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Joby Aviation’s Propulsion Certification Plan approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion has accept­ed Joby Avi­a­tion’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan for Joby’s propul­sion sys­tem, mark­ing a crit­i­cal step towards receiv­ing type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Joby’s eVTOL air­craft.

The propul­sion sys­tem, designed by Joby, is cen­tral to the sec­tor-lead­ing per­for­mance of the Joby air­craft.

The accept­ed cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan includes Joby’s elec­tric propul­sion unit, pro­peller sys­tem, vari­able pitch actu­a­tion, coolant pump, nacelles, and asso­ci­at­ed elec­tri­cal wiring, clear­ly defin­ing the route to cer­ti­fy­ing these sys­tems for use in com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions.

Didi­er Papadopou­los, Pres­i­dent of Air­craft OEM at Joby, said: “We now have an approved path across our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram for all of the struc­tur­al, mechan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal sys­tems of our air­craft. This sets the stage for our team to exe­cute against that path with a well-defined approach to for-cred­it test­ing and analy­sis as we con­tin­ue to lead the indus­try towards cer­ti­fy­ing an elec­tric air taxi with the FAA.

“I’m grate­ful to the incred­i­ble Joby team as well as the ded­i­cat­ed per­son­nel at the FAA who con­tin­ue to work hard to bring safe­ty and inno­va­tion togeth­er, keep­ing the Unit­ed States at the fore­front of new avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy and capa­bil­i­ties.”

The FAA type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process is a rig­or­ous review of the design, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and per­for­mance of a nov­el air­craft type, requir­ing the appli­cant com­pa­ny to demon­strate that every aspect of its air­craft meets applic­a­ble safe­ty reg­u­la­tions.

With all but one cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan accept­ed and the final doc­u­ment cur­rent­ly under FAA review, Joby is near­ing com­ple­tion of the third of five phas­es of the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process and has shift­ed its focus to the fourth stage, com­pris­ing detailed test­ing and analy­sis across the aircraft’s com­po­nents and sys­tems.

In 2023, Joby com­plet­ed 30 for-cred­it tests with the FAA, cov­er­ing a num­ber of flight elec­tron­ics units as well as struc­tur­al mate­ri­als. The test­ing meth­ods and process­es val­i­dat­ed through these tests lay the foun­da­tion for the Company’s con­tin­ued expan­sion of FAA for-cred­it test­ing.

Joby also recent­ly received its Part 145 Main­te­nance Cer­tifi­cate from the FAA, allow­ing the Com­pa­ny to per­form select main­te­nance activ­i­ties on air­craft and mark­ing anoth­er key step on the path to com­mer­cial­iz­ing Joby’s elec­tric air taxi ser­vice.

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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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