joby Archives - JulietBravoFox Media

October 23, 2024October 24, 2024

An SFAR Signed at NBAA BACE 2024

The machinations of rulemaking crank through on often mysterious schedules…and we’ve collectively as an industry both suffered and been rewarded as of late with the timeliness of FAA process.

But the stars aligned for NBAA’s team in particular on Tuesday at BACE in Las Vegas, as the FAA released the SFAR (special federal aviation regulation) governing the new powered lift category just in time for administrator Mike Whitaker to sign it into action after his appearance with NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen at the morning keynote. You could practically hear them popping corks in the D.C. offices all the way to Vegas.

This was the big news I’d alluded to in yesterday’s post. Yes, we have witnessed a milestone in the aviation story.

Mike Whitaker, FAA Administrator, delivers the great news on the SFAR on VTOL aircraft to Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA at BACE 2024 Tuesday morning. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

The SFAR on Powered Lift

The ruling and its amendments outline the parameters for pilot certification, operating rules for powered-lift ops, and give guidance on how those aircraft will integrate into the national airspace system (NAS) with fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft. The rules are performance-based, for the most part, which means they generally tell OEMs and operators the metrics they need to achieve rather than prescribing strictly how they will achieve them.

That’s fantastic news for contenders in the market such as Joby, Archer, Lilium, and others who are well on their way into flight testing conforming (or near-conforming) initial production models, standing up the lines to make them, and building out training and support infrastructure.

JP Stewart and B.Marc Allen deliver the latest updates on the E9 hybrid electric STOL aircraft program at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Electra Aero and eSTOL

But wait… there was more in store yesterday in terms of truly new aircraft program updates. Though their big reveal of the E9 “G0” test article won’t take place til November 13, Electra Aero’s J.P. Stewart and B. Marc Allen walked the media through the progress of the two-seat demonstrator and its test campaign underway in northern Virginia.

As a fan of short takeoff and landing (STOL) airplanes, I love this concept, which uses blown and distributed lift to enable super-slow takeoff and landing speeds, bringing those distances reliably under 150 feet. Stewart reported that they had the airplane down to 22 knots in flight—and they haven’t found the stall speed yet.

Think about that for a second. I can’t wait to witness the 9-seat version flying, likely next year.

Bombardier founder Laurent Beaudoin and chairman Pierre Beaudoin of Bombardier with Lisa Stark receiving the Meritorious Service Award at NBAA BACE. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Inspiration… in Great Leaders

The other keynotes also touched the SRO audience at the morning session. First, Laurent and Pierre Beaudoin, the father-and-son leaders of Bombardier, received the Meritorious Service Award from NBAA for their dedication to building a benchmark airframe OEM out of a company that manufactured snowmobiles in Quebec in the 1960s.

And Joby’s Bonny Simi—riding a serious high with the SFAR now enabling her to press forward in defining ops and training for the eVTOL OEM—delighted in her conversation with astrophysicist/personality Neil deGrasse Tyson. We all did. Tyson managed to paint with words the picture of his 9-year-old self first seeing the stars inside a planetarium, and feeling so moved that he would make astrophysics his life’s work. I’m putting his book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, on my reading list. It’s one of Bonny’s faves, she says. Good enough for me.

The Bombardier Challenger 3500 at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Inspiration… in Great Airplanes

In the afternoon, I made it out to the static display at Henderson airport (KHND), to meet up with Bombardier’s comms team for an introduction to the Challenger 3500. With this update to the legendary CL-30 type, Bombardier has made a workhorse of the corporate fleet into a thoroughbred. I don’t usually turn right upon entering a business jet, but I needed to try out the Nuage seats that line the bright, well-windowed cabin.

But I didn’t get too comfortable, because demo pilot Mark Ohlau had a tour ready for me of the Collins Pro Line 21 Advanced integrated flight deck. I nestled into the left seat behind the significant and traditional leather-covered yoke, and he walked me through the pilot-centered “dark cockpit,” so well organized that it doesn’t need an overhead panel. Ohlau especially likes the MultiScan weather radar, which has enabled his trips all around the globe in the airplane—including a recent bucket-list approach into Paro, Bhutan.

Stay tuned for a full pilot report to come…

The Arrivée Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet on the static display at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

I visited other favorite airplanes on the display, in particular the latest Cirrus SR G7 launch edition, and the SF50 Vision Jet Microsoft Flight Sim edition, in honor of its inclusion in the latest release of that software. I also took some time to admire the latest Daher Kodiak 900, the multi-mission APEX version, with a digital camo paint scheme to suit its Swiss-Army-knife capabilities in the field.

Looking forward to my Day Three at the show…prepping for the Climbing.Fast panel with business aviation leaders who champion the sustainability cause. That facet of BACE kicked off Tuesday morning (early…yawn!) with a panel update co-hosted by GAMA.

I get up that early just to see what stylish (and sustainable?) ensemble Embraer’s Michael Amalfitano has pulled together… always check the socks.

The media breakfast on Tuesday championed the Climbing.Fast. program and progress made on various pillars of the push to net-zero emissions by 2025. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

September 27, 2024September 29, 2024

Seeing the Future on the PCH

Driving back from the Santa Monica Airport to my friend’s house in Agoura Hills, I have the option of going the coastal route, skipping the 101 and its traffic vagaries and headaches.

The Pacific Coast Highway up to Malibu, with a turnoff right at Pepperdine (Waves!!) snuggles me in like a old pair of yoga pants as I join the parade past the beaches to the left and the Palisades rising to the right.

Just past the turnoff to the Bay Inn, a motion above the water ahead catches my eye. I think it’s a helicopter—those fly by regularly on this stretch of SoCal—but I register with a start that it could have been the Joby demonstrator, “N54LAX,” that had been on display all day at KSMO, in honor of Donald Douglas Day.

Had I just witnessed a milestone in history? Not quite. But I saw our future.

In a conversation with Joby founder JoeBen Bevirt last year, his tone and his passion as he related his desire to innovate point-to-point transport into a whisper-quiet, zero-emissions occurrence touched me. It came back in waves—yes—as I slowed and stopped at the next light, considering my trip up the coast versus the joyful flight those members of the Joby team would have enjoyed on their sightseeing cruise. While the 228-nm flight back home to Marina wasn’t in the cards—but could it be, at this moment in time, completed directly by airplane or helicopter—or eVTOL? In near silence, at dollars per hour instead of thousands?

Well, here we are. That future is imminent.

What a fitting close to Donald Douglas Day, celebrating a man who brought commercial air transport to the masses with the Douglas DC-3, nearly 90 years ago.

He would have *loved* the Joby, Archer, Pivotal, Pipistrel, and Airhart displays at Santa Monica on “his” day.

July 20, 2024

Joby: At Three Intersectional Moments in Flight?

Simplified flight controls have been on my mind of late. Triggered this week by a conversation with Nikita Ermoshkin, founder of Airhart, and past ones with various flight control engineers and pilots at Dassault, Embraer, and Gulfstream, translating aileron, elevator, and rudder input into a single joystick control won’t just be for bizjets and F35s.

Airhart began proving its model in a Van’s RV-12, and now a Sling E-LSA. Joby’s flight control system takes it a step further by incorporating VTOL flight requirements into a speed control (set it and forget it) and a side stick. Could creating an ease of flight for the average person finally make possible the increase in aircraft production necessary to reduce its overall cost? We’re quickly approaching this first transformational point.

At the same time, another sea change approaches. While Joby builds toward its first certificated eVTOL using electric motors and battery packs charged through currently available ground based sources (renewable or not), it is working concurrently on a hybrid-electric model fueled by liquid hydrogen. In fact, it flew one of its remotely piloted test articles (with a power system developed by H2FLY) in the vicinity of the Marina Airport in California for an eye popping 523 statute miles during a flight time of four hours, 47 minutes. The intention? To prove the viability of the next version for regional transportation, not just the 50-to-100-mile hops planned for the all-electric model.

“Rather than just connecting metropolitan areas, we’re able to connect between metropolitan areas,” said JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, in a technology roundtable hosted by Joby virtually on July 17. “We think this is another game-changing technology.”

“It’s just a glimpse as to what the power of this platform is,” said Eric Allison, Joby’s chief product officer, in the same discussion.

Hydrogen-fueled flight compels in spite of the challenges to contain it because it is so energy dense, and leaves only water vapor behind. Putting this power into Joby’s platform would actually make possible the timeline for achieving net-zero carbon emissions in aviation by 2050. A second key element.

The third? The ability to bring these aircraft into our neighborhoods because of the substantial reduction in noise they produce as compared to a piston airplane, let alone a helicopter. Ever been surprised by a Tesla sneaking up on you? That’s the relative quiet of Joby’s first production model, based on both their objective noise reporting and my impression of it standing on the ramp at Marina about 100 feet away.

Ease of flight control. Hydrogen power. Big noise reduction. The intersection of these three elements lies just ahead, if Joby makes good on its efforts.

“I want to frame this moment in time as one of the most exciting times in aviation,” said Bevirt. I happen to agree.

Joby also recently announced plans for a large flight training facility in Watsonville, so I asked Bevirt and Allison: Is the plan to continue with the original piloted version to be first to market, with an autonomous version to follow, given the acquisition of the Xwing autonomous platform development business?

“We are laser-focused on bringing a piloted eVTOL aircraft to market, and are establishing pilot training facilities, curricula, and simulators to support the introduction of that aircraft to markets around the globe,” Joby’s team replied after the roundtable.

“Xwing’s comprehensive approach, and expertise in perception technology, system integration and certification, is expected to benefit both near-term piloted operations for Joby as well as fully autonomous operations in the future.“

Joby’s plan has long been to apply autonomous versions of its aircraft to the air taxi market once the concepts underpinning them are proven operationally. So the Xwing acquisition, along with the recent announcement of ElevateOS, Joby’s customer interface, feel timely.

We’re not quite ready for autonomous flight. But more than ever, we can see it from here.

March 8, 2024March 8, 2024

Women in Aviation Day, by Joby

On Wednesday, March 6, Joby Aviation hosted a reception celebrating Women in Aviation in honor of the official #InternationalWomensDay on March 8. It gathered a handful of significant women in leadership to speak, including Bonny Simi, president of operations for Joby, Joanna Geraghty, CEO of JetBlue and Senators Duckworth and Cantwell. From their inspiring words—and boards crafted from the FAA’s Women in Aviation Advisory Board report out last year—I walked away with the following takes:

1. We need women to make up a larger percentage of the pool of potential aviation careerists so that we can swell the numbers in that group—and thereby draw the best stars from a larger pool. If we only attract half the population with our promise, we may wait longer for the geniuses we need to deliver on that promise.

2. Women leaders serve as role models to those entering the industry, as well as those rising through the ranks. At every stage in my career, through all its twists and turns, I’ve had women and men who have guided me—but those women in CEO or business ownership positions have resonated with me on a viseral level. In my role at Flying, I felt this keenly, calling on a wide range of mentors who motivated and supported me.

3. Thanks to Insta and its influencers, women pilots are more visible, and reach out to inspire young people who may not have known what was possible back in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, as Sen. Duckworth noted from her own entry into the service. And though the percentages entering airline classes have ticked up—at some airlines more than others—the stubborn truth is that we haven’t moved the needle enough to even match the percentages of women in other STEM fields—20 vs 26 percent. Work rules that benefit all parents will help more—and as Bonny pointed out, short-range eVTOLs naturally suit any pilot who prefers to—or needs to—spend each night at home.

4. And Sen. Cantrell’s observation that she noticed a higher percentage of women in the composites area at the Technology Center at the University of Washington? While she compared the mix of chemistry and physics in elaborating new processes to baking, I think that the complex problem solving within a quieter environment would hold appeal to those more in tune with the laminations of a pastry chef as opposed to the brute force often involved in bending and shaping metal—male or female. As the science evolves, so will the workforce to craft it. As we highlight the women succeeding every day in these fields, we expand the appeal of our industry to everyone, lifting us up—together.

For a highlights reel, visit our YouTube channel.