The world is preparing for air travel of the future. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently announced its final rule for powered lift operations, which include air taxis, cargo delivery and a variety of operations within urban and rural areas. The rule defines the qualifications and training needed for instructors and pilots to fly aircraft in this “powered-lift” category. The rule also addresses operational requirements, including minimum safe altitudes and required visibility.
“The rule is the final piece in the puzzle for safely introducing these aircraft in the near term,” said an FAA press release. “The opportunities for the use of powered lift operations are far reaching, from transporting passengers in urban areas and short-haul operations such as air ambulance services and cargo operations to potentially serving smaller communities over time.”
One company that is making huge progress in developing this new category of aircraft is Joby Aviation. In February 2024, it became the first electric air taxi developer in the world to complete three of the five stages of the FAA’s type certification process, which ensures aircraft design complies with regulations for safe and public use.
Joby’s electric air taxi is designed to carry a pilot and four passengers at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour (mph), offering high-speed mobility with zero operating emissions and a fraction of the noise produced by helicopters.
Its advancement through the first three stages of type certification is no mean feat: Joby submitted plans that covered all the aircraft’s structural, mechanical and electrical systems, as well as the company’s intended certification approach to cybersecurity, human factors and noise.
“We have to certify electric motors. We have to certify the battery systems. We have to certify the fly-by-wire electronics that enable pilots to fly these amazing new machines. That’s a lot of work,” said Eric Allison, Joby Aviation’s chief product officer. “We have to work with the regulators to define the safety requirements for this new class of technologies. We have to define how we’re going to meet those safety requirements. And then we have to work on all of the myriad of tests, all of the test plans, all of the things we have to do to show compliance with that set of rules that we’ve agreed with the regulators on. We’re deep into that process right now.”
Joby couldn’t have achieved what it has to date without fully standardizing on Dassault Systèmes technologies, including CATIA for design and ENOVIA for data management.
“This is really a big advantage for us, that we have a best-in-class system that we can use to track, manage and ultimately act on, manufacture and bring to market what started out as data and turns into the real world,” Allison said. “To create world-class technology, you have to use world-class technology.”
Joby is now progressing through the fourth stage of the certification process, which will see it complete tests and analysis for FAA credit covering every component and system on the Joby aircraft – as well as the entire aircraft itself.
“We have a clear path to certifying every aspect of our aircraft, and the team is full steam ahead on executing against that path as we continue to lead the industry to commercialization,” said Didier Papadopoulos, president of aircraft OEM at Joby, in a press release.
Find out how Dassault Systèmes solutions enabled Joby to establish a single digital thread across all its operations and is helping it to consider the requirements for certification at every step of development.