Joby Aviation has completed and gained subsequent approval of its first systems review and its first compliance review by the FAA, and has submitted its first area-specific certification plan.

These approved systems and compliance reviews, completed at the end of last year, provide the company with confidence in its development approach, preliminary production design and defined path toward certification.

The systems review assessed Joby's plans and process for the development of complex, safety-critical, aerospace-grade systems and equipment. Systems involved in the review included flight controls, propulsion controls and battery management, among many others.

The compliance review evaluated Joby's approach to the development and verification of aerospace-grade software and airborne electronic hardware.

“The safety of modern aircraft owes much to rigorous, well-defined and repeatable development and verification processes. Successfully completing our first systems review and compliance review demonstrates that Joby's engineering practices are maturing to a level where they can be applied for the most demanding safety-critical development while producing all the required certification data to prove our design to one of the world's toughest and most respected regulators,” says development assurance lead Tom Ferrell. “We will now proceed to the second round of reviews, which focus on the outputs of Joby's development process, including validation of certification requirements, design capture and implementation of that design in both hardware and software.”

The area-specific certification plan is the first of several that Joby will be required to submit and brings the company one step closer to receiving type certification for its aircraft. It lays out the combination of design reports, analysis and testing that Joby will employ to demonstrate compliance with rigorous FAA safety standards for one functional area of the aircraft.

“This milestone is the result of many years of hard work by both the Joby team and the FAA,” says head of programmes and systems Didier Papadopoulos. “It's also another indication of the great momentum we have on the certification front. With more than two thirds of our means of compliance now agreed with the FAA, we're looking forward to maintaining that momentum with the submission of further certification plans in the near future.”

The certification plan is focused on cabin safety, comprising the integrity of materials, seats and occupant restraints used in the interior of the aircraft.

In February, Joby announced it had completed its first series of FAA conformity tests to confirm the material strength of the composite material comprising the aerostructure of the aircraft.