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JoeBen Bevirt is an American serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, a California-based aerospace company. He is the recipient [1] of the 2018 Haueter Award and holds more than 160 U.S. patents in aerodynamics, aircraft design, electric and hydrogen propulsion. [2]
Bevirt was born to Paula Fry and Ron Bevirt. He was raised in the Last Chance community in Santa Cruz County, California. His name was inspired by the character JoeBen in his family friend Ken Kesey’s novel Sometimes a Great Notion . [3]
Bevirt graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1991. [4] He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Davis and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. [5] [6]
Bevirt had been interested in engineering since his childhood and built one of the world’s first full-suspension mountain bikes while in high school. [7] He co-founded Velocity11 [8] in 1999 to develop robotic laboratory systems for life sciences discovery. The company was later acquired by Agilent Technologies in 2007. [6]
In 2006, Bevirt founded Joby Inc., a consumer products company that developed the Gorillapod flexible camera tripod. [6] [9] Bevirt also started Joby Energy with a focus on airborne wind turbines. [10]
In 2009, he founded Joby Aviation, a company pioneering the development of all-electric aircraft that can take off and land vertically, while cruising like a traditional airplane. [11] [7] In 2020, his company received a signed G-1 Certification Basis from the FAA and airworthiness certification from the US Air Force. [12] [13] On August 11th 2021, the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, making Bevirt the world’s first eVTOL billionaire according to media reports. [3]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bevirt worked with the genetics team at the University of California Santa Cruz to launch SummerBio, a company that provides affordable PCR tests. [7]
In March 2022, Bevirt was invited to testify before the United States House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee during a hearing addressing concerns around aviation noise. [14]
In 2018, Bevirt was announced as one of UC Davis’ ‘Most Distinguished Alumni’. [15] He was also the 2018 recipient of the Paul. E. Haueter Award, presented by the Vertical Flight Society to recognize outstanding technical contributions to the field of vertical flight. [16]
Bevirt lives in Santa Cruz with his wife, Jenny, and four children. [7]
A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes used to include hovercars and/or VTOL personal air vehicles. Many prototypes have been built since the early 20th century, using a variety of flight technologies. Most have been designed to take off and land conventionally using a runway. Although VTOL projects are increasing, none has yet been built in more than a handful of numbers.
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wing aircraft and other hybrid aircraft with powered rotors such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and gyrodynes.
A gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that is driven by its engine for takeoff and landing only, and includes one or more conventional propeller or jet engines to provide forward thrust during cruising flight. During forward flight the rotor is unpowered and free-spinning, like an autogyro, and lift is provided by a combination of the rotor and conventional wings. The gyrodyne is one of a number of similar concepts which attempt to combine helicopter-like low-speed performance with conventional fixed-wing high-speeds, including tiltrotors and tiltwings.
A personal air vehicle (PAV) is a proposed class of passenger aircraft providing on-demand air transport.
Guangzhou EHang Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd is a company based in Guangzhou, China that develops and manufactures autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) and passenger AAVs which have entered service in China for aerial cinematography, photography, emergency response, and survey missions.
A passenger drone is an autonomous aircraft that is designed to carry a small number of passengers to a destination.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is the use of small, highly automated aircraft to carry passengers or cargo at lower altitudes in urban and suburban areas which have been developed in response to traffic congestion. It usually refers to existing and emerging technologies such as traditional helicopters, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (VTOL), electrically propelled, vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft (eVTOL), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These aircraft are characterized by the use of multiple electric-powered rotors or fans for lift and propulsion, along with fly-by-wire systems to control them. Inventors have explored urban air mobility concepts since the early days of powered flight. However, advances in materials, computerized flight controls, batteries and electric motors improved innovation and designs beginning in the late 2010s. Most UAM proponents envision that the aircraft will be owned and operated by professional operators, as with taxis, rather than by private individuals.
Kitty Hawk Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer producing electric ultralight aircraft.
Joby Aviation is a United States venture-backed aviation company, developing an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that it intends to operate as an air taxi service. Joby Aviation is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, and has offices in San Carlos, California; Marina, California; and Munich, Germany.
Volocopter GmbH is a German aircraft manufacturer based in Bruchsal and founded by Alexander Zosel and Stephan Wolf. The company specializes in the design of electric multirotor helicopters in the form of personal air vehicles, designed for air taxi use. The CEO is Dirk Hoke and chairman Stefan Klocke.
Vertical Aerospace Ltd. is an aerospace manufacturer based in Bristol, England. It designs and builds zero emission, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) electrically powered aircraft.
Beta Technologies, is a Burlington, Vermont-based aerospace manufacturer developing electric vertical take off and landing (eVTOL) and electric conventional take-off and landing (eCTOL) aircraft for the cargo, medical passenger, and military aviation industries. The company has also developed a network of chargers which can supply power to their aircraft and other electric vehicles. Training programs for future electric aircraft pilots and maintainers are also provided.
The Sabrewing Rhaegal is a proposed American unmanned cargo aircraft developed by Californian Sabrewing Aircraft.
An electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft is a variety of VTOL aircraft that uses electric power to hover, take off, and land vertically. This technology came about thanks to major advances in electric propulsion and the emerging need for new aerial vehicles for urban air mobility that can enable greener and quieter flights. Electric and hybrid propulsion systems (EHPS) have also the potential of lowering the operating costs of aircraft.
The Wisk Cora is an American autonomous personal air vehicle prototype previously developed by the Kitty Hawk Corporation, and subsequently by Wisk Aero.
Igor Pasternak is an American aviation entrepreneur, inventor and engineer specializing in designing and building airships. He is best known as the founder and CEO of Worldwide Aeros Corp, an American manufacturer of airships based in Montebello, California and for his research on variable buoyancy control for airships. Igor Pasternak is an advocate of the cargo airship industry and lighter-than-air flight.
Archer Aviation is a publicly traded company headquartered in San Jose, California, which is developing eVTOL aircraft.
Wisk Aero is an aerospace manufacturer based in Mountain View, California, United States. The company develops self-flying electric vertical take off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft designed to be operated as air taxis. The company was formed in 2019 as a partnership between Boeing and Google co-founder Larry Page's Kitty Hawk aircraft company.
Alef Aeronautics is an automotive and aviation company based in the United States. Since 2015, it has been developing and promoting a proposed flying car intended to take off vertically and tilt sideways to fly like a biplane.
Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is an air transport system.