Joby completes first flight of hybrid turbine electric aircraft

Joby Aviation Inc. (NYSE: JOBY) announced its turbine electric autonomous aircraft completed its first flight on November 7 at the company's Marina, California facility. The demonstrator aircraft integrates a hybrid turbine powertrain with Joby's electric air taxi platform and SuperPilot autonomy technology.

The flight occurred three months after Joby announced the aircraft concept and formed a partnership with L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX). L3Harris plans to equip Joby's commercial hybrid aircraft for defense applications including contested logistics and autonomous operations.

"It's imperative that we find ways to deliver new technology into the hands of American troops more quickly and cost-efficiently than we have in the past," said JoeBen Bevirt, CEO and Founder of Joby. "Our vertical integration puts us in a unique position to deliver on this goal, moving from concept to demonstration - and from demonstration to deployment - at a pace that is unprecedented in today's aerospace and defense industry."

The aircraft will continue ground and flight testing before participating in operational demonstrations with government customers planned for 2026. The U.S. government has requested over $9 billion in the FY26 budget for next-generation platforms.

The hybrid aircraft builds on Joby's all-electric technology platform, which has completed more than 50,000 miles of flight testing and entered the final stage of the FAA's Type Certification process. In July, Joby's SuperPilot autonomous technology logged more than 7,000 miles of autonomous operations across more than 40 flight hours during a Department of Defense exercise in Hawaii, managed primarily from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

"L3Harris has delivered thousands of missionized aircraft, and our focus is scaling rapidly to bring these commercial VTOL aircraft to the fight," said Jason Lambert, President, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, L3Harris.

The information is based on a company press release statement.

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