Joby Aviation, the manufacturer of a four-passenger, all-electric, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) air taxi, is putting its aircraft structures to the test under the FAA’s watchful eye.
The company on Tuesday said it completed static load testing of the air taxi’s tail structure—a V-tail design equipped with a pair of electric tiltrotors—for certification credit with the regulator. It’s the first time Joby has tested a major aerostructure with FAA officials present.
“Completing for-credit static load testing on a major aircraft structure marks an important step towards certification of the Joby aircraft, and we’re very pleased with the results,” said Didier Papadopoulos, president of aircraft OEM at Joby.
Joby’s flagship design is built for a pilot to fly as many as four passengers on quiet, zero-emission trips, cruising at 200 mph. It has a maximum range of about 150 miles on a single charge. But early operations will center around a home-to-airport service in partnership with Delta Air Lines, anticipated to launch as soon as next year. Routes will cover major U.S. cities including New York and Los Angeles.
The aircraft—which lifts off vertically like a helicopter but cruises on fixed wings—will be certified in the recently revised powered-lift category, a change in course from the FAA’s previous plan to certify VTOL designs as normal category airplanes with special conditions. The switch forced the manufacturer to essentially restart the type certification process from scratch.
Since then, however, Joby has obtained Part 135 air carrier, Part 145 repair station, and Part 141 training academy approvals, as well as a fresh set of airworthiness criteria. The FAA, meanwhile, this year proposed new certification criteria for air taxis. It also finalized an initial set of rules for powered-lift pilot training and operations, which Joby welcomed.
The manufacturer said it completed 30 for-credit tests of the air taxi’s electronics and materials at the end of last year. But evaluating a larger structural component like the tail represents a new phase of for-credit testing.
During the tests—which took place at Joby’s headquarters in Santa Cruz, California—engineers loaded an FAA-conforming tail structure with forces exceeding those the air taxi is expected to experience in flight. Criteria for the campaign, which will give the regulator necessary data on the aircraft’s structures, systems, and components, were approved by the agency earlier this year.
The FAA said it does not comment on specific certification projects, instead directing FLYING to a publicly available aircraft certification guide. According to that page, data from these proving tests—as the regulator refers to them—will be input by agency observers into a data collection tool and analyzed to confirm that the aircraft performed as intended.
After that, the next move rests with the FAA. The agency could require Joby to correct any “significant unsatisfactory items” uncovered during testing. Then, it will decide whether to issue a type certificate.
Should Joby obtain type certification by next year, as it expects, the company could become the first to launch commercial air taxi flights in the U.S. Competitor Archer Aviation is also advancing through the process, with a similar entry into service target.
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The post Joby Starts Testing Electric Air Taxi Structures With FAA appeared first on FLYING Magazine.
