Joby Moves Forward “to Next Phase of eVTOL Test Program”

Joby Avi­a­tion announced this week, it has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its pre-pro­duc­tion flight test pro­gram and is now focused on the next phase of tri­alling, where the com­pa­ny is to employ a pro­duc­tion pro­to­type air­craft to pre­pare for upcom­ing for-cred­it flight test­ing, reports a press release.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, remarked, “Over the course of this pro­gram, tens of thou­sands of miles have been flown using today’s bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy. Our pre-pro­duc­tion air­craft are the sec­ond full-scale gen­er­a­tion of Joby’s design, and their per­for­mance met or exceed­ed our pre­dic­tions, suc­cess­ful­ly achiev­ing tar­gets for max­i­mum range speed and acoustic foot­print.”

Joby first began fly­ing full-scale pre-pro­duc­tion pro­to­type air­craft over four years ago, and “the company’s two pre-pro­duc­tion air­craft sub­se­quent­ly com­plet­ed more than 1,500 flights, span­ning a total dis­tance of over 33,000 miles, includ­ing more than 100 flights with a pilot onboard,” explains the release. “The sec­ond pre-pro­duc­tion air­craft also com­plet­ed the first elec­tric air taxi exhi­bi­tion flights in New York City, when it flew from the Man­hat­tan Down­town Heli­port over the Hud­son Riv­er in Novem­ber 2023.”

Bevirt con­tin­ued, “Suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ing this rig­or­ous tri­al pro­gram has allowed us to pro­ceed to ramp pro­duc­tion with full con­fi­dence, with the sec­ond eVTOL air­craft rolling off the line at our pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia, ear­li­er this week.” 

He added, “Learn­ings from the flight test­ing have been invalu­able to our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram as well as to the broad­er devel­op­ment of reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works around elec­tric VTOL air­craft, val­i­dat­ing the per­for­mance, safe­ty and acoustics of our design, while pro­vid­ing insight into dai­ly oper­a­tions and main­te­nance.”

James ‘Bud­dy’ Den­ham

James ‘Bud­dy’ Den­ham, Joby Chief Test Pilot, and the first per­son to fly onboard Joby’s full-scale pro­to­type air­craft, com­ment­ed, “Over the past four years, we have thor­ough­ly test­ed and stud­ied the air­craft in flight, from pre­ci­sion land­ing and out­wash to human fac­tors. We often flew mul­ti­ple flights per day, demon­strat­ing an abil­i­ty to fly in a wide vari­ety of weath­er and oper­a­tional con­di­tions. As a result, we have the most expe­ri­enced and pro­fes­sion­al eVTOL flight test team in the world.”

For more infor­ma­tion

www.jobyaviation.com

(Images: Joby Avi­a­tion)

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