Joby Gets Certified, Stock Jumps

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

“Joby Aviation has received a Federal Aviation Administration Special Airworthiness Certificate for the first aircraft built at its pilot production line in Marina, California, allowing Joby to begin flight testing of its first production prototype” according to Dan Carney’s reporting in Design News. Having visited the Woodpecker Ridge development site and written about Joby Energy and Joby Aviation since 2010, your editor has seen remarkable progress in the company.  JoeBen Bevirt had about a dozen engineers working in his design studio then, and that has steadily grown to around 1,300 employees today spread over several workshops and administrative offices along the central California coastline. What is This Thing Called, Love? From the paperwork in the Federal Register detailing Joby’s application for a Notice of proposed airworthiness criteria, Joby Aero, Inc. is asking for guidance on its Model JAS4-1 Powered-Lift. Since the craft is not described as an airplane, helicopter or with other terminology, the Register includes this note: “The Joby …

Sky Taxis, Eviation Featured on TV News

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60 Minutes and The Today Show have recently featured sky taxis and future electric airliners on their broadcasts.  This is big news in that such transport is getting recognition in popular media, and even somewhat of a fair hearing.  Even though references to the Jetsons are common in such reports, both these excursions seemed to be less wide-eyed, biased, and skeptical than most. Lift Hexa Although LIFT’s Hexa is featured prominently in publicity for the show, Wisk’s CEO is featured in this promotional piece.  “We’re excited to share that we’ll be on this weekend’s episode of @60Minutes on @cbstv! Be sure to tune in as our CEO, Gary Gysin, sits down with @AndersonCooper to talk about the future of #mobility!” LIFT had a say in promoting the show.  “Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour is one of the worst things about the morning commute. But what if people could fly over the gridlock? Anderson Cooper takes a ride in …

Following the Sky Taxi Money: eVTOLs

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As though by magic, money from Wall Street, venture capitalists and other investors show a growing interest and cash flow in sky taxis.  It started on August 11 with JoeBen Bevirt of JOBY ringing the bell that starts trading on the stock market floor. As one web site points out, it’s up to the discretion of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as to who gets to ring the bell and, “Only those companies with stocks or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on the exchange can ring the bell.” We’ll look at a sampling of companies making electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles and selling in domestic and foreign markets for an overview of what’s hot.  Later, we’ll look at the inroads being made by makers of fixed-wing aerial vehicles in the nascent regional market. Archer “The closing of the business combination (with Atlas Crest Investment Corp.) generated $857.6 million of gross proceeds, which will help fund Archer’s vision …

EmbraerX and Pyka Team Up

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Accelerating Innovation Embraer, a major Brazilian airframe developer, and Pyka, an Oakland, California-based autonomous agricultural aircraft builder, are teaming up.  They hope, “To accelerate the future of autonomous aerial agriculture operations.”  Beyond that, Pyka is expanding into regional air transport which could open 5,000 U. S. airports to usually unserved areas. Pyka has flown autonomous agricultural aircraft in New Zealand for over two years, demonstrating high efficiency and economy in aerial application, or crop dusting (or spraying) as it’s historically called.  Apparently, the island nation’s Part 101 and 102 civil aviation licensing requirements are receptive to such flight.  According to Dan Grossman, Pyka’s new President (and formerly of Zipcar, Ford and Maven), Pelican made more than 3,000 flights. Airframer.com reports, “Grossman joins a team of former Joby Aviation, Google, Wisk, Makani and Saildrone engineers and leaders. ‘Electric and hydrogen propulsion technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the future of human mobility,’ he says. ‘Pyka’s benchmark-setting electric propulsion systems, …

Archer Debuts – Meet Its Maker

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Immersive Introduction Amidst stage smoke and Hollywood-style dazzling lights, Archer Aviation “flew” its Maker into public view two weeks ago.  On an immersive cinema platform in a hangar in Hawthorne, California, Maker emerged amid all the pounding two drummers could produce.  It seemed to hover above the varied scenery over which it appeared and the on-stage and on-screen special effects were special indeed. The cynosure of the hoopla, however, was strangely static, even though its guiding lights were highly animated.  Co-founders and Co-CEOs Brett Adcock and Adam Goldstein performed flawlessly in promoting their creation, adding to the professionalism of the event.  Since the event was inside, and the crowd was allowed to come on stage under the rotor blades, it was probably prudent to have the motors raised and inactive. Less static in this Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD) rendering, the Maker displays the flow around its 12 rotors in vertical flight.  Since battery tests are underway, perhaps soon we will …

Joby Aviation’s eVTOL Makes a Quiet Debut

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Joby Aviation’s recent debut of a very quiet eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft has caused a stir in the aviation and financial worlds. Silent operation, or as near silent as possible, is essential to the future success of the sky taxi ideal.  Toward that end, JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, has been working out the many aspects of  eVTOL flight for over the past decade.  Starting with kites that would generate electricity and pass it down their tethers to ground-based substations, he advanced to investigate how tilting wings and tilting rotors could safely carry passengers to their destinations.  He initially recruited a small band of engineers that’s grown to over 700 employees today and created sky taxi that’s drawn the attention of Toyota, Uber, and several venture capitalists. Selling the Silence Most makers of eVTOL machines promote their machines through videos that have musical soundtracks covering operational noises.  This is true even for Joby, …

Longer Aerial Commutes to Affordability

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Exurbs and Extended Range Urban Air Mobility (UAM) may be only a small part of electric aerial transport in the next decade.   Longer-range vehicles may enable longer aerial commutes to affordable country homes. Cities are becoming too expensive for most families, and examples abound of commuters traveling over 100 miles to and from work.  Two years ago in San Francisco, for instance, the cheapest home (a true “fixer-upper”) was listed at $699,900, a sum that used to include significant acreage and servants’ quarters.  A “typical” home price in SFO is over $1,400,000.  As a result, workers travel from places like Manteca, 76.4 miles downtown to downtown and one hour, 35 minutes in a car on a good day.  Manteca’s homes average less than $400,000. During the 2019 Sustainable Aviation Symposium at UC Berkeley’s Pauley Ballroom, Susan Dell ‘Osso, President of River Islands Development LLC, talked about Planning Sustainable Communities for California’s Future. She didn’t sell condos and single-family dwellings, but, …

Joby “Unicorn” Gains Private, Military Backing

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Joby Aviation is one of few “unicorns” in the electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) market, a billion-dollar enterprise.  With funding coming from Toyota, several venture capital investors, Uber and the U. S. Army, Joby seems poised to demonstrate Urban Air Mobility (UAM) in a serious way. In 2011 JoeBen Bevirt, founder of Joby Energy, Joby Aviation, and creator of those knobby-looking tripods you see everywhere, invited Patrick McLaughlin to visit his design studio.  Your editor got to tag along.  On Woodpecker Ridge, north of Santa Cruz, JoeBen’s barn-like studio housed about a dozen engineers and designers all working on electricity-generating kites.  He wore a T-shirt reading, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”  That edginess has helped him, in the last decade to be a major player, with now over 500 employees in the aviation sector.  JoeBen and Patrick discussed motor design and integration with a controller Patrick had built from off-the-shelf …

Wright Electric, ARPA-E, and Life’s Report Card

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If, as the infamous cartoon in the New Yorker proclaimed, “Money is life’s report card,” Jeff Engler’s Wright Electric got a least a B+ for its current semester.  While not as flush with cash as firms like Joby Aviation, eHang, or Volocopter, Wright received significant recognition for its initiative in designing high-efficiency electric motors with a high-frequency inverter and “an aggressive cooling strategy.”  The $647,039 ARPA-E grant will further Wright’s work on the ARPA-E ASCEND Project. ASCEND stands for Aviation-class Synergistically Cooled Electric-motors with iNtegrated Drives, a sure-fire Scrabble winner and pretty tortuous acronym. Phase one of the project takes the team through the detailed design and subcomponent testing for the system.  Phase two will see Wright build and demonstrate the system. Only a startup in 2017, Wright Electric has managed to partner with easyJet, a European budget airline, to develop a 186-seat electric aircraft called Wright 1.  With others in startup mode flying six and ten-passenger aircraft and looking …

Rising Above It: How the Automotive Industry is Elevating Urban Air Transport

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Introducing Giles Kirkland Editor’s Note: Today’s guest writer, Giles Kirkland, “… is a passionate car expert and dedicated automotive writer. He always researches on the newest car technologies and willingly tries them out, then sharing his thoughts and expertise with other automotive and technology enthusiasts across the globe. You can find Giles and his ideas at Oponeo and on Twitter.”  Since he lives in England, he tends to spell things like “tyres” differently, but also writes about them with great depth and charm.  Herewith, his introduction to our readers.  We hope to feature his insights in future outings. Many governments, industries and groups push for a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic or simply make increasing efforts towards reducing the negative impact of people’s daily practices on the environment. We look at how the automotive industry is already backing sustainable aviation—and why. Why the Car Industry Cares about Green Aviation The car industry has expertise in mass-producing vehicles to high safety standards …