Joby Middle East: “From Lab to Launchpad”

Joby Avi­a­tion post­ed an arti­cle on the company’s web­site this week writ­ten by the company’s Pres­i­dent of Air­craft Orig­i­nal Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­er (OEM), Didi­er Papadopou­los.

After stat­ing how chal­leng­ing it is to bring a new air­craft to mar­ket that involves “years of ded­i­cat­ed engi­neer­ing, val­i­dat­ed per­for­mance in extreme con­di­tions, reg­u­la­to­ry align­ment and the oper­a­tional mus­cle to deliv­er,” Papadopou­los points out the impor­tance of Joby’s recent pilot­ed flight test cam­paign in Dubai that includ­ed “ver­ti­cal take­off, tran­si­tion to and from wing­borne flight, and ver­ti­cal landing–involved crit­i­cal com­mer­cial mar­ket readi­ness work, mark­ing an impor­tant step on the road to pas­sen­ger ser­vice.”

He explains these tri­al flights expand­ed the envi­ron­men­tal enve­lope of the eVTOL. “Con­duct­ing flights in ambi­ent tem­per­a­ture near­ing 110°F pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal data on ther­mal man­age­ment sys­tem per­for­mance for every part of the air­craft, includ­ing bat­tery packs, actu­a­tors and elec­tric motors. Sus­tained oper­a­tion in a chal­leng­ing set of envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions (tem­per­a­ture, humid­i­ty, sand, dust, etc.) direct­ly informs our oper­a­tional mod­els and show­cas­es sys­tem reli­a­bil­i­ty across diverse cli­mates.” 

Such tests also allowed Joby to eval­u­ate flight dynam­ics and con­trol in thin, hot air. Papadopou­los con­tin­ues, “Low­er air den­si­ty impacts lift and thrust effi­cien­cy. Our pilots assessed the aircraft’s respon­sive­ness and han­dling under these spe­cif­ic con­di­tions and con­firmed that the air­craft han­dled as pre­dict­ed.” Adding, “This data is invalu­able for refin­ing oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures and per­for­mance envelopes and will be used in FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

An obvi­ous require­ment was to con­firm the per­for­mance of the air­craft “in the para­me­ters used at the antic­i­pat­ed ver­ti­port loca­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly our first loca­tion near Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (DXB). Ver­ti­cal take­off, tran­si­tion to wing­borne flight and land­ing are com­plex maneu­vers that need to be achieved reli­ably and in real-world con­di­tions, which our air­craft demon­strat­ed.” He then points out, “Com­mer­cial mar­ket readi­ness extends beyond the air­craft. It encom­pass­es the entire ecosys­tem required for rou­tine pas­sen­ger ser­vice.”

Didi­er Papadopou­los

Papadopou­los sets out the suc­cess of three pri­ma­ry objec­tives.

: Main­te­nance and Logis­tics - The Joby team includ­ed FAA-cer­ti­fied test pilots and mechan­ics and Dubai-based oper­a­tors. Their abil­i­ty to estab­lish and exe­cute effi­cient ground oper­a­tions, charg­ing pro­to­cols and air­craft turn­arounds in a new, demand­ing envi­ron­ment pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal real-world data points for the company’s pas­sen­ger ser­vice mod­el. These oper­a­tions also pro­vid­ed essen­tial “real-time insight into air­craft main­te­nance, engi­neer­ing, and con­tin­ued air­wor­thi­ness pro­ce­dures, crit­i­cal parts of the FAA’s type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ment.”

: Reg­u­la­to­ry Coor­di­na­tion - The cam­paign involved close coor­di­na­tion with a vari­ety of reg­u­la­tors. These were: Dubai’s Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty (RTA); the Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (GCAA); the Dubai Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (DCAA); Dubai Air Nav­i­ga­tion Ser­vices (DANS); Dubai Police and Civ­il Defence; and many oth­er agen­cies. 

This direct, in-mar­ket reg­u­la­to­ry engage­ment, pro­vid­ed “real-time feed­back for oper­a­tional approvals, from access to air­space for flight tests to align­ing on dai­ly oper­a­tions stan­dards.”

: Infra­struc­ture - The con­struc­tion of the first ded­i­cat­ed ver­ti­port at DXB by Sky­ports under­scores the par­al­lel need for ground and not just pas­sen­ger infra­struc­ture. The MRO (main­te­nance, repair and over­haul) base estab­lished for the cam­paign is the first in the region, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal oper­a­tional sup­port for Joby’s fleet when a com­mer­cial ser­vice is launched ear­ly next year. 

The insights gained from the first set of tri­als in Dubai com­ple­ment­ed the company’s sig­nif­i­cant progress in FAA Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the U.S. Most recent­ly, the FAA “human-in-the-loop sim­u­la­tion, which mod­elled eVTOL inte­gra­tion into LAX’s com­plex Class B air­space.” 

In addi­tion, the recent guid­ance from the FAA which clar­i­fies eVTOL air­space inte­gra­tion. Air traf­fic con­trollers enforce strict spac­ing between air­craft, great­ly reduc­ing the allow­able tem­po of air­plane oper­a­tions com­pared with heli­copters. By instruct­ing air traf­fic con­trollers to man­age pow­ered-lift air­craft like heli­copters, this new guid­ance enables seam­less, high-tem­po oper­a­tions in busy air­space. 

For Joby, the recent flight test cam­paign in Dubai has been the best glimpse yet into the future of urban air mobil­i­ty. 

Papadopou­los empha­sis­es, “It not only expand­ed our under­stand­ing of the aircraft’s capa­bil­i­ties in real-world con­di­tions, but also high­light­ed the impor­tance of the com­po­nents, sys­tems and oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures need­ed for mar­ket launch.”

The insight gained is that Joby feels even more con­fi­dent and pre­pared now for its antic­i­pat­ed com­mer­cial ser­vice in Dubai, begin­ning next Spring.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.jobyaviation.com

(Top image: Joby Air­craft recent­ly fly­ing at Dubai)

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