Joby Aviation has achieved a big milestone by efficiently finishing a 523-mile take a look at flight of its hydrogen-electric air taxi at its Marina, California facility. The flight, powered by liquid hydrogen, was performed on June twenty fourth, 2024, and resulted in water as the one emission. The plane landed with over ten % of its hydrogen gas remaining, marking a vital step in the direction of regional flights within the US with zero emissions apart from water.
Joby Aviation’s founder and CEO, JoeBen Bevirt, envisions a future the place People can journey between cities like San Francisco to San Diego, Boston to Baltimore, or Nashville to New Orleans with no need conventional airports. The hydrogen-electric eVTOL (electrical Vertical Takeoff and Touchdown) plane produces minimal noise and no emissions other than water.
For the take a look at, Joby transformed a pre-production prototype battery-electric plane, equipping it with a liquid hydrogen gas tank and gas cell system. The corporate goals to start business operations by 2025, initially with its battery-electric air taxi, adopted by the hydrogen-powered model.
The hydrogen-electric air taxi is provided with six electrical propulsion items that energy its tilting propellers and cost the flight management system. Whereas the batteries present extra energy for takeoff and touchdown, the liquid hydrogen was the first vitality supply for almost all of the flight.
As we have now defined earlier than within the MACA Carcopter article, liquid hydrogen, which has over thrice the vitality density of gasoline, is right for weight-sensitive functions like aviation (keep in mind we’ve additionally seen different very fascinating tasks exploring related tech, like Hyundai’s Supernal-SA2,V-House’s V Speeder-X and even ASKA’s ASKA A5).
The Joby Aviation plane featured a vacuum-jacketed tank able to storing as much as 40 kilos of hydrogen, designed to preserve the hydrogen at roughly -423 levels Fahrenheit (-252.78 °C).
In the course of the flight, the H2F-175 gas cell system, developed by H2FLY (a subsidiary of Joby Aviation), transformed hydrogen into electrical energy by combining it with oxygen from the air, producing water and warmth within the course of. This electrical energy powered the plane’s motors and recharged its batteries.
Joby Aviation plans to leverage the design, testing, and certification work from its battery-electric plane for the hydrogen-electric variant. The corporate additionally expects to make use of the identical touchdown pads, operations group, and ElevateOS software for each forms of plane, aiming to launch business flights in 2025.
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