Joby Bay Area Demo Starts a Tour

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, hydrogen, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

A Bay Area Feat Joby Aviation flew its “FAA conforming” JAS4-1 N547JX in the Bay Area and beyond this week, the first of many demonstration flights it will perform nationwide as part of its Electric Skies Tour. “Conforming,” according to Flying magazine, “Means that the model aligns with Joby’s agency-approved airworthiness criteria and test plans. In other words, it is representative of the aircraft the company intends to certify and operate.” Flying around San Francisco brought out the local news crews, but Joby had a sentimental journey to reward its workers with a view of their long-term achievement. Landing at a quarry near the original Woodpeacker Ridge compound that was JoeBen Bevirt’s home and workshop, N545JX was welcomed by a crowd of workers and their families, alsways prominent in company events.  The Woodpecker Ridge site held probably less than three dozen workers in 2012, many of them grounds keepers and gardeners.  The blog has reported on personnel growth since then …

XPRIZE Wildfire Finalists

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, Electric Powerplants, satellites, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The XPrize Foundation had a significant announcement last week, the five finalists in the Wildfire Detection and Suppression Challange. The Foundation describes the wildfire competition this way: “Competitors in the Autonomous Wildfire Response Track are developing fully autonomous solutions to detect and suppress a high-risk fire in 10 minutes or less over a large, environmentally complex area roughly the size of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose combined, while avoiding decoy fires—a challenge that has never been tackled at this scale and scope before. These technologies have the potential to transform how fires are detected, managed, and fought, with a rate 4x faster than current best practices and shortening the time between detection and rapid response, minimizing negative impacts.” The competition is based on two tracks with a bonus high-speed fire detection prize, again quoting from the official XPrize Wildfire web site: “Track A: Space-Based Wildfire Detection and Intelligence tests teams’ ability to detect fires across vast, environmentally challenging landscapes …

Whisper Aero Unveils a Leaf Blower at CES

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Whisper Aero has a unique way of showing its cards at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  The Crossville, Tennessee-based company has developed an ultra-quiet electric propulsor that could power aircraft of varying sizes.  While nine Red Bull cyclists recently towed an ultralight sailplane skyward, two Whisper units could launch an ultralight flying wing hang glider. Beta Testing in the Hood In what seems to be a clever and cagy move, Mark Moore and Ian Villa have created an electric leaf blower using their quiet technology.  Putting their demonstrably quieter Whiasper Tone T1 in customer’s hands will unleash thousands of beta testers for the device and the technology. Your editor was a bit taken aback by the blower’s $599 price, but after comparing the T1 to units with which it is competitve, realized the addage about getting what you pay for is true in this instance.  The video below is a good comparison with other similar products.  Whisper …

XPrize for Drones Spotting and Fighting Fires

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

A Firefighting Competition Like No Other Xprize has given us budget space travel, hyper-economical cars, and attempts to replicate the medical functions of Star Trek’s Tricorder.  Now, the XPrize folks have turned their attentions to spotting and controlling wildfires by drones.  This fits well with the Sustainable Aviation Foundation (underwriting this blog) and its concerns about spotting and controlling wildfires at the earliest opportunity. To counter this, XPrize has launched an $11 million comptetiton to, “Protect lives, forests, and the climate: Create breakthrough technologies that detect and extinguish destructive wildfires, enabling a future where people and healthy fire can safely coexist.”  This challenge, promoting autonomous flight vehicles and the ability rapidly identify and extinguish incipient wildfires, initially drew 338 teams.  These have been culled to 15 semifinalist groups. The Semifinalists This worldwide problem drew worldwide interest.  The 15 teams are: Aerowatch of Barcelona, Spain Agni  part of TRID Systems in Dresden, Germany Anduril, in Costa Mesa, California Crossfire, College Park, Maryland (see …

Joby’s Autonomous Cessna and Its Competition

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Joby Aviation is testing an autonomous Cessna Caravan with the United States Air Force, part of “a successful demonstration and validation of its SuperpilotTM autonomous flight technology.”   The 208 Caravan logged more than 7,000 miles and 40 flight hours over the Pacific Ocean and Hawaii.  A similar Cessna 208 Caravan has been flying similar missions for Reliable Robotics.  And yet a third Caraban is flying for Merlin Labs on the U. S. East Coast and in New Zealand.  The three companies have chosen to test their autonomous systems on Caravans because of the craft’s reliability and availability worldwide. Over 3,000 Caravans worldwide and their Pratt & Whitney PT-6 turboprop engines contribute to their ongoing popularity. Joby and Its Superpilot According to a company press release, Joby’s autonomous control system, Superpilot, was integrated into a Cessna Caravan 208, and tasked with a variety of missions, including: Mission Readiness: Superpilot demonstrated the capability to execute rapid cargo deliveries, hub-and-spoke logistics, inter-island transport, dynamic retasking, …

Pivotal Helix Becomes Fire Department Volunteer

Dean Sigler Announcements, Autonomous Aircraft, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The Pivotal Helix eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) Aircraft “Gains Warm Response from California Fire Agencies in Multi-Agency Demonstration Series.”  That’s the headline for a Pivotal press release on its recent demonstration for three southern California fire departments.  Seeming to be almost a response to Dr. Brien Seeley’s recent front-page opinion section editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, Pivotal’s live show helped emergency responders see how rapid aerial response could aid their missions.   Dropping in on stations at the San Bernardino County Fire Department, Southern Marin Fire District (SMFD), and Cosumnes Fire Department, Pivotal personnel gave flight demonstrations and let firefighters try their hand at simulator flying. As Pivotal’s press release notes, “Each demo showcased the potential of Pivotal’s single-seat aircraft to dramatically improve emergency response capabilities, especially in locations where time, terrain and traffic can mean the difference between life and death.” Ken Karklin, CEO of Pivotal, added, “Our aircraft offers a cost-effective, rapidly deployable solution …

Pyka, a Potential Fire Supression Vehicle

Dean Sigler Autonomous Aircraft, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Pyka is an innovative company that’s been flying autonomously for over seven years.  Currently used in agricultural crop spraying and dusting operations, it seems to this editor that it could be a superb fire suppression vehicle.  Pyka’s youthful and exuberant crew would certainly be up to the task. Pyka’s latest product is a four-motor variant of their crop-spraying agricultural aircraft.  Holding 70 gallons of crop-fertilizing or bug-fighting liquid, the Cub-size craft can treat crops autonously, Because it’s autonomous with no pilot, Pyka is not risking anyone on board and can still fly after dark on its LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging)-based guidance. Interesting Engineering.com explains, “this technology utilizes pulsed lasers to accurately and constantly measure distances to a given target or area. LiDAR sensors are essentially light-based measurement and mapping tools that are incredibly useful in a variety of sectors.” Besides that, it has the coolest position lights of anything in the air. Pyka announced a partnership with Embraer, the Brazilian aircraft company, five …