is ready to begin test­ing for cred­it with the FAA.

Man­u­fac­tured in accor­dance with a released design and built accord­ing to a com­plete imple­men­ta­tion of a qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem, qual­i­fy­ing it as a com­pa­ny-con­form­ing air­craft is the path to achiev­ing the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion required to begin com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions.

“Begin­ning final assem­bly of our first com­pa­ny-con­form­ing air­craft is a crit­i­cal achieve­ment for Joby and a land­mark for the wider eVTOL indus­try,” said Didi­er Papadopou­los, Head of Air­craft OEM at Joby.

“It allows us to exer­cise our qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem in prepa­ra­tion for type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and a sub­se­quent pro­duc­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and I’m very grate­ful for the ener­gy and com­mit­ment of the team behind this achieve­ment.”

Hav­ing built the major aerostruc­tures of the air­craft – the wing, tail, and fuse­lage – Joby is now begin­ning the process of mat­ing struc­tures and installing the wiring, elec­tron­ics, actu­a­tion and propul­sion sys­tems on its pilot pro­duc­tion line, and expects the air­craft to begin flight test­ing in the first half of 2023.

Joby’s qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem has matured to include track­ing and doc­u­men­ta­tion of every part on the air­craft, con­fig­u­ra­tion man­age­ment of engi­neer­ing draw­ings, envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions dur­ing fab­ri­ca­tion, and actions tak­en by man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­ni­cians.

The sys­tem is reviewed reg­u­lar­ly by the FAA as part of the company’s prepa­ra­tion to receive a pro­duc­tion cer­tifi­cate fol­low­ing the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its eVTOL air­craft. Con­cur­rent­ly with low-rate air­craft pro­duc­tion in Mari­na, Joby is active­ly eval­u­at­ing pro­pos­als from a num­ber of US states to sup­port the con­struc­tion of the Company’s Phase 1 pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty.

In Novem­ber 2022, The Fed­er­al Reg­is­ter pub­lished a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis, 32 months after Joby’s G‑1 was orig­i­nal­ly signed, as the FAA has not yet estab­lished pow­ered-lift air­wor­thi­ness stan­dards in title 14 CFR, the FAA type cer­tifi­cates pow­ered-lift as spe­cial class air­craft.

Pre­vi­ous­ly in Octo­ber 2022, Joby Avi­a­tion for­mal­ly applied for its air­craft design to be cer­ti­fied for use in Japan, as Japan­ese and US reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties reached an agree­ment to deliv­er a stream­lined approval process for US appli­cants who wish to val­i­date their eVTOL air­craft designs in Japan.

Avatar photo

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.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769