VTOL Air Taxi With Military Applications Flies On Hybrid Power For First Time

A long-range vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) air taxi under development by Joby Aviation has completed its first successful flight using a turbine-electric engine. 

Lifting off from the company’s site in Marina, California, the aircraft pairs a hybrid turbine powertrain with the company’s proprietary autonomy software – the SuperPilot autonomous stack – which extends range while increasing payload capacity, according to Joby. 

It includes capabilities such as: 

• Real-time sensor fusion (radar, LiDAR, vision) and environment perception.

• Autonomous mission management: planning, adapting to changes (weather/air traffic), re-tasking mid-flight.

• Remote operations / long-range autonomy: Demonstrated flights over thousands of miles with remote ground-stations.

• Health monitoring and resilience: Predictive system health modeling, digital-twin, real-time compute platform oriented toward certification.

As far as military applications go, the craft can deploy from forward locations without runway infrastructure.

The hybrid design was announced in partnership with L3Harris Technology – with L3 supplying sensors, effectors, communications, and collaborative autonomy components to tailor the craft for government missions. 

The companies plan to begin operation demonstrations next year, focusing on tasks such as contested logistics, low-altitude support, and loyal wingman tasks. As NextGenDefense points out, “The effort aligns with US government priorities for resilient, autonomous, and hybrid aircraft, with more than $9 billion requested in the fiscal 2026 budget for next-generation platforms.”

“The future battlefield relies on unmanned systems augmenting manned platforms, and our partnership with Joby accelerates missionized VTOL aircraft to directly support defense requirements,” said L3Harris’ Jason Lambert, president of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.

“L3Harris has delivered thousands of missionized aircraft, and our focus is scaling rapidly to bring these commercial VTOL aircraft to the fight.”

(h/t Capital.news)