Joby buys helicopter business

Blade is pretty much the ideal business model for Joby. Quick shuttles back and forth from downtown Manhattan to JFK, LGA, and EWR. 20-30 mile round trips with 100 mile range gives 3 or 4 laps before a spell on the charger. Less maintenance, less noise, smaller pads, no fuel handling, and probably less capital cost on aircraft. Seems very viable to me. Just gotta get certified.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Blade is pretty much the ideal business model for Joby. Quick shuttles back and forth from downtown Manhattan to JFK, LGA, and EWR. 20-30 mile round trips with 100 mile range gives 3 or 4 laps before a spell on the charger. Less maintenance, less noise, smaller pads, no fuel handling, and probably less capital cost on aircraft. Seems very viable to me. Just gotta get certified.
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I see the potential usefulness. But I don't see how they can ever recoup the development cost. And what's the cost per unit over an already established helicopter. I just think the delta is too great to make financial sense to me.
 
Racerx said:
I see the potential usefulness. But I don't see how they can ever recoup the development cost. And what's the cost per unit over an already established helicopter. I just think the delta is too great to make financial sense to me.
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Somebody somewhere ran the pro formas before they ponied up $125M. Time will tell whether their numbers were valid.

I do not know much about the subject. I do know that 4 passenger helos are not cheap to own and operate. I also know my EV car is basically zero maintenance.

These things don't have to provide some revolutionary capability or create a new market. They just need to be cheaper than the helos already serving the existing market. That does not sound like an impossible task.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Somebody somewhere ran the pro formas before they ponied up $125M. Time will tell whether their numbers were valid.

I do not know much about the subject. I do know that 4 passenger helos are not cheap to own and operate. I also know my EV car is basically zero maintenance.

These things don't have to provide some revolutionary capability or create a new market. They just need to be cheaper than the helos already serving the existing market. That does not sound like an impossible task.
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In the last 5 years they've spent more than 1.6b on r&d alone.
 
Ed Haywood said:
And their stock has more than doubled this year. So somebody thinks that r&d was a good bet.
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Meh, people thought Theranos was a good bet too. I'm obviously not the target market. I can fly my own plane and don't live in the city. So I'm clearly biased. I think it's cool. I'm just not as hyped
 
dans2992 said:
Why will Joby’s aircraft succeed when helicopters didn’t?
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Noise, noise and noise. Then you get into the costs, operating limitations, etc. of helicopters vs eVTOLs.

Throw in the projected UAM market value will increase to $30B+ by 2035 and you will see why the top 10% of the entire global transportation industry are involved.
 
They somewhat had to. There isn't room enough even in the NYC market for competing urban air mobility operators. Blade and helicopters are the #1 competitor to the newest electric evtol commuter aircraft.

Plus, it will let them set the prices between the competing technologies, which will be REALLY interesting to watch.

At least Joby can finally find some form of actual income as they blow through venture capital as fast as they can raise it.
 
JVerb said:
There isn't room enough even in the NYC market for competing urban air mobility operators
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Helicopter based UAM went bust in the 70s which was further verified in the mid 90s. The only place it worked was in Sao Paulo BR. So in respect to eVTOL based UAM there is no competion in NYC.

IMO, the fact Blade was to be one of the launch operators for Joby, I think its more a situation of Joby wanting a piece of the operating side than just the production side.

Ed Haywood said:
Do Bell, Sikorsky, Airbus, Augusta, and Robinson know that helicopters failed?
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They never gave UAM a thought as it was going to take a new class of aircraft to make it work. But NASA did and developed the technology to make it hapoen like Joby and Archer.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Do Bell, Sikorsky, Airbus, Augusta, and Robinson know that helicopters failed?
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I’m not saying helicopters as a concept, I’m saying offering air taxi services in areas like NY.

I flew blade once just for the novelty. I spent more time waiting in the 34th street lounge than I would have spent in a cab to the airport. When the helo (Bell 407, I think) then finally came, I was the ONLY person in it, and after it dropped me off, it left EWR empty.

For $200, I assume they lost their ass on that flight. It was fun though!
 
dans2992 said:
I’m not saying helicopters as a concept, I’m saying offering air taxi services in areas like NY.
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EVTOL are estimated to cost 50% less to buy and 30% less to operate than helicopters of similar capacity.
 
Bell206 said:
Noise, noise and noise. Then you get into the costs, operating limitations, etc. of helicopters vs eVTOLs.

Throw in the projected UAM market value will increase to $30B+ by 2035 and you will see why the top 10% of the entire global transportation industry are involved.
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Exactly. Out in East Hampton, the helos and seaplane noise is a big problem, so much so that the airport was on the verge of closing! Joby's eVTOL is super quiet and it could make a huge difference out here.
 
Bell206 said:
the top 10% of the entire global transportation industry are involved.
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Including such notoriously speculative enterprises as Toyota, which has taken a $1B stake in Joby, and which co-hosted their display at Oshkosh this year.
 
dans2992 said:
I’m not saying helicopters as a concept, I’m saying offering air taxi services in areas like NY.
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The helicopter based air taxi services have been around since the 50s in NYC and at one point even offered scheduled flights. However, a couple high profile accidents caused those services to decline to its current form.

And while there have been dozens of companies attempt to make things work, Blade has been one of the few to make it work as they used a different business model. Regardless, the place to watch is Dubai as they are positioning themselves to be ground zero for modern eVTOL UAM services.

Joby, Archer, and Ehang are currently flying proving runs in the UAE and I believe this was partly the reason Joby bought the Blade pax services side since Blade has an existing network internationally than just in NYC. Interesting times.

Ed Haywood said:
Including such notoriously speculative enterprises as Toyota,
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And Honda, Hyuandai, Kawasaki, and so on. From what I saw Toyota is bringing their gearbox and production expertise to the table for Joby. Honda is building a complete eVTOL and the others are concentrating on the propulsion side. Lot of big names involved.

And with China's Ehang starting commercial service this past April, I think things will fall in place on a quicker schedule especially if the UAE GCAA decides to certify these eVTOLs prior to FAA/EASA certification.
 
Bell206 said:
And Honda, Hyuandai, Kawasaki, and so on. From what I saw Toyota is bringing their gearbox and production expertise to the table for Joby. Honda is building a complete eVTOL and the others are concentrating on the propulsion side. Lot of big names involved.
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With all the investment by major industrial conglomerates, plus government action to create the regulatory system, it seems bizarre to argue that nothing is going to happen.

There is probably some hype. Rollout will be slower than expected. Business models always have rosy assumptions. Government will still be an obstacle even as they try to facilitate adoption. Those kinds of things are normal. But this thing has moved well beyond venture capital and speculative investment. It is now in the boardrooms of stodgy people who are held responsible for showing consistent results.

I spent much of my adult life around helicopters. They are complex, finicky, loud, expensive, dangerous machines that require a great deal of maintenance and a great degree of skill to fly. 10,000 parts flying in close formation. EVTOL technology clearly has the potential to be superior to RW technology for certain applications.
 
Ed Haywood said:
With all the investment by major industrial conglomerates, plus government action to create the regulatory system, it seems bizarre to argue that nothing is going to happen.
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I think from a historical perspective the rollout and public acceptance of eVTOLs will follow a similar path as the intro of jet engines into mainstream pax service. I believe the e-aviation industry is here to stay regardless how it will start just as the jet age did.

Ed Haywood said:
Government will still be an obstacle even as they try to facilitate adoption.
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If anything, in this situation the regulatory agencies have actually been rather proactive toward the certification of powered lift aircraft. To have such an aircraft at the Phase 5 cert level in less than 5 years with no previous guidance or final rule by the FAA/EASA is very unique. For comparision the civilian tiltrotor has been at Phase 5 for 15+ years and had decades of development behind it.

Ed Haywood said:
I spent much of my adult life around helicopters. They are complex, finicky, loud, expensive, dangerous machines that require a great deal of maintenance and a great degree of skill to fly.
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One thing to note is that helicopters in general are developed for multiple missions. Where the Jobys, etc. were developed for a specific mission: street-level mass transportation in an urban environment. And if it weren't for the lessons learned by NASA in the mid-90s and their subsequent development of distributed electric proplusion in 2009 or so, we wouldnt even be having this discussion at this level.
 
Something that hasn't hit the street in any large information dump yet, is that the FAA is rewriting the design circular for rotary powered aircraft, and it'll be a unified A/C for helicopter and EVTOL. More importantly, the criteria is going to be performance based with respect to downwash verses the historical helicopter method of it being a distance function of the main blades.

What this means is, the FAA is re-writing the standards for the FATO widths, and what they're finding is the previous geometry based standards were woefully undersized based on actual helicopter performance. This could drastically increase the size and cost of new facilities in the future. You don't have to build to FAA standards, but if you don't and there's a crash, the insurance companies *may* decide you're at fault. Without exposit facilities grandfathered in, it could be very difficult to afford the space to build to the new standard.

Draft A/C is due out by the end of the year. It wouldn't surprise me if this info led to some business decisions being made in advance.
 
JVerb said:
the FAA is rewriting the design circular for rotary powered aircraft, and it'll be a unified A/C for helicopter and EVTOL.
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Interesting. Do you have a reference for that? I know the FAA and EASA have released draft guidance on the certification of powered lift aircraft with the FAAs version in an AC. But it does not include rotorcraft.
 
Bell206 said:
Interesting. Do you have a reference for that? I know the FAA and EASA have released draft guidance on the certification of powered lift aircraft with the FAAs version in an AC. But it does not include rotorcraft.
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Nope. Just my notes from a meeting I attended a few months ago .

To clarify, I'm talking about the facility design A/C, not the aircraft itself.
 
Bell206 said:
Are you talking about the combining of the vertiport and heliport guidance?
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Yes. The EB on vertiport.will be canceled, as will the exist heliport. A vertiport will be a category.of heliport (or vice versa; I can't remember off the top of my head). But the geometry is performances backed and not physical dimensions of the rotor (like the current heliport design criteria is). What's happened is they e started testing helicopters and realized their assumptions on sizing based off rotor diameter was way off, so the downwash areas are much, much larger than they thought. That is going to drive a much larger FATO area, and the overall size of the footprint will have to expand a lot. Which results in much more costlier and larger spaces for new facilities. Old facilities are typically grandfathered in until major reconstruction.
 
JVerb said:
What's happened is they e started testing helicopters and realized their assumptions on sizing based off rotor diameter was way off, so the downwash areas are much
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It was also driven at the ICAO level due to several high profile rotorwash incidents. Most notibly in the UK where a heliport approved for S-61 helicopters did not provide the same protection with S-92 ops which led to the death of an elderly woman who was blown over by rotorwash.
 
I am curious which approach will when, Beta Team or Joby.
Joby, Archer and others are still going down a path of tilting rotors. Beta went for complicity, and stated the weight and complexity of tilting rotors was more than redundant engines.

Will be fascinating to watch with no skin in the game.

Tim
 
tspear said:
I am curious which approach will when, Beta Team or Joby.
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Beta’s approach is completely different than Joby as they planned to certify their CTOL version 1st under Part 23. They have also initiated the separate certification of their “engines” under Part 33. Joby is strictly pursuing powered-lift certification. Beta is also lacking the top tier investment/backing that Joby and Archer have. So I think the key will be who has the better support system than which design philosophy was used.
 
Would be cool to be a test pilot on this effort. Basically trying out an entirely new class of technology, like jet and helo pilots in the 40's. There will almost certainly be some high profile mishaps while they sort out operating procedures. Just the nature of things.
 
tspear said:
I am curious which approach will when, Beta Team or Joby.
Joby, Archer and others are still going down a path of tilting rotors. Beta went for complicity, and stated the weight and complexity of tilting rotors was more than redundant engines.

Will be fascinating to watch with no skin in the game.

Tim
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Some of those engineering choices will probably get sorted into niches by the market over decades. Like radial vs in line, and air vs water cooled.
 
Bell206 said:
Beta’s approach is completely different than Joby as they planned to certify their CTOL version 1st under Part 23. They have also initiated the separate certification of their “engines” under Part 33. Joby is strictly pursuing powered-lift certification. Beta is also lacking the top tier investment/backing that Joby and Archer have. So I think the key will be who has the better support system than which design philosophy was used.
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How is Joby getting their engines certified? Or are they doing it as part of the airframe certification?

Tim
 
tspear said:
How is Joby getting their engines certified? Or are they doing it as part of the airframe certification?

Tim
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The FAA/EASA guidance on powered-lift certification currently handles the airframe, engine, and propeller under a single rule. Beta (Pt 23), Electra (Pt 23), and I think Jaunt (Pt 27) all require a separate Pt 33 cert for their engines, in general.
 
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