Joby Aviation has announced it has begun manned flight testing of its eVTOL.
To date, four of the company’s test pilots have flown the pre-production prototype, carrying out a series of hovering manoeuvres as well as transitions to semi-thrust-borne flight designed to gather data on the aircraft’s handling qualities and pilot control interfaces.
This is aimed at supporting the development of the aircraft and laying the groundwork for future “for credit” testing when the flight testing element of the FAA certification programme gets underway.
So far, all the testing has been flown from Joby’s Marina, California, base. However, there are plans for testing at Edwards Air Force Base with expansion and mission-proving tests flown by both USAF and Joby pilots to begin before year-end.
