The aspiring air taxi company Joby Aviation just completed a complicated in-air maneuver that puts the company’s futuristic-looking aircraft on the path toward Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight testing.
Joby successfully flew one of its six-rotor aircraft from vertical hover to horizontal cruise flight and back again with a pilot onboard, showcasing the aircraft’s versatility in the air—a key value proposition of Joby’s sleek, electrically powered design.
The test flight took place on April 22 at the company’s facility in Marina, California, and was piloted by James “Buddy” Denham, Joby’s chief test pilot. Denham is no stranger to envelope-pushing aircraft—he previously helped design flight control systems for the F-35B fighter jet.
But the recent aircraft, called N544JX, is designed to be an air taxi, not a fighter jet. Thus, it’s only designed to travel up to 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour), carrying up to four passengers and producing less noise than a helicopter.
The electric aircraft makes vertical lift-offs and landings (eVTOL), allowing it to fly to and land in dense urban centers or places otherwise devoid of runways. According to a Joby release, the company is on track to complete its flight testing in the middle of 2025, ahead of its first passenger flights in the Middle East.
“Designing and flying an aircraft that can seamlessly transition between vertical and cruise flight has long been considered one of the most challenging technological feats in aerospace,” said Denham in the Joby release. “The aircraft flew exactly as expected, with excellent handling qualities and low pilot workload.”
Joby didn’t just, uh, wing this. The company has completed 40,000 miles (64,374 km) of test flights to date and hundreds of transitions from the aircraft’s vertical takeoff to its cruise flight position. The FAA certified Joby’s air taxi to carry passengers in 2022, a year after the company went public, but the company has yet to clear every hurdle necessary to bring the aircraft to market.
Joby’s fleet of five electric air taxis is routinely performing piloted vertical-to-cruise transitions, most recently completing the full flight cycle from horizontal cruise to vertical landing under pilot control. But there’s a long road ahead towards type inspection authorization (TIA) flight testing with FAA pilots aboard the craft. TIA testing is one of the final steps in certifying the aircraft to hold commercial passengers, and crucially checks whether the aircraft is up to snuff in terms of performance and safety metrics.
The company still has some testing hurdles to clear, including a foray into the Middle East, but Joby’s unique-looking air taxis may make their way into America’s skyways very soon.
