Joby Applies for UK CAA Aircraft Certification

Joby Avi­a­tion has today announced it has for­mal­ly applied for its air­craft design to be cer­ti­fied for use in the UK, believed to be the first eVTOL com­pa­ny to apply for for­eign val­i­da­tion of its US Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) type cer­tifi­cate.

While Joby is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its air­craft with the FAA and expects the US to be its first oper­at­ing mar­ket, this appli­ca­tion will allow its US-based cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to be con­cur­rent­ly val­i­dat­ed by the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA).

With a max­i­mum range of 150 miles and a qui­et acoustic pro­file, Joby’s five-seat pilot­ed eVTOL air­craft is designed to con­nect peo­ple and cities through fast, qui­et, and emis­sions-free flight.

Joby’s appli­ca­tion builds on a joint state­ment by the FAA and CAA in March, announc­ing their intent to lever­age the exist­ing Bilat­er­al Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agree­ment between the two reg­u­la­tors to stream­line the intro­duc­tion of eVTOL air­craft using exist­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works.

Joby Avi­a­tion founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said: “By work­ing hand-in-hand on cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the UK and the US are set­ting the stage for both coun­tries to be ear­ly adopters of this impor­tant new tech­nol­o­gy.

“We strong­ly believe that a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to reg­u­la­tion helps to fos­ter greater safe­ty and accel­er­ate the intro­duc­tion of new tech­nolo­gies that ben­e­fit the pub­lic and the envi­ron­ment.

“We are excit­ed about the poten­tial for elec­tric aer­i­al rideshar­ing to offer clean and afford­able urban and region­al con­nec­tions across the UK, where more than 80% of the pop­u­la­tion lives in, or near, cities.”

Type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is a mul­ti-year process which sees a com­pa­ny under­take rig­or­ous test­ing and doc­u­men­ta­tion across each air­craft sys­tem in order to prove the air­craft is safe and ready for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

In March, Joby announced it had joined ADS Group, the pre­miere UK trade asso­ci­a­tion for aero­space, defense and secu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, and will work with the UK Nation­al Air Traf­fic Ser­vices (NATS) to explore inte­gra­tion into the UK air­space.

The news comes ahead of the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show, one of the world’s largest air­shows, which takes place today from July 18–22.

In May, Joby received a Part 135 Air Car­ri­er Cer­tifi­cate from the FAA, allow­ing the com­pa­ny to begin on-demand com­mer­cial air taxi oper­a­tions. Ear­li­er in March, Joby sub­mit­ted its first area-spe­cif­ic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plan to the FAA.