Joby Aviation has delivered its eVTOL aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, giving the air taxi developer a major boost as it seeks commercial certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The eVTOL delivered to Edwards Air Force Base in California is the first of nine Joby eVTOLs slated to be delivered to the Air Force as part of a $131 million contract under the service’s Agility Prime program, which aims to partner with industry on “transformative vertical lift” technology.
Joby and Air Force pilots will operate test flights with the Joby aircraft — the same design as the company’s commercial air taxi eVTOL — to explore potential military use cases, including personnel and cargo transport.
Data gained from the test flights will also help FAA regulators as they move toward awarding an airworthiness certificate to the Joby eVTOL, the Santa Cruz, California-based company said.
Joby head of government and regulatory affairs Greg Bowles told Vertical in an interview that the Air Force “is really good at understanding” complicated flight technology and will be able to “help FAA in areas where [the Air Force’s] 30-plus years of learning [on advanced avionics] can be beneficial.” He added that there is also “a huge benefit that we’ve seen where FAA is helping the Air Force to understand airworthiness [requirements] on electric motors and … on battery safety.”
Cooperation between the Air Force and FAA is beneficial because “we’re in a new era,” Bowles said. “We’re in the era of electric propulsion. And the government is doing a really good job of using its skill sets and working in a positive way to keep on the leading edge of things.”
Joby plans to deliver a second eVTOL to the Air Force at Edwards by early 2024.
“We have an opportunity to experiment with a real aircraft much sooner than we would in a typical acquisitions program,” Beau Griffith, the Agility Prime deputy lead, told Vertical.
He said there are significant cost efficiencies to working with Joby rather than waiting for years and spending substantial government funds for a solution.
“We are approaching this by saying, hey, there’s already a product out there and this is technology with which we have relatively little experience. So for pennies on the dollar, we’re gaining that experience evaluating these aircraft’s potential for military-relevant use cases, and also providing unique resources beyond financing to these companies, [including high-caliber] test equipment,” Griffith said. “It goes without saying the Air Force and the Navy have the largest and most qualified cadre of test pilots in the entire world.”
Over the coming months, Air Force and Joby pilots will conduct joint flight testing at Edwards “to demonstrate the aircraft’s capabilities in realistic mission settings,” according to Joby. “On-base operations will also include the training of Air Force pilots and aircraft maintenance crews, which will provide the [U.S. Department of Defense] with valuable insight into the performance of eVTOL aircraft and will give Joby on-the-ground operational and training experience as the company prepares for the launch of commercial passenger service in 2025.”
Joby said its eVTOL has already been flying at Edwards and “is the first electric air taxi to be stationed on a U.S. military base. [It’s] believed to be the first delivery of an electric air taxi in the U.S.”
Griffith said a “key piece” of the Agility Prime program is to “add a lot of value to this [eVTOL] industry with the ability to accelerate some of these operational experiments.”
He added that “leveraging high voltage electric architectures” for vertical lift is something the Air Force is keen on exploring.
Bowles said the Agility Prime test flights will demonstrate that the Joby eVTOL will have multiple use cases. “Logistics has never been more in vogue,” he noted. “We’re going to watch the aircraft start to prove out various missions that are possible and also do training for pilots.”
The Joby eVTOL is “a great utility platform,” Bowles said, adding it will be able to do more than just commercial air taxi flights.
“When you design a vehicle to carry people, you’re achieving the highest levels of reliability and safety,” he said. “It’s a platform that can then be very flexible and do a whole lot of things. It’s important to achieve that highest rung [of commercial passenger transport safety] and then from there you can fulfill a whole range of missions.”
