Development of eVTOL Aircraft For Urban Air Mobility At Joby Aviation

Abstract:
Typical existing VTOL aircraft—notably, helicopters—are limited in their suitability to civil transportation due to high operating costs, high noise levels, and safety levels below other forms of commercial aviation. Modern electric propulsion technology offers potential solutions to these drawbacks and potentially allows for practical VTOL aircraft configurations less compromised than traditional solutions. Through a multiyear study of various configurations, Joby selected the tilt-propeller as the optimal approach to safely achieve relatively high speed, long range, and low noise in urban air mobility operations. Full-scale flight testing began with a demonstrator phase, demonstrating successful transition between thrustborne and wingborne flight in 2017, and proceeded to a pre-production prototype phase, demonstrating high performance, including a 249 km (134 nm) VTOL flight and a true airspeed of over 322 km/h (174 kt), as well as low noise, measuring 45 dB(A) at 500 m (1,640 ft) equivalent in flyover and under 65 dB(A) at 100 m (328 ft) equivalent in hover.

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