Staff Rotor/Hub Design Engineer

Joby Aviation. Jury Sides with Aerosonic in Joby Trade Secrets Case Probe maker wins $116.9 million verdict against eVTOL developer October 5, 2026 A federal jury in Tampa found on October 2 that eVTOL developer Joby Aviation breached a confidentiality agreement with avionics supplier Aerosonic and misappropriated trade secrets surrounding its air data probes. The jury awarded Aerosonic about $116.9 million, according to the verdict form filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Clearwater, Florida-based Aerosonic, a TransDigm subsidiary, makes probes that measure air pressure around an aircraft so its flight computers can calculate airspeed, altitude, angle of attack, and sideslip. Aerosonic sued Santa Cruz, California-based Joby in March 2025, claiming Joby used Aerosonic's proprietary designs and test data to develop its own probes in-house. The jury awarded $68.6 million for breach of the 2021 nondisclosure agreement (NDA) between the two companies. It also found Joby liable under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and awarded $29.9 million to cover Aerosonic's losses and Joby's gains from the misappropriation. Because jurors found the misappropriation willful and malicious, they added $18.3 million in exemplary damages. Aerosonic prevailed on each of the 39 items of proprietary information and 26 trade secrets presented to the jury. Meanwhile, the jury rejected all six of Joby's affirmative defenses, including Joby's argument that Aerosonic waived protection for information that Joby could obtain from probes it bought. The jury also rejected Joby's counterclaims that Aerosonic breached the NDA and sold it defective probes. According to Aerosonic's complaint, the companies signed the NDA in September 2021, and Aerosonic began selling air data probes to Joby for its flight-test aircraft in April 2022. Days after the first delivery, Joby asked to buy the intellectual property rights to Aerosonic's probes, and Aerosonic refused, the complaint states. Aerosonic alleged that Joby then decided to design its own probes without telling Aerosonic, while continuing to ask the supplier for confidential engineering information. Joby developed its probe in about two years, according to the complaint, a task Aerosonic estimates would have taken a decade or more without its trade secrets. The October 2 verdict is not yet finalized and remains subject to post-trial motions and potential appeal. A Joby spokesperson told AIN that the company has asked the court to overturn the verdict and intends to "vigorously pursue all available post-trial and appellate remedies." "We strongly disagree with the jury's verdict, which we believe is unsupported by the evidence and inconsistent with the law," the spokesperson said. "Joby independently developed its air data system through years of its own engineering and manufacturing work, and we stand firmly behind the integrity of that work and our conduct." Archer's role (and its own beef with Joby). Aerosonic also sold air data probes to rival eVTOL aircraft developer Archer Aviation. In February, the court allowed Archer to intervene in the Aerosonic v. Joby case so it could protect its own proprietary information after the judge allowed Joby to request records of Aerosonic's sales to Archer, according to a court order. Joby and Archer are also fighting each other directly. Joby sued Archer in November 2025, alleging that former Joby policy executive George Kivork downloaded confidential files before joining Archer and used them to undercut a real estate deal Joby had already secured. Archer denied that Kivork brought any confidential information with him. Archer countersued in March and accused Joby of hiding its ties to China when it sought U.S. government contracts. On September 29, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed Archer's counterclaims for good. In her order, van Keulen wrote that Archer admitted it could not identify any specific false statement Joby made to the government and instead relied on what she called "inferences upon inferences." The same order allowed two of Joby's trade secret claims against both defendants to move forward: one involving the developer agreement and one involving Hawthorne Municipal Airport (KHHR) in Los Angeles County. Joby alleges that Kivork took files naming the airport before he left, and that Archer leased the airport in November 2025 shortly after hiring him. Van Keulen also dismissed Joby's claims that Kivork's files helped Archer pursue a Los Angeles Dodgers sponsorship, expand in Japan and South Korea, and explore hydrogen aircraft, giving Joby until October 6 to refile them with more supporting facts. Archer's separate patent infringement case against Joby at the U.S. International Trade Commission remains pending, with an evidentiary hearing scheduled for January and a final decision targeted for September 2027, according to the commission's docket. Separately, Archer is also suing Vertical Aerospace for patent infringement.

Joby Aviation's electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft participated in FAA demonstration flights across the Dallas-Fort Worth region in September, showcasing routes to major urban hubs and the international airport. The company is progressing through the final stage of FAA type certification to prove its aircraft is airworthy. Morgan Stanley estimates the urban air mobility market could reach $1 trillion by 2040 and $9 trillion by 2050. Joby acquired Blade Urban Air Mobility for $125 million, gaining an established customer base and generating $36.2 million in second-quarter revenue through chartered helicopter and jet flights. However, Joby must still complete FAA certification and prove it can manufacture and operate aircraft at scale. The company's in-house manufacturing requires more capital and labour than competitors' contract approaches. Joby has 12 aircraft in production and expects to deliver two in 2026.

Demystifying the eVTOL industry - opinion. The flying taxi isn't science fiction anymore. It's a certified aircraft with a waiting list. SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 08:34 Updated: SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 11:57 I need to be in Tel Aviv for a 9 a.m. meeting. By car, it will take an hour and a half that I don't have. Instead, I open an app and order a flying taxi. It lands near my house within a few minutes. There's no pilot. I get in, it lifts off and joins a low-level air corridor reserved for exactly this kind of traffic. I open my tablet and prepare for my meeting while the aircraft handles the rest. The corridor isn't too congested this morning. Twenty-five minutes later, I land near my destination. I walk in rested, prepped, and on time. None of that is available to me yet, in Tel Aviv or almost anywhere else. However, it's closer to reality than most people realize. So, let's demystify this industry, because the gap between the hype and the reality is unusually wide in both directions. eVTOL stands for electric vertical take-off and landing. Strip away the acronym, and it's an aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter, but it is powered by batteries and multiple electric motors instead of a single turbine. That last part matters more than it sounds. A traditional helicopter has one point of failure at its rotor. Most eVTOL designs use distributed electric propulsion - several independent rotors - so that if one or two fail, the aircraft can still land safely using the others. That redundancy is a big part of why the industry believes it can eventually get comfortable removing the pilot, not just electrifying the aircraft. Where you can already fly today. This is the part that surprises people most: Commercial eVTOL passenger service already exists and has for over a year. China's EHang received the world's first Air Operator Certificates for pilotless, human-carrying aircraft in March 2025, and its EH216-S has been flying ticketed passengers on tourism routes in Guangzhou and Hefei ever since, with tens of thousands of demonstration flights logged. Thailand has authorized EHang to fly real passengers, including its own civil aviation chief, under a supervised regulatory sandbox designed to lead toward eventual full commercial approval. In the Gulf, Dubai and Abu Dhabi have positioned themselves as the next launch markets, betting on regulatory agility and brutal summer heat that makes a 90-second aerial hop more attractive than sitting in traffic. Joby has an exclusive agreement to begin service in Dubai. Archer is targeting Abu Dhabi. In the United States, the FAA finalized Part 194 - its dedicated certification rule for this entire aircraft category - in late 2024, and in March 2026 launched the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program covering eight projects across 26 states, with the first flights, Joby's, scheduled to begin in Texas this month. One important caveat, though. Almost everything operating commercially or about to launch outside China is piloted, not autonomous. The vision in my opening story, a genuinely empty cockpit, is real in Guangzhou today. Everywhere else, it's still a few years out. It's also worth being honest about pace because the industry's numbers and the regulator's numbers tell different stories. The FAA's latest Aerospace Forecast projects that in the first year after AAM aircraft enter commercial service, expected to begin with this month's Texas flights, there will be just seven aircraft flying a combined 24,600 departures, on an assumption of roughly 28 trips per aircraft per day. By 2028, the agency expects these figures to grow to as many as 80 eVTOLs flying around 335,000 services annually.