Joby Aviation’s First FAA-Conforming Aircraft Takes Flight

Joby Avi­a­tion has begun flight test­ing its first FAA-con­form­ing air­craft for Type Inspec­tion Autho­riza­tion (TIA), rep­re­sent­ing a major step on the path toward type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Ini­tial test­ing by Joby pilots will pave the way for FAA pilots to vis­it Joby’s facil­i­ty in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia, lat­er this year to con­duct the rig­or­ous TIA test­ing required to val­i­date the air­craft for com­mer­cial ser­vice.

This lat­est announce­ment from Joby comes just days after the US gov­ern­ment cleared the way for mature air­craft designs like Joby’s to begin ear­ly oper­a­tions across the U.S. this year, as part of the White House-backed eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP).

Through the pro­gram, Joby has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fly in the states of Ari­zona, Flori­da, Ida­ho, New Jer­sey, New York, North Car­oli­na, Okla­homa, Ore­gon, Texas and Utah, mark­ing a major mile­stone for the U.S. air taxi indus­try with the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate Joby’s path to com­mer­cial ser­vice.

Didi­er Papadopou­los, Pres­i­dent of Air­craft OEM at Joby, said: “See­ing this air­craft fly means every­thing to our team. It’s the val­i­da­tion of years of hard work and marks our entry into the final phase of bring­ing this air­craft to mar­ket.

“After focus­ing on ‘for cred­it’ test­ing at both the equip­ment and sys­tem lev­els, we’re now mov­ing into the final phase of air­craft-lev­el eval­u­a­tions. This is evi­dence that our rig­or­ous design and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process is pay­ing off, and we look for­ward to wel­com­ing FAA pilots to Mari­na in due course.”

The air­craft (N547JX) is the first of a fleet cur­rent­ly in pro­duc­tion to sup­port TIA test­ing, and has been assem­bled using an air­frame and com­po­nents built to FAA Des­ig­nat­ed Engi­neer­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-approved designs and signed off by FAA Des­ig­nat­ed Air­wor­thi­ness Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, as spec­i­fied in Joby’s FAA-approved test plans.

The pace at which Joby has been able to move from pro­to­type to con­form­ing air­craft is root­ed in its ver­ti­cal­ly inte­grat­ed approach, a strat­e­gy that is redefin­ing the industry’s path to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The vast major­i­ty of the Joby’s air­craft com­po­nents are designed, engi­neered, test­ed and man­u­fac­tured in-house, reduc­ing reliance on third par­ty sup­pli­ers, improv­ing qual­i­ty con­trol, and short­en­ing lead times.

In 2025, Joby cel­e­brat­ed the com­ple­tion of an expand­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Mari­na and
con­firmed the start of pro­peller blade pro­duc­tion in Day­ton, Ohio.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Joby recent­ly acquired a new 700,000 square-foot facil­i­ty in Day­ton, Ohio to sup­port its plans to dou­ble pro­duc­tion to four air­craft per month in 2027. Over time, Joby’s Day­ton facil­i­ties are expect­ed to be capa­ble of sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of up to 500 air­craft per year.