GKN Aerospace to build and design flight control surfaces for Joby Aviation’s eVTOL aircraft

Joby Avi­a­tion and GKN Aero­space have today (Tues­day) agreed a mul­ti-year agree­ment for the sup­ply of ther­mo­plas­tic flight con­trol sur­faces for Joby’s eVTOL air­craft.

GKN Aero­space has been work­ing close­ly with Joby on the appli­ca­tion of an inno­v­a­tive ther­mo­plas­tic con­cept specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to the Joby eVTOL air­craft. The flight con­trol sur­faces will be com­posed of a light­weight ther­mo­plas­tic struc­ture assem­bly, man­u­fac­tured using an advanced out-of-auto­clave pro­duc­tion method. This cut­ting-edge man­u­fac­tur­ing process will enable high-rate pro­duc­tion while deliv­er­ing on the high-per­for­mance require­ments of Joby’s air­craft.

This col­lab­o­ra­tion was signed at this year’s Paris Air Show, marks an impor­tant step towards Joby’s goal of using its air­craft to deliv­er a fast, qui­et, and con­ve­nient air taxi ser­vice in cities around the world.

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, said: “We are very excit­ed to be join­ing forces with GKN Aero­space. Their remark­able expe­ri­ence in aero­space man­u­fac­tur­ing, com­bined with our inno­v­a­tive approach, will play an impor­tant role in mak­ing sure we deliv­er the best pos­si­ble air­craft for this excit­ing new mar­ket”

Lever­ag­ing Joby’s design input as the air­craft inte­gra­tor, GKN Aero­space will under­take the detailed design of the flight con­trol sur­faces.

The devel­op­ment and ini­tial pro­duc­tion work will be car­ried out at the Glob­al Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre in Hoogeveen, Nether­lands, before tran­si­tion­ing to GKN Aerospace’s facil­i­ty in Chi­huahua, Mex­i­co. The final prod­ucts will be deliv­ered direct­ly to Joby’s pilot pro­duc­tion line in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia.

John Pritchard, Pres­i­dent Civ­il Air­frame at GKN Aero­space, added: “We are extreme­ly excit­ed to col­lab­o­rate with Joby Avi­a­tion on this trans­for­ma­tion­al project. Joby’s lead­ing posi­tion in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) sec­tor com­ple­ments GKN Aero­space’s mis­sion and togeth­er we are forg­ing a path towards a more sus­tain­able and effi­cient future for avi­a­tion.”

This part­ner­ship aligns per­fect­ly with GKN Aero­space’s mis­sion to be the most trust­ed and sus­tain­able part­ner in the aero­space indus­try. The com­pa­ny has already made sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments in sus­tain­able avi­a­tion, includ­ing elec­tric, hybrid-elec­tric, and hydro­gen-pow­ered air­craft tech­nolo­gies.

Joby’s lead­ing posi­tion in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) sec­tor com­ple­ments GKN Aero­space’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.