Joby makes world record hydrogen-electric VTOL flight
Californian eVTOL developer Joby has conducted a first-of-its-kind hydrogen-electric demonstration, with its prototype air taxi demonstrator successfully making a 523 mile flight “with water as the only by-product”. It is believed to be the first forward flight of a hydrogen-powered VTOL aircraft.
This groundbreaking test flight – which builds on Joby’s ongoing battery-electric eVTOL development programme – was completed using a converted Joby pre-production prototype aircraft. However, this unit was fitted with a liquid hydrogen fuel tank and fuel cell system.
Joby designed and built the demonstrator’s liquid hydrogen fuel tank (capable of storing up to 40kg of liquid fuel), which – operating alongside a “reduced mass of batteries” to provide additional power during take-off and landing– feeds hydrogen into a fuel cell system, designed and built by H2FLY. This produces electricity, water and heat, with the former powering the aircraft’s six electric motors.
“The vast majority of the design, testing and certification work we’ve completed on our battery-electric aircraft carries over to commercialising hydrogen-electric flight,” explained JoeBen Bevirt, Joby’s founder and CEO. “In service, we also expect to be able to use the same landing pads, the same operations team, and Joby’s ElevateOS software”.
Joby’s hydrogen-electric demonstrator is the result of a collaboration between the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary H2FLY. The Stuttgart, Germany-based company achieved another record-breaking flight in September 2023 when it made the world’s first piloted flight of a liquid hydrogen-electric aircraft using its proprietary fuel cell technology.
Under Joby’s AFWERX Agility Prime contract with the US Air Force, Joby is to provide up to nine aircraft to the USAF and other federal agencies, having become the first eVTOL developer to receive military airworthiness approval for its pre-production prototype. The development of a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system could be of particular interest to this programme, too.
“Agility Prime has been very supportive of hydrogen-powered aircraft development and testing as it aligns with the programme’s goals to advance transformative vertical lift technologies and broader Department of Defense operational energy goals of energy substitution and diversification, and energy demand reduction,” said Jacob Wilson, (Acting) Branch Chief, AFWERX Agiliity Prime.
Ahead of Joby’s battery-electric eVTOL’s anticipated entry into service date of 2025, Bevirt concluded: “The world is closer than ever, and the progress we’ve made towards certifying the battery-electric version of our aircraft gives us a great head start as we look ahead to making hydrogen-electric flight a reality”.
