In a milestone sustainable aviation endeavor, Joby Aviation has just completed a successful 523-mile test flight of its hydrogen-powered Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. This marks another successful step for the company in its commitment to transforming air travel with clean energy solutions.
It was an intensive test flight lasting several hours over varied terrain. Engineers and aeronautic experts followed the journey, monitoring every detail to obtain data to analyze the performance of the aircraft. That 523-mile voyage will be one of the critical exercises in establishing a reliable and long-lasting hydrogen propulsion system.
The aerospace industry has quickly developed an interest in hydrogen as one of the competitive substitutes for fossil fuels. With only the byproduct of combustion being water, hydrogen significantly reduces the carbon footprint of a plane journey. This is an epoch-making flight of Joby Aviation that delineates the potential to change the future of travel with hydrogen-powered aircraft.
The technical problems to be solved in developing a hydrogen VTOL aircraft concern the issues of hydrogen storage, fuel cell efficiency, and aircraft durability. Success from the flight test of Joby Aviation indicates important steps toward conquering them, so there is an expectation that this technology will see wider application.
According to JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, much of the design, testing, and certification work completed on their battery-electric aircraft is transferable to commercializing hydrogen electric flight. Also, the same landing pads, operations team, and ElevateOS software his company used to conduct its battery-electric flights are going to support the commercial operation of hydrogen-electric flights.
Conducted with a modified Joby pre-production prototype battery-electric aircraft equipped with an LH2 fuel tank and fuel cell system, this milestone test flight is believed to be the first forward flight of a VTOL aircraft powered by liquid hydrogen. The aircraft landed with 10% of its hydrogen fuel load remaining, pointing to the efficiency and potential of this technology.
Jacob Wilson, acting chief of the branch at AFWERX Agility Prime, said the program has been a strong supporter of work around hydrogen-powered aircraft development and testing, moving forward about the state of existing transformative vertical lift technologies, and the broader business of operational energy Department of Defense goals.
Joby’s hydrogen-electric demonstrator forms part of the company’s future technology program and is the culmination of many years of collaboration between a small team at Joby and H2FLY, Joby’s wholly-owned subsidiary located in Stuttgart, Germany. Tragically, the converted airplane had previously completed more than 25,000 miles of testing as a battery-electric aircraft at Joby’s base in Marina, California.
H2FLY-designed and-built hydrogen fuel cell system; hydrogen is fed into the fuel cell, generating electricity, water, and heat; the electricity generated will drive the six electric motors on the Joby aircraft, although batteries will also be used to provide supplement power during takeoff and landing.
Joby is eyeing commercial operations as early as 2025 with its battery-electric air taxi. The successful flight test of its hydrogen fuel cell VTOL aircraft was another important milestone toward that goal. That would be a huge frontier in decarbonizing air transport.
The more Joby Aviation refines its technology, the closer the world gets to enjoying commercial hydrogen-powered VTOL flights with better range, lower maintenance costs, and lower impact on the environment compared to conventional aircraft. This positions Joby Aviation at the very forefront of sustainable innovation in aviation and is the shift into which this sweeps the future of flying.