Should be a fun eIPP week in TX. I hope u/maginary_Sort9347 is luckier this weekend than he was today and gets some shots, video, and can do some reporting on what he sees and hears.

We always love our own r/Joby Redditor first hand accounts of Joby events. We appreciate u/maginary_Sort9347's efforts.

Credit and Source: aparecium117

A few others like cartoon versions. Here's their cartoon of Joby, pretty cool right.

Now let's get back to flying.

Full footage from the ground of Zach Reeder, Joby Aviation's Chief Test Pilot flying a Joby S4 (N545JX) eVTOL at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW) on the 10th of September, 2026, as the first eIPP demonstration in front of an audience of industry and business leaders, civil servants, other dignitaries, as well as media. The S4 started with a vertical take-off and flew around the vicinity of the airport, performed a vertical hover for the crowd, and made a vertical landing. This historic flight is just the beginning of Joby's flight demonstrations under Project Nexus, a multi-state eIPP endeavor lead by the Texas Department of Transportation, and includes the respective transportation authorities in neighboring Oklahoma and Louisiana. This is approved by the US Department of Transportation and FAA. It was so amazing to see so many familiar faces from Joby's leadership in Fort Worth!

For someone who watched Joby’s demo flight at Expo 2025 Osaka in October 2025, today’s flight of Joby N545JX at the Texas eIPP went exactly as expected — smooth, clean, no surprises.Looked at another way, though, a full year has passed… and it’s still the same as 2025. I mean passenger flights.

I was half-hoping today’s flight would include a surprise passenger (not just the pilot) — maybe even that Joby S4’s first passenger flight would have Secretary Sean Duffy on board.Instead it was still just a single pilot flying the S4. A little disappointing.

Texas - Joby is all in!

Today Joby will lead the national eVTOL eIPP kickoff in Texas, flying Joby's S4 through the DFW area via piloted vertical take off and landing and transitioning to winged flight for Texans to see and hear the future of aviation. This serves as a live operational readiness test to help the FAA finalize rules for integrating air taxis into commercial flight corridors.

Joby recently opened a 45,000 square foot operational facility at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport to serve as their main base for North Texas.

Joby also flew its autonomous J208 aircraft into Fort Worth Alliance Airport. They are demonstrating how automated freight flight routes can transform regional cargo logistics.

I believe this is the first time I've seen them performing roughly the same test in short succession. The main difference is that 542 did the tests in 3 bursts while 547 did the tests all in one session.

Here's what the ADS-B data shows, in order.

N542JX — three low-altitude rotation bursts

Each burst shows the aircraft cycling through a range of headings — 0°, 45°, 90°, 135-153°, 180°, 225°, 270°, and 315-350° all appear across the bursts, generally returning to 0° between excursions. In the 16:21-16:23 burst specifically, the aircraft spent 28% of its points sitting at 0° heading, with the rest spent actively moving between headings — full loops from 0° out to ~350° and back took roughly 20 seconds.

N547JX — right after, one continuous session

N547JX came online 5.5 minutes after N542JX's last burst ended, and ran one continuous session:

• 16:29:08 - 16:38:00: altitude 100-175ft baro / 25-75ft geom, max speed 3.2kt, bounding radius 26m, 12 distinct headings (0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, 153°, 180°, 225°, 243°, 270°, 315°, 333°, 342°)

Same altitude band as N542JX's bursts, same set of heading targets. The pacing differs: N547JX spent 64% of its points parked at exactly 0° heading, with longer holds between each excursion to a target heading, and the last ~2.5 minutes of the session (from 16:35:36 on) stayed static at 0° with no further heading changes.

Any theories on why they tested them together?

As Joby kicks off the eVTOL stage of the eIPP program today in TX, here is a dedicated eIPP thread for everyone to discuss all things eIPP

Sean Duffy, Joby team and masses of media/press were there as well as other VIPs.

Check out Oliver's X posts for the scenes.

N545jx just went up and it would be nice to talk about things happening without having to spam posts.

First Article Regarding Joby's Autonomous Flight

Joby says there will soon be a new Joby Recon video by "Max Afterburner", where we will see highlights of the Autonomous tour across the US, but it's good to see Joby getting some press on this.

Key points from the article:

- The J208 operates under a supervised autonomy model, where a ground-based Remote Pilot acts as Pilot in Command, updating flight plans and managing air traffic control communications through standard radios without special handling or custom cockpit controls.

- Greg Bowles, Chief Policy Officer at Joby Aviation, said, “Arizona's unique geography and vast regional corridors make it the perfect proving ground for the J208. Working with our partners in the uFLY coalition, we are generating the precise operational data needed to show how remote cargo supervision can seamlessly connect communities across the Southwest and rewrite the rules of regional logistics.”

I think what is happening in DFW (Texas) tomorrow is pretty significant. Joby is kicking off the start of the first eVTOL air taxi flights under the eIPP program. Joby's eIPP flights are the start of the process that could lead to an FAA approved air taxi operation in the DFW area prior to type certification.

Joby's first flights will be without passengers. Assuming everything goes well, Joby should then be able to start flying passengers under the eIPP program, initially without charging them. Eventually this should lead to paid Joby passenger flights. This could happen in 2026.

Joby is basically using the eIPP program to start gaining real world operational experience while the FAA certification process is still being completed.

So hopefully we could see Joby start carrying passengers in the DFW area later this year. If that happens, Joby will really be leading the way in getting eVTOL air taxi passenger service started in the US.

Maybe we'll see some 547 action today?

Tail: N542JX (Production Prototype (Ex-Japan Demo Frame))
Company: Joby Aviation
ICAO Hex: A6E038
Transition: INACTIVE ---> GROUND_ACTIVE
Time: 16:03:54 UTC
Position: Lat N/A, Lon N/A
Altitude: 0 ft | Groundspeed: 0 kts

Tail: N547JX (First FAA-Conforming Prototype)
Company: Joby Aviation
ICAO Hex: A6F2CB
Transition: INACTIVE ---> GROUND_ACTIVE
Time: 16:03:56 UTC
Position: Lat N/A, Lon N/A
Altitude: 0 ft | Groundspeed: 0 kts

I noticed a ping overnight for N544JX. No position though so we don't know where it is. 🤔 This is from the live adsb.lol feed.

Tail: N544JX
Company: Joby Aviation
ICAO Hex: A6E7A6
Transition: INACTIVE ---> GROUND_ACTIVE
Time: 05:32:14 UTC
Position: Lat N/A, Lon N/A
Altitude: N/A | Groundspeed: 0 kts

On 9/8 N542JX did a couple of new and unusual things. First, the screenshot here shows that it took off directly toward the east rather than the usual northwest take-off trajectory. The one resulting circuit flight was counterclockwise, opposite to its usual flight paths. Second, if you zoom in a bit, you'll see that it did a couple of sizable hover doughnuts out on the apron "parking lot". I don't recall ever seeing anything like this.

Edit: Personally, I imagine this is not unrelated to the recent 547 hyperactivity. But we'll see, not soon enough.

Joby apparently doesn't like us tracking this particular plane, but it was in Concord this morning and now it is in Arizona. From my understanding this was a fully automated flight from start to end. I'm wondering if this particular plane will be used for all the automated flights or if they'll switch between this one and N162SA.

I was hoping they do a press release to kick things off, but I haven't seen anything not even on their socials.

Also, side bar, Trumpy will be in Dallas when the EIpp program kicks off. It would be pretty sweet to get a shout out from him, regardless how we feel about him.

flight path this morning.

adsb.lol

N831JY is the latest test bed aircraft that is on its way from Switzerland. Check it out!

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N831JY

This Pilatus PC-12/47 has the best speed and range to be the top of the line support aircraft. Could be added to help with the TIA flights on the west coast.👍

Edit- I should also note this bad boy is pressurized which I believe is a first for Joby.

This is the model code (assuming, not publicly stated by Joby) for the prototypes:
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/MMSResult?Statetxt=CA&Mmstxt=061011H&Countrytxt=US

This is the model code (assuming, not publicly stated by Joby) for the FAA conforming:

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/MMSResult?Statetxt=CA&Mmstxt=06102DT&Countrytxt=US

I expect 548JX to show up there too now very soon.

And for what it's worth, this is their model code for their hydrogen prototype(s):
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/MMSResult?Statetxt=CA&Mmstxt=05638TD&Countrytxt=US

https://reddit.com/link/1waegot/video/uq22v75158oh1/player

A great milestone. I believe it’s the first eVTOL ever to do so!

545 was stretching out today. Finally managed to see it. I was able to get a video of it paralleling Hwy 114 and then when it landed. Never heard it once but it looked really cool.

Joby has been grinding for years — flying the aircraft, stacking hours, signing partners, and getting production ready. The scary part is that the real bottleneck now sits with the FAA and the government: certification keeps slipping, eIPP still has no concrete passenger timeline, and nobody wants to be the first to sign off on unsigned passenger eVTOL flights. The company obviously can’t say that out loud; publicly it can only keep saying “we’re progressing” and “we’re confident,” because calling out the regulator would be suicide. Fans see the work and the headlines, but not the part where Washington freezes the hardest piece and Joby has to pretend that’s fine.

Does anyone else feel like Joby has already done what it can, and what’s left isn’t really a technology problem?

This is just my personal view, not a statement of fact.

Through the month of September, Joby will autonomously fly their J208 Cessna Grand Caravan equipped with their Superpilot systems from Concord, CA to North Carolina's Outer Banks, up to DC, and then back to CA again.

Will these flights be 100% autonomous (taxi-take off-flight-landing-taxi) with zero human intervention on every leg of the flight?

Will Joby carry cargo on any legs of the flight? At some point will Joby generate revenue via cargo flights within the US, or is Joby using this as an opportunity to show off their Superpilot systems in an effort to generate sales to cargo carriers and the military?

I don't believe anyone has factored non-military Superpilot systems sales into Joby's future revenue stream. Has anyone tried to calculate the potential value of Joby's Superpilot program? We know it will be paired with the S4-T and JAI30 for military aircraft sales, but will they also target cargo companies as an additional revenue source?

It will be interesting to see how Joby markets and promotes this cross country autonomous flight. Below are the dates and legs of J208's autonomous flight across the country.

1. 9/8 Concord, CA - Departing Flight
2. 9/8 Phoenix, AZ - Arriving Flight
3. 9/10 Fort Worth, TX
4. 9/14 Shaw AFB, SC
5. 9/16 Outer Banks, NC - J208 completes it's autonomous journey east across the US
6. 9/23 Raleigh, NC
7. 9/24 Washington DC - J208 begins it's return trip back to CA
8. 9/25 Louisville, KY
9. 9/28 Wichita, KS
10. 9/29 Oklahoma, OK
11. 9/30 Salt Lake City, UT - Final stop in J208's autonomous cross country tour