Ready for take-off: experimental air-taxi spotted in skies over Oakland

California Post ^ | 3/12/26 | Pierce Sharpe

[Libloather]

A flying taxi took a spin over San Francisco Thursday — and the Bay Area’s tech crowd was there to watch.

The small electric aircraft from Joby Aviation flew across San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge during a demonstration flight that drew reporters and industry guests to the St. Francis Yacht Club.

The flight is part of the company’s push to launch electric air taxis — small vertical takeoff planes designed to carry passengers on short trips of roughly 10 to 50 miles.

Joby’s aircraft seats four passengers and uses six propellers. The company says rides could cost $100 to $170, roughly the price of an Uber Black, for trips like San Francisco to Napa.

Santa Cruz–based Joby Aviation is one of several companies racing to bring eVTOL aircraft — short for electric vertical takeoff and landing — to market. Rival Archer Aviation, based in San Jose, is developing similar aircraft.

Both companies are currently going through certification testing with federal regulators before launching commercial passenger service.

Joby was selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to participate in a federal pilot program aimed at speeding up eVTOL deployment.

Commercial flights could begin this year in several states, including New York, Texas and Florida, with California expected to follow.

[catnipman]

btw, what makes flying battery “taxis” immune to the same issues that would affect 10,000 flying ICE “taxis”?

[catnipman]

seems like 10,000 of these things would be hell on the bird population as well ...

[GenXPolymath]

“It’s almost as cool as a thing known as a “helicopter” but those are still on the drawing board.”

Helicopters are very expensive to maintain and run, they also have a single point of failure the Jesus nut. Contrary to popular belief auto rotation is not automatic or assured. Helicopters have a large coffin’s corner low and slow. This is why you see helos take off and immediately go horizontal and accelerate away while climbing vs going vertical at zero forward speed, same for landing it’s always a forward decent down a slope not stop and hover hundreds of feet up and decent into a vertical landing.

EVTOL have multiple rotors powered by multiple motors driven off redundant power inverters with a single moving part the motors rotor and the shaft it drives to the prop. With 6 rotors 3 can fail and you can still land on the other 3. Electric motors can do 200% of rated power for a few tens of seconds or more depending on cooling capacity before they overheat.

It’s very hard to deploy a ballistic parachute on a helo the main rotor obviously, if the transmission fails and the rotor locks it’s like the Jesus nut 100% fatality event. VTOLs can easily deploy a rocket powered parachute that only needs 100 feet or less of altitude to deploy, airbags under the VTOL also can take a 10-25G landing which would be the gap from 100 feet to zero under a partially deployed rocket parachute.

Then there is the option to use active rocket landing systems with zero/zero capabilities.

https://www.advanced-blast.com/avcp-2/?cn-reloaded=1

I hold a PPL-H cut my teeth in a R44 hold a type rating for MD500

Very few people can master a helo it is a specialised skill set with full body involvement. VTOLs are going to be in the Sport Light licence category and virtually any pilot can fly them with ground school and 25 hours of flight time and a solo plus VTOL cert.

Apple to oranges other then they can both take off from a pad vs a runway they are not anything alike.

[GenXPolymath]

“$170 to fly air taxi 10 - 50 miles?”

Try 3 miles...

Ever had to get from midtown Manhattan to JFK at 3pm you best plan on 2.5 hours of soul crushing gridlock. I would gladly pay $200 to take a 5 min UberAir from midtown to JFK or LaGuardia. In fact not only uber but two others are planning exactly this with service to Newark as well. A taxi is already gonna run you $100 with tolls and traffic wait time on the meter.

[TexasGator]

“I don’t understand why these rotary wing aircraft are not ducted.”

Fixed wing.

These propellers are pretty large reducing the duct advantage. Ducts would add weight and possibly interfere with assembly rotation.

[Paal Gulli]

Making a tilt-rotor is vastly easier if you’re using electric engines because all the electrical components are much more amenable to the either the rotating or the hinge-type mechanism than a turbine (or recip) would be.

The Osprey’s Achilles’ heel is it’s lack of autorotative ability. Yes, it will autorotate but even when perfectly executed it’s sink rate is so high it’s a crap shoot whether the impact will be survivable, so your best hope — if not your only hope — is that you can keep one of them turnin’ and burnin’. And if you’ve lost an engine, the day already isn’t going according to script so don’t count on the landing being perfect.

Except for some small trainers and the F-35 fighter, the US Navy has nothing but multi-engine aircraft, yet they still lose about one airframe a year due to fuel contamination or exaustion causing a loss of both engines. On that basis, it’s highly likely they’ll lose the occasional Osprey because of dual engine failures, probably with disasterous results.

The best autorotating helicopters are ones with the most mass in the rotor blades because executing a soft autorotative landing is trading the momentum stored in the rotor blades for lift to cushion the landing just single digit seconds before touchdown.

I’ve seen a demo in an old Vietnam-era Huey (which has pretty massive rotors) where the pilot (the only person on board, so it was very light) executed two hovering autorotations starting with the a/c stationary on the ground. With blades at full rpm, he closed the throttle to flight idle, which disengaged the rotors from the engine. At that point the only thing powering the rotor blades is their inertia.

He pulled pitch, lifted off and brought the ‘copter to a 3-foot hover and executed a lovely, soft, hovering autorotation. Then he pulled pitch AGAIN, lifted off AGAIN, and came to a 3-foot hover a second time and still had enough inertia in the rotors for a second soft autorotative landing.

Two autorotations for the price of one engine failure. THAT is the saving grace of a heavy rotor system.

The Achilles’ heel of these electric air taxis is their rotors don’t have much more inertia than a ceiling fan, so they’re not autorotation friendly. So the only thing that makes them safe to fly is redundancy. And redundancy is easier and cheaper with electric engines than turbines or pistons.

Plus some of these designs put two counterrotating engines in the same engine pod, so their opposing torques (somewhat) cancel each other. Which improves controlability and reduces pilot workload.

Also, the engines in all propeller/rotor driven a/c need torque over horsepower, and electric engines already are producing their max torque at 1 rpm.

Bottom line, there are A LOT of design and production advantages to having a whole bunch of electric fans on a tilt rotor as opposed to internal combustion engines. Granted their fuel tank doesn’t have anywhere near the energy density of a tank full of JP5, but they’re only intended for short haul flights. And they’re banking that the design and production advantages of the bunches of electric engines is going to outweigh whatever performance shortcomings they might have compared to internal combustion.

And the jury is still out on the question of battery fires.

But don’t sell these a/c short. They’re not as daft as you might think.

[TexasGator]

“I’ve been out of the game for a while, are these now 2 years away, or are they still 5?”

---

Where 5 air taxi pilot projects will begin this year

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/faa-air-taxi-first-projects-archer-joby-wisk/814275/

[GenXPolymath]

“btw, what makes flying battery “taxis” immune to the same issues that would affect 10,000 flying ICE “taxis””

FAA NEXGEN is a fully digital ATC system with trajectory based operations (TBO) every aircraft since Jan 2020 must have ADS-B out.

[FAA requirements for ADS-B Out mandate that aircraft operating in most controlled airspace (Class A, B, C, and above 10,000 ft MSL) must be equipped with a TSO-C166b (1090ES) or TSO-C154c (UAT) transmitter, which includes a qualified GNSS position source, to ensure precise, real-time tracking.

Key ADS-B Out Requirements
Airspace: Required in Class A, B, and C; Class E at/above 10,000 ft MSL (excluding < 2,500 ft AGL); within the 30-nautical-mile Mode C veil; and over the Gulf of Mexico at/above 3,000 ft MSL.

Equipment: Must be a Version 2 (DO-260B) transmitter. Options include a 1090 MHz Extended Squitter (1090ES) or a 978 MHz Universal Access Transceiver (UAT).

Performance: The system must transmit position, velocity, and identification, with position data updated at least once per second while moving.

Exceptions: Aircraft not originally certificated with an engine-driven electrical system (e.g., gliders, balloons) are exempt in certain airspaces.]

You will notice two very important things first >2500ft AGL and ADS-B is mandatory that’s basically all air space other than Class G.

2nd is the Mode C area’s that’s to the surface near major airports the DFW surface Mode C veil covers basically all of the city it’s 30 miles in diameter. You need not only ADS-B and Mode S but also ATC clearance to even leave ground level let alone fly around.

FAA NEXGEN had Datacomm which is a digital filing, clearance,and enroute modification/notification directly to your FMS network. You file for takeoff, get approval, vectors and enroute updates all via the FMS without voice comms. The system does traffic management and avoidance automatically via the positions and velocity vectors every aircraft is transmitting at one second intervals via their mandatory ADS-B transponders. This will replace TCAS as well. 10000 is not an issue millions can be flying when computers are staging, stacking and guiding in real-time the flow in the ATC system.

Again the FAA is never going to let unlicensed pilots fly one of these. It will be at least a Sport Light with a VTOL vert or a full PPL plus VTOL and if you want to fly in IMC a IMC rating as well. They may in the future slow drone ops where a licensed pilot is ready at an instant to take control via remote 5 or then 6G data links like a predator drone is allowed to fly in the National Airspace with a Air Force pilot ready to step in from Nevada via a satcomm link.

Most cities have ordinances against VTOL ops in their city limits already. Every North Texas city does you cannot take off with a VTOL helo or not from anywhere other than a certified helopad or airport. Unless you are a medivac , FD
Or LEO or get advanced approval from the city and a permit for a fly in event. The really rich folks get the FAA to vert a helopad at their property and that takes a large area with 8:1 glideslope requirements and minimum square footage as in acres. Simply put you cannot land in suburbia at least not in DFE, Austin , Houston or S.A. that I know of again R44 can land virtually anywhere we just are not allowed too. Makes sense you don’t want to downwash your neighbors it’s a bad look. And FOD is a real issue.

This hits home hard.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKdv7cRJZzb/

[TexasGator]

“The best autorotating helicopters are ones with the most mass in the rotor blades “

I generally agree with your write up but it seems to not be clear on autorotation principles.

Autorotate does not depend on the mass of the blades although the inertia built during an descent can be used to soften the landing.

[GenXPolymath]

“And the jury is still out on the question of battery fires.”

It’s not a technical issue it’s one of cost vs litigious risk to the manufacturer bottom line.

It doesn’t get more clear than this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQwqWqzkNA

Lfp batteries don’t burn anyways but you can just add a coating to existing batteries to make them not burn.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/new-battery-tech-could-prevent-ev-fires-even-stop-them-after-they-start

https://www.lgcorp.com/media/release/28190

Again this is NMC with a coating, it just costs more. So the calculus works out is it cheaper to fight the lawsuit or coat every battery you make just like Fight Club it’s going to be cheaper to fight or pay off a lawsuit assuming you even lose.

[GenXPolymath]

Gyrodynes are in auto rotation from before they leave the ground and 100% of the time in the air they are zero zero safe.

https://newatlas.com/tag/gyrodyne/

The second one is genius use the outer rotor of a 4 rotor drive system to do anti torque for hovering if needed and the other 3 to push forwards during the transition to horizontal flight but there is never a coffin’s corner since your rotor system is always at peak rpm from before you left the ground having spun it up before lift off even in a complete engine out you just settle back down under auto rotation.

Like the guys in the article said “this is the only VTOL we would put our grandmother on”

Give me access to a four set , four drive prop gyrodyne hybrid turbro-alternator driving those 4 props and a spin up motor/hover motor on the main rotor and take my money. With a hybrid drive it should do 1000nm on Jet A with Cessna level efficiency once in horizontal flight and the rotor is unloaded L/D is plane like not helo like.

[faithhopecharity]

Th”e reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain)

[GenXPolymath]

Uber ready rolled out the app. It coming and soon. I cannot wait to fly over Manhattan traffic to and from midtown to JFK. Will be worth every cent.

https://www.uber.com/us/en/newsroom/uber-air/

[GenXPolymath]

They bought Blade helicopter services. So they have helopads in NYC and other markets already. They are just going to swap EVTOL for the existing helos.

https://www.jobyaviation.com/news/joby-completes-acquisition-of-blades-passenger-business

This century is gonna be so LIT!

[TexasGator]

“Gyrodynes are in auto rotation from before they leave the ground and 100% of the time in the air they are zero zero safe.”

As long as they have a safe forward velocity.

[GenXPolymath]

Prespun powered rotor gyrodynes are fully spun up prior to take off they can do zero length jump takeoffs due to this fact. Once airborne they will glide down from any height and can do a zero length touchdown again because their rotor was spun up prior to flight. You cannot bring a gyrodyne of this type to zero velocity in air with its rotor not spinning even in a vertical descent the airflow upwards will maintain it’s rotor rpm the pilot controls rpm in that case via collective control which is also what separates a gyrodyne from an autogyro. Full collective control and most have fore and aft pitby control with some having full swashplate pitch control in that case hovering under power is possible such as the second example in the link above. Gyrodyne not autogyro important differences.

I have hundreds of hours in helos and single and twin aircraft. My BIL is a flight engineer/test pilot and certified flight instructor fam owns two planes, two helos as well on our compounds in very rural Texas and Washington State, literally SHTF set ups.

The type of gyrodyne with powered rotors is zero zero safe that’s the whole point it cannot leave the ground until it’s rotor is at full rpm it’s designed for a zero length take off like a helo. There is a video on the first link of a small one doing jump takeoff and zero length landings that one didn’t even have the anti torque for hovering set up like the better version does.

With modern computers no need for a physical link to an anti torque rotor just reverse the pitch of one of four flight props and soon the main rotor with a dedicated electric motor balance the two via software and rate gyros in the IMU to sense yaw rates. This would allow for automated hovering too. Add in WAAS and GBAS both submeter GPS you can hold in zero visibility a spot in XYZ space or land into full brown out soup with said GPS it’s basically class III INS and helos are allowed to do zero vis landings or take offs using class III.

[cpdiii]

“I don’t understand why these rotary wing aircraft are not ducted.”

Ducted propellers (
Kort nozzles) offer higher efficiency and increased thrust at low speeds, heavy loads, or static conditions by reducing tip vortices and utilizing shroud lift. Conversely, unducted (open) propellers are generally more efficient at higher speeds, as the duct introduces drag that outweighs its thrust benefits.

Actually in flight the unducted is more efficient. The ducted is more efficent (about 7%) in a vertical lift. Thus that advantaged is negated by extra weight and drag.

The aircraft in question is not a rotary wing aircraft such as a helicopter. The whole wing rotates for vertical lift and then rotates back to normal position for flight and the reverse for landing.

[Paal Gulli]

"Autorotate does not depend on the mass of the blades although the inertia built during an descent can be used to soften the landing."

Can't argue with that but I was typing fast (and believe it or not, trying to be brief) because around this place, if you don't get in on the first page of replys, nobody reads it.

[Paal Gulli]

There's a 1933 WC Fields movie titled, "International House" that had a lot of very futuristic features. Early in the film, Fields lands a gyrocopter on a luxury liner at sea (and chaos ensues).

The gyro in flight was real (possibly a Cierva C.19) but they switched to a Hollywood prop for the landing.

Just seven years earlier, Juan de la Cierva started what AFAIK was the first business building gyrocopters to compete with light airplanes. Ironically he was killed in the crash of a DC-2 commercial airliner in 1937, but the company remained in business until the 1970s.

The passengers of International House's ocean liner include an "inventor" demonstrating a new product he calls "radioscope" which actually was a prototype television ... in 1933!

Anyway, the TV broadcast is of Cab Calloway (about a hundred years before he did the Blues Brothers thing) and his orchestra performing the song, "Reefer Man."

The guy on the stand-up bass is the alleged 'reefer man.'

And as you might have guessed from the title of the song, this was a "pre-morality code" movie.

The film also has George Burns, Gracie Allen and Bela Lugosi in it. Check it out!

[Anti-Bubba182]

Thanks!