Joby Aviation and defense contractor L3Harris to test autonomous hybrid aircraft

Joby Air is often thrown as a developer of commercial electric air car, but the circulating company has also followed a separate marketing path through a long -term relationship with the US Department of Defense. Now, the fruits of the years of research and development may come with the Ministry of Defense.

The company said on Thursday that it signed an agreement with the L3Harris Technologies defense contractor to “explore opportunities” to develop a new category for planes-specifically, a hybrid plane for hybrid and landing that can fly independently-for defense applications.

VTOL Gase Hybrid will be based on the current Joby S4 aircraft platform. The company focused on the development of the S4 through the entire movement transfer group, but it showed last year under a government contract a mixed version of hydrogen and hydrogen that flew 521 miles-more than twice from the initial model of electricity.

The agreement with the exploratory L3ARRIS, but hope is that the upcoming flight tests and operating demonstrations will lead to a military contract with the Ministry of Defense. Jobi said that the flight test will start this fall, and it is expected that the operating demonstrations will be in 2026.

Joby spent years developing and requesting a certificate of the first type of federal aviation department for its header and landing aircraft, which will be used to close the short distances of passengers in urban areas.

It also works with DOD in the development phase for nearly a decade. Through this relationship, my feasibility made what it takes to reach the “finish line” with the Ministry of Defense, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Joby Paul Sciara told Techcrunch.

“One of them was especially important,” he said. “We knew that we had to do this transformation.”

Sciara added that it is also important to show the so-called “Missing of Platform”-how its aircraft can be combined with appropriate sensors, independence, communications, and net load to provide a clear use of DOD.

He said: “We have two options: Either we build a group of these things ourselves, or we find an unbelievable partner with a deep understanding of these cases of use. This is a homeland of installed technology.”

This is where L3HARRIS comes.

John Rambo, head of the integrated mission systems at L3HARRIS, said that the new vertical lifting technology will enable long -term collaboration for a set of tasks. In this case, the hybrid VTOL plane can be used in low support tasks, which can include disputed logistics services, electronic warfare, unmanned aircraft systems, or C-Uas, said Sciarara.