Joby Aviation Begins Power-On Testing of First Conforming Aircraft, Enters Final Stage of Type Certification Process

Joby Avi­a­tion has begun pow­er-on test­ing of the first of sev­er­al FAA-con­form­ing air­craft to be built for Type Inspec­tion Autho­riza­tion (TIA).

With this mile­stone, Joby says it can now begin con­duct­ing thou­sands of hard­ware and soft­ware inte­gra­tion tests in prepa­ra­tion for ‘for cred­it’ flight test­ing with FAA test pilots oper­at­ing the air­craft.

TIA test­ing is part of the final stage of the FAA Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process and achieve­ment marks a crit­i­cal mile­stone on Joby’s path to com­mer­cial­iza­tion.

Didi­er Papadopou­los, Pres­i­dent of Air­craft OEM at Joby, said: “Begin­ning this air­craft sub­sys­tem test­ing is the cul­mi­na­tion of more than a decade of focused engi­neer­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion refine­ments. This is the moment where our intend­ed type design, our man­u­fac­tur­ing process, and our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy con­verge into one phys­i­cal asset.

“It val­i­dates that we can design a safe air­craft and pro­duce it reli­ably. This first test­ing step is one of the most impor­tant mile­stones in Joby’s his­to­ry to date and puts us clos­er than ever to achiev­ing FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

Joby’s first TIA-ready air­craft has been man­u­fac­tured using Joby’s estab­lished qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem and adheres pre­cise­ly to the intend­ed type design for TIA test­ing.

Each of Joby’s TIA air­craft will be built with FAA-con­form­ing com­po­nents as required by Joby’s FAA-approved test plans, with these com­po­nents built to FAA Des­ig­nat­ed Engi­neer­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-approved designs and inspect­ed and signed off by FAA Des­ig­nat­ed Air­wor­thi­ness Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Pow­er-on test­ing is the first step in prepar­ing Joby’s TIA air­craft for ‘for cred­it’ flight test­ing, with flight test­ing by Joby pilots expect­ed to start lat­er this year, ahead of FAA pilots tak­ing the con­trols in 2026.

Dur­ing TIA test­ing, Joby will be work­ing side-by-side with the FAA to ensure the air­craft meets all safe­ty and per­for­mance require­ments. The test­ing includes:

• Per­for­mance Val­i­da­tion: FAA pilots and Joby test pilots will val­i­date the aircraft’s per­for­mance enve­lope, includ­ing range, speed and ener­gy man­age­ment under real-world con­di­tions
• Con­trol and Han­dling: Pilots will test the flight con­trols and han­dling qual­i­ties across all regimes of flight, from ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing through wing­borne cruise and back to hov­er
• Main­te­nance and Oper­a­tions: The TIA phase val­i­dates the oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures that will gov­ern Joby’s com­mer­cial ser­vice, includ­ing inspect­ing main­te­nance man­u­als, pilot train­ing cur­ricu­lum, and ver­i­fy­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of all onboard sys­tems, such as avion­ics, propul­sion and redun­dan­cies

The data col­lect­ed dur­ing these TIA tests will be used by the FAA to make its final deter­mi­na­tion on issu­ing a Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Joby’s air­craft, the approval need­ed to oper­ate the air­craft com­mer­cial­ly.