Hanneke Weitering is a writer and editor with AIN covering advanced air mobility and new flight technologies. She became an aviation journalist and joined the AIN team in the summer of 2022 after reporting on spaceflight and astronomy for six years at Space.com. After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she moved to New York City to pursue a master’s degree in science, health, and environmental reporting at New York University&#039;s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She is now based in Seattle near Boeing Field and spends her free time exploring nature in the Pacific Northwest.

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Hanneke Weitering

Following Joby Aviation’s acquisition of Blade Air Mobility’s charter brokerage last month, the company announced this week that customers will be able to book flights on Blade-arranged helicopter and seaplane flights through the Uber mobile app as early as 2026.&nbsp;
“We’re excited to introduce Uber customers to the magic of seamless urban air travel,” said Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt. “Integrating Blade into the Uber app is the natural next step in our global partnership with Uber and will lay the foundation for the introduction of our quiet, zero-emissions aircraft in the years ahead.”
Joby, which is working to certify a four-passenger eVTOL air taxi, has been collaborating with Uber Technologies since 2019 on plans to integrate urban air mobility services into the popular rideshare app. In December 2020, Joby announced it would <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2020-12-09/joby-takes-control-uber-elevate-plans-urban-air-taxi-services">acquire Uber’s Elevate division</a>, which had been experimenting with a helicopter booking service in New York City called Uber Copter.
“Since Uber’s earliest days, we’ve believed in the power of advanced air mobility to deliver safe, quiet, and sustainable transportation to cities around the world,” said Uber president and COO Andrew Macdonald. “By harnessing the scale of the Uber platform and partnering with Joby, the industry leader in advanced air mobility, we’re excited to bring our customers the next generation of travel.”
By acquiring Blade, Joby gained access to the helicopter operator’s network of private terminals and its established customer base in New York, New Jersey, and Southern Europe. The California-based company aims to convince that customer base to begin flying in its eVTOL aircraft, which produces zero emissions in flight and generates significantly less noise.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>Joby Evaluates eVTOL Noise in Cities</h2>
According to Joby, the company’s JAS4-1 eVTOL aircraft operates quietly enough to blend in with urban soundscapes, posing minimal disruption to communities.&nbsp;
“Every detail, including propeller shape, radius, blade count, and tip speed, was engineered from the ground up to keep noise to a minimum,” Austin Thai, a senior acoustics engineer at Joby, wrote in a company <a href="https://www.jobyaviation.com/blog/ambient-noise-modeling/">blog post</a> detailing a recent noise-evaluation study.&nbsp;
Conducted in partnership with Blue Ridge Research and Consulting, that noise study modeled the sound of Joby’s aircraft flying against the backdrop of Los Angeles’ constant hum of traffic, sirens, and construction work. It then compared the acoustic profile of Joby’s aircraft with traditional helicopters flying on the same route between downtown Los Angeles and John Wayne Airport (KSNA).
“Over an entire round-trip flight between the locations we modeled, noise from our aircraft was greater than the ambient noise for only 0.17 square miles. When our aircraft is cruising (i.e. not taking off or landing, which requires more thrust), this dropped to 0.004 square miles,” Thai wrote. “To put this in perspective, noise from a traditional helicopter on the same route was above ambient conditions for 45 square miles, potentially disrupting thousands of people.”
That study, <a href="https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2025-3138">published online</a> in July, builds on eVTOL noise research that Joby has conducted with NASA as part of the latter’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign. Joby took acoustic data from earlier <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2022-05-10/joby-nasa-test-flights-prove-evtol-noise-levels-will-be-acceptable-cities">flight tests it conducted with NASA</a> in a quiet and controlled setting and combined it with an ambient noise model to assess how the aircraft sounds in an urban setting. Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the ambient noise model was trained on noise profiles from 789 U.S. cities.&nbsp;
To show off how quiet its electric aircraft will be, Joby has released an app for iOS and macOS that allows users to compare eVTOL noise with that of turbojets and helicopters in different urban settings, including a public park and an outdoor café. The Joby Sounds app is available for free in the<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/joby-sounds/id6743779665"> </a>Apple<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/joby-sounds/id6743779665"> </a>App Store.

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