Fifth test aircraft rolls off Joby Aviation production line
May 7, 2025
Joby Aviation is celebrating the fifth aircraft to roll off its pilot manufacturing line in Marina, California, which will join the company’s flight test fleet pending completion of final checkups.
The recently completed eVTOL – registration N545JX – will be the sixth unit in Joby’s flight test fleet, which includes two aircraft stationed at Edwards Air Force Base. One of the latter pair, deployed to Korea for demonstration flights last year, has since returned to Edwards AFB. The test fleet also includes a unique hybrid hydrogen-electric aircraft prototype, which made a milestone 523 mile flight in 2024.
“We’re flying more than ever as we push towards certification and early commercial use,” confirmed Joby in a statement on social media. “In April alone, our team completed eight flights a day across two aircraft in two locations. The pace is picking up, and we’re just getting started”.
In May 2024, announcing it had successfully completed its pre-production prototype flight test programme, Joby said that its two pre-production aircraft had completed “more than 1,500 flights, spanning a total distance of over 3,000 miles, including more than 100 flights with a pilot onboard”.
This airborne testing is augmented by ground-based learnings, including at Joby’s ‘Integrated Test Lab’ at Edwards AFB; undertaken to “confirm the redundancy present throughout the aircraft’s design” through the simulation of “in-flight events such as simulated motor-out and batter-out occurrences”.
Last month, Joby celebrated what it called a “testing landmark” of achieving manned transition flight; something it has conducted numerous times with various pilots at the controls. Since becoming the first eVTOL developer to demonstrate a full-scale, remotely piloted transition flight of its aircraft prototype in 2017, Joby has since completed over 40,000 miles of test flights “across multiple aircraft… as well as more than a hundred flights with a pilot onboard in hover and low-speed flight,” explained the manufacturer.
Joby is set to deliver its first aircraft to Dubai later this year “to complete flight testing ahead of first passenger flights in the region,” an area set to represent the type’s first commercial operations (pending type certification).
