NASA has taken an important step towards making flying taxis a reality. NASA has begun flight testing the electric VTOL aircraft from Joby Aviation to simulate and model future airspace with these taxis. The dry run will continue through September 10, and began on August 30th. This noise test will use 50 microphones to measure the "acoustic profile", of the air taxi during a flight.
This is the first eVTOL flight test in an Advanced Air Mobility campaign. It is meant to identify gaps in Federal Aviation Administration's rules, and ensure that the agency is ready to commercially use flying taxis as well as delivery drones and other unusual aircraft. The flight program data will be used to help plan a wider range of campaign tests in 2022 that include other taxis as well as more complex flight situations.
If flying taxis become widespread, the overall program will better prepare the US. Joby also scored a minor victory in the early testing. It is bringing in critical testing just a few months after Uber bought Uber's air taxi service and took a $394million investment from Toyota. It's not clear if Joby will still play a significant role but this is clearly what it wanted.
