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Joby Demos Its Air Taxi In NYC (electrive.com) 78

Posted by BeauHD from the time-is-money dept.
Joby Aviation has completed demonstration flights of its electric air taxi over New York City, testing real routes between JFK and Manhattan helipads as it prepares for a future commercial service. The company says its eVTOL could turn a 60- to 120-minute airport trip into a flight of under 10 minutes, though commercial launch still depends on FAA certification. Electrive reports: To launch operations in New York City, Joby acquired Blade Urban Air Mobility last year. Blade already enables helicopter flights for affluent travelers between Manhattan and airports such as JFK or Newark in just five minutes, avoiding up to two hours of traffic and typical airport hassles. Joby aims to replace this service with quiet, electric air taxis as soon as possible, transitioning Blade's existing customers to the new technology.

However, introducing a new aircraft into commercial service requires a years-long certification process, overseen in the US by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Joby is now in the final phase of FAA certification. Following a series of demonstration flights in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company has tested its air taxi in New York City on real flight routes and under real-world conditions. During these tests, Joby demonstrated the acoustics and performance metrics critical for entering the urban air taxi market.

During these demonstration flights, Joby's air taxi took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and landed at various helipads across the city, including Downtown Skyport and the helipads at West 30th Street and East 34th Street in Midtown, where Blade Air Mobility's premium passenger lounges are located. These locations represent some of the commercial routes Joby plans for New York [...]. Fun fact: Joby's eVTOL aircraft are over 100 to 1,000 times quieter than a conventional helicopter, operating at roughly 55-65 dB during takeoff and landing compared to 90+ dB for helicopters.

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Joby Demos Its Air Taxi In NYC

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  • A DJI drone operates at more than 55-65 dB. https://hiredronepilot.uk/blog... [hiredronepilot.uk]

    Quit printing these bald faced lies told by startup company marketers.

    • I checked the blog post you linked. It doesn't say anything about 55-65 dB. Where'd you get that from? It gives numbers from 78 to 83 dB, but those are measured from one foot away. The measurements for the helicopter and air taxi are undoubtedly taken a lot further away than that. Volume drops by 6 dB each time you double the distance. If the drone is 32 feet above your head (five doublings), that brings the volume down to 48-51 dB. Air taxis will fly a lot higher up than that.

    • Yeah 55dB at 300m, maybe...

  • Great (Score:5, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @05:19PM (#66119060) Homepage Journal

    It's good billionaires are going to have something to spit on us from. I'd hate for them to have to use lung power to do it because they're in a mere limousine.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The Alpha Males can be the Alpha Testers. They die getting the kinks out so we don't have to.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      It's good billionaires are going to have something to spit on us from. I'd hate for them to have to use lung power to do it because they're in a mere limousine.

      You'd be lucky if it were just spit... Joby is Scottish slang for shit.

    • It's good billionaires are going to have something to spit on us from. I'd hate for them to have to use lung power to do it because they're in a mere limousine.

      This whole thing will probably crash when the first one drops out of the air, and kills a bunch of people, including the wealthy people on board. Helicopter "zip ya to the airport" has failed in the past, it is an awkward business model, and coupled with the tendency of drone type vehicles to become a rock - I'll pass on this

      • Didn't they say that about cars?

        • Didn't they say that about cars?

          If a car simply stops operating, you pull to the side of the road. and get out. If a drone has a prop malfunction, it becomes an uncontrolled rock.

          • No, that one would kill somebody and everyone would turn against the idea as a result.

            • No, that one would kill somebody and everyone would turn against the idea as a result.

              It certainly would - probably many people killed, NYC is a big city with a lot of people. But my experience with drones is that they need to be hitting on and synchronizing on all props.

              Now just possibly, someone could program the software to cancel the side opposite to the one not working. But it better react really quickly. There's a saying in flying, always try to be three mistakes high.

              • One of their prototypes (model JAS4-2, registration N542AJ) crashed during a test flight on February 16, 2022, due to the loss of a propeller blade [airport-technology.com]. One of six such rotors. "A section outlining possible causes of the incident states that the flight test operating 'beyond the typical operating envelope of the aircraft' combined with 'anomalous tilt system condition at a single propeller station' lead [sic: presumably "led"] to a blade pitch beyond the designed limitations causing the propeller blade failure

          • Not just that, but it was true. We need more rail (which we had before the cars) and fewer cars (which a literal conspiracy attacked the rail to profit from.) Add a rail line, you have a ton of additional capacity on the same line. Add a highway, you need to expand it practically before you're done building it. And in this country, you need to expand it literally before you're done with the expansion, since we seem to be so shit at road work. Watching Japanese roadworks videos almost makes me weep.

  • This is Going to be a While... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Koreantoast ( 527520 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @05:32PM (#66119094)
    This is going to be a very long while before it ever scales. First, don't ever underestimate the time it takes to certify a new aircraft. It takes years for traditional platforms which have established certification paths (conventional fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft) - with the Bell 525, one of the latest helicopters seeking certification still not certified after first flight eleven years ago. Then the FAA is struggling even more with how to certify "powered lift" aircraft where eVTOL platforms are. Second, Joby, Archer and others are not yet solving the core problem that has capped this industry - the lack of pilots. The real promise of eVTOL was that the platforms would be autonomous, but, going back to the certification challenge, the FAA has yet to figure out how to certify autonomous aircraft let alone manage the air traffic in a sky full of them. The platforms today still going to need pilots which will limit their adoption. The Chinese are farther ahead in this space, with the CAAC leaning forward and even certifying a handful of autonomous eVTOL aircraft, but I'm curious how rapidly they will proliferate outside China until the FAA and EASA figure out how they want to move forward...
    • A couple of million dollars to the TRUMP Ballroom Fund should clear any irksome regulatory hurdles posed by the ineffectual FAA.

      /s ... ?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
        Hey, I have an idea. Shut the fuck up about Trump in an article about electric helicopters.
    • Automated vehicles over a farm field is one thing, over a densely populated urban center is another. A human pilot will almost assuredly be required in the foreseeable future.

      Given the years ahead for R&D and certification, and then scaling, I expect getting pilots would not be a problem. As with helicopters, pilots can start out with fixed wing and transition to eVTOL much as they do with respect to helicopters. It's a common cost savings path. It's kind of hard to imagine a shortage of people wanti

      • "Ladies and gentleman, today's flight should be about 20 minutes, excluding the stops every five minutes to recharge for an hour. Enjoy today's flight. Oh, and there's no meal service, bathroom, or drinks, because that stuff is too heavy." That battery-powered A321 isn't looking so awesome now, huh? What if it gets a software update mid-flight... just land in Times Square and hope it doesn't take too long?

        "Your heli-car ate my quadcopter!"

        This ain't flying a Bell or Huey or something... I suspect these

        • "Ladies and gentleman, today's flight should be about 20 minutes, excluding the stops every five minutes to recharge for an hour. Enjoy today's flight. Oh, and there's no meal service, bathroom, or drinks, because that stuff is too heavy."

          Feel free to not ride in one. We're going to ignore your preferences.

          I strongly suspect Joby surveyed potential customers and discovered they don't need a snack or to pee in the five minute flight from Manhattan to JFK, even if they're old white guys.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Then there's the noise and wind created. To be commercially viable they need to operate in urban areas. Nobody wants that loud droning or the wind blowing everything not nailed down around.

    • So, everyone has to wait while bureaucrats decide how to stay in charge. Lovely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BranMan ( 29917 )

      IIRC, Joby opened a school for pilots a year ago. I don't think they wouldn't have not thought of that.

    • Then the FAA is struggling even more with how to certify "powered lift" aircraft where eVTOL platforms are.

      This particular aircraft is electric, has six rotors, and is a tilt-rotor design -- all of which characteristics are unusual and, I imagine, will give the FAA pause.

      And all regulators have the problem that if they certify something and it goes bad, they can get blamed, whereas if they do nothing, they're safe.

  • First and foremost if you make it so that you can pay money to escape the commute times then you can bet your ass rich people will stop paying for you to have roads. Since we already have basically let the rich people have all the money for reasons have fun getting to work on what's left of the roads when we stop maintaining them.

    At first you think it'll be cool because you'll have an excuse to buy a big truck to drive on barely functional roads. And of course you will have lots of money to afford a big

    • Well it's a good thing our road ways are paid for by the gasoline taxes and mileage taxes we pay instead and not the pleasure of the billionaires. Besides, rich people still need cargo delivery to stores and warehouses, which require roads to drive on. Also, the military will want the highway system intact so we can still quickly get around the country if we needed to. That was one of the original reasons we got a national highway system: for the military.

      • It's a tax that targets poorer consumers. If you have less than 20 million in the bank that's you.

        Also you're not even completely correct because we subsidized the fuck out of oil production. And while a lot of that just becomes corporate profits some of it does show up at the pump.

        And yeah I am aware of that one of the reasons we built a national highway system was to put down rebellions. That's not a good thing.

        Strike 3 and you are out
        • WAIT!

          First, it is a tax that targets drivers. That the added cost means more to some people than others is not the same as "targeting". That's bad logic right there, and it leads to false conclusions.

          We don't subsidize oil production; someone claimed we do because we don't make them bear the cost of consumption. We don't make producers bear the cost of consumption for any product.

          "Put down rebellions"? Where did you even get that idea? Eisenhower recognized a major internal logistics issue durin

    • I don't see this growing to the point where any of those problems become real, at least not for a very long time. This is a very low bandwidth form of transport to serve a very small number of rich people. Those people are already taking helicopters to the airport. Now they can fly in a quieter, more efficient vehicle. Good for them. It doesn't really change anything in the short term, except everyone else gets less noise from the billionaires overhead.

      In the longer term, maybe they can scale this up a

      • The whole point of this is that it's going to be cheaper than a helicopter and open it up to mirror multi multi-millionaires. The helicopters are mostly billionaires.

        Increasingly billionaires don't need the things everyone else does because they are aware of the fact that they were dependent on society and they are taking steps to disconnect themselves from that dependency. I don't think people really realize it's happening because it is so far outside of our daily lives that it's not something we can r
        • Most helicopters in the US are owned by private companies.

          And why do you care so much about how people you don't know spend money that isn't yours in ways that don't impact your daily life? You talk about how these things are beyond your comprehension and "far outside of our daily lives", so why the hell do you care so much? You say you don't get it and it doesn't affect you, so why keep winging on about it? From where I sit, the best answer to that is "resentment", and that's something both Jesus and

      • And, AI would never happen in a million years (Terminator was wrong)... look where we are now.
        Haven't you heard... human workers are so 2015! AI will fill all those roles! And, AI-driven trucks will deliver the goods (remember "I, Robot"?), and tend the fields (remember "Logan" and "Interstellar"?)... AI-controlled robots will serve the rich caviar and champagne (remember, "The Second Renaissance" from "The Animatrix?".

        The moment this kind of thing is approved, every rich moron will have one, everyone kno

    • (Almost) everyone who's driving on the roads is paying for them, roughly in line with the damage they're doing (larger vehicles consume more gas, and the roads are maintained with gasoline taxes). A few rich assholes leaving the roads won't mean they aren't maintained.

      • A few rich assholes leaving the roads won't mean they aren't maintained.

        The rich assholes who make the decisions deciding the roads don't need to be maintained is a problem. It's tempting to believe that they will want to maintain the system over which they have privilege, but they have shown time and again they have no interest in doing that.

        • Dude, that's nonsense. Who do you think is deciding roads don't need to be maintained? Certainly not wealthy business owners who need things to move along those roads.

          Everyone wants the roads to be maintained. Nobody wants to pay for it. That's the situation. Stop trying to find class issues where none exist.

          • Who do you think is deciding roads don't need to be maintained?

            So to be clear, you're functionally illiterate?

            • Okay, what's really going on? We both know that there isn't some fat cat with a cigar, laughing as he cancels road maintenance plans, so what is it that you're actually upset about?

              • We both know that there isn't some fat cat with a cigar, laughing as he cancels road maintenance plans

                No, troll. There's an entire class of fat cats, who ensure that justice is not done and funding is misappropriated. Save your clown shit for home week.

                • Do you even know why you're upset? You seem to be inventing conspiracies just to vent about them, all the while your actual problems compound.

                  Do funds get misappropriated? Yeah, there are plenty of crooks who make it into government. There are incompetents who make it into government and simply don't make sure the potholes are filled. But is there a coordinated effort to prevent road maintenance? Well, that just sounds silly.

                  Look, I know you aren't happy. You've described your current situation

    • Even if that was how roads are paid for, I think you're missing some information. It is illegal to land an aircraft on a building in NYC. There are a handful of helipads scattered around the city, and that is where these will operate. It's not like wealthy people will take an elevator to an air cab they take to the office.

  • The Pivotal BlackFly/Helix is an interesting minimalist design. It has no landing wheels nor legs and the propellers are fixed in position. It's kind of like a flying "C" where it takes off with the passenger facing up and then tilts forward in flight. Thus, the propellers don't need pivot joints. It doesn't need a pilot's license, although currently has a rather limited range.

    • Basically, the "Engineers" ship in Alien? That's a flying 'C'.
      It's a single-seater, so, not that economical... plus, then you need parking lots for them. 40 miles ain't far enough to be worth anything.
      The thing looks like a flying 'I', really.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > It's a single-seater, so, not that economical

        Please explain. Most commuters are single passengers.

        > 40 miles ain't far enough to be worth anything.

        I expect it to improve over time. Vast majority of commutes are under 70 miles.

        • Then, Musk has to pilot himself, or some crap.
          He won't want to pilot it himself... that's what pilots are for ("there was a memo last year... if you didn't see it, you're fired" kinda thing)!

          Commute to an airport from anyplace? All airports are only 40 miles away? Those executive-types have to do the over-seas flights all the time (even when the new battery is on order... it'll be here in three months) so they can buy some small company!

  • As long as we can still tax them less rich people on the roads means less crowded roads for everyone else, though I'd still prefer mass transit. Either way this seems more practical than flying cars that will grind birds into a paste, crash into random delivery drones, have no range as flying is way less energy efficient than ground travel, and etc.

    Really these just seem like "helicopters that are less of a deathtrap than helicopters"

  • This sounds awfully "unfair" to anyone that's not rich. Will the new Mayor really allow this? ;)

  • Back in the day... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VAXcat ( 674775 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2026 @08:16PM (#66119424)
    Way back, there was a helicopter service from the roof of the Pan Am building to the airport in NYC. It was discontinued due to several people getting killed in an accident.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Way back, there was a helicopter service from the roof of the Pan Am building to the airport in NYC. It was discontinued due to several people getting killed in an accident.

      Which is always going to be a bigger risk with small aircraft, in particular with helicopters because they're vulnerable to high winds and more single points of failure.

      Commercial VTOL flights are also notoriously uneconomical, you only really use them when no other form of transport is suitable.

      • Well, it's also why it is now illegal to land an aircraft on a building in NYC. That's why the article talks about how the service is between helipads and airports. Ground-level helipads, where the wind shear is much less of a problem.

        And isn't this endeavor intended to make VTOL flights more economical? It seems odd to dismiss the new tech on the basis of the old tech's drawbacks.

  • What would it COST to go from JFK to downtown?

    • $195 [blade.com]. "Ground transportation is provided between your helicopter and connecting flight." How disappointing! I was hoping for a parachute or fast-roping.

  • On April 28, 2025, the New York City Council passed [nyc.gov] "Intro 26-A, legislation sponsored by Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías that will prohibit non-essential helicopter flights from city-owned heliports unless they meet the most stringent FAA noise standards." Also known as "Stage 3". "The measure takes effect in late 2029 ...."

    "This historic vote comes a year after the City Council’s oversight hearing on helicopters, and just two weeks after a tragic sightseeing helicopter crash along the H

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