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. After spending several years in the Pacific Northwest, she has returned to the Knoxville area.

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Hanneke Weitering

Joby Aviation began a week of electric air taxi demonstration flights across the Dallas-Fort Worth area today, the first flights in Texas under the <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-03-31/faa-evtol-integration-pilot-program-flips-script">eVTOL Integration Pilot Program</a> (eIPP) and the latest stop on the company’s 2026 Electric Skies Tour.
Project Nexus is one of eight proposals the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA selected for the eIPP in March. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) leads it, and its scope extends beyond Texas into Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma—a spread the department has described as a deliberate mix of dense urban airspace, a coastal energy corridor, and rural sovereign land.
Joby is one of four eVTOL aircraft developers on Project Nexus, alongside Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, and Wisk Aero. Three operators fill out the flying side: Houston-based Bristow, the air medical operator Metro Aviation of Shreveport, Louisiana, and <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2024-11-20/future-flight-global-targets-multiple-evtol-aircraft-use">Future Flight Global</a>, a Washington, D.C.-based company that has ordered Archer Midnights. Beta has said it will fly medical supply and cargo logistics missions across Texas with all three. United Airlines, UPS Flight Forward, and Amazon Global Air are also named as partners.
Through September 14, Joby plans to fly its four-passenger aircraft between Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW) and destinations across North Texas. One leg takes the aircraft into the controlled airspace at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW), landing at DFW Corporate Aviation, the airport’s sole FBO. Another is a round trip to Arlington, routed over the Fort Worth Stockyards to demonstrate noise levels. A third connects Perot Field to Toyota Motor North America’s campus in Plano, following a route Joby has proposed for commercial service. Weather could change the schedule, the company said.

Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said the eIPP gives the company “an incredible opportunity to bring our aircraft into urban areas and accelerate our path to commercial service.”
“Advanced air mobility vehicles are the future of aviation, and these demonstrations in Texas are critical to getting us there,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. “The FAA is leveraging data from test flights in Texas and across the country to ensure these new aircraft integrate safely into the airspace.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is hosting an event at Perot Field today to mark the launch of the program in Texas.
<h2>Setting up at Perot Field</h2>
Joby has leased 45,000 sq ft at the Alliance Air Trade Center in Haslet, on the Perot Field grounds, and describes it as its long-term operating base in North Texas. Hillwood, the Perot family developer of AllianceTexas, announced the lease on August 6. Joby and Hillwood called it the first major eVTOL air taxi company presence in Texas.
Hillwood set up the <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2022-02-04/texas-testing-zone-offers-advanced-air-mobility-innovators-real-world">Mobility Innovation Zone at AllianceTexas</a> in 2019 as a testbed for autonomous trucking, drone logistics, and eVTOL work. Perot Field already hosts a FedEx Ground sort hub and two UPS sort hubs, and the FAA’s Southwest regional headquarters sits on the same development. Joby said separately in August that it would work with Atoms, an industrial robotics company run by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, to acquire and develop vertiport sites in Texas, Florida, and New York.
Joby said the Texas flight demonstrations build on airspace research the FAA and NASA started in the region in 2018, and on <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2023-12-21/nasa-and-joby-complete-air-taxi-simulation-exercise-around-dallas-fort">a 2023 simulation the company ran with NASA</a> at Ames Research Center in California that modeled as many as 120 air taxi operations an hour in the KDFW terminal area.

<h2>An autonomous Caravan crosses the country</h2>
The tour’s autonomy leg brings a second aircraft to Perot Field today: the J208, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan carrying the autonomous flight systems that Joby picked up when it bought Xwing’s autonomy division in June 2024. <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/company/xwing">Xwing</a> had flown a modified Caravan under Superpilot since 2020, logging more than 250 autonomous flights and 500 autolandings, and separately ran a piloted Part 135 cargo operation for UPS. Joby now credits the aircraft with more than 400 flights and 800 automated flight hours, and said it is on static display at Perot Field for the secretary’s event.
The Caravan flies under a supervised autonomy model, with a ground-based remote pilot acting as pilot in command, updating flight plans and handling air traffic control on the aircraft’s own radios. It left Concord, California, on September 8 and demonstrated at Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (KDVT) the same day, starting a coast-to-coast run of roughly 5,541 nautical miles. The eastbound leg ends September 16 at the Outer Banks—where the Wright brothers first flew—before the aircraft works its way back west through Raleigh, Washington, Louisville, Wichita, Oklahoma City, and Salt Lake City, finishing at Portland, Oregon.
Superpilot has yet to be certified. Xwing <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/news-article/2023-04-13/xwing-begins-faa-certification-process-superpilot-autonomous-flight-system">opened a certification project with the FAA in 2023</a> aimed at fully uncrewed commercial cargo flights, and Joby has not said where that effort stands or what authorization covers this month’s flights.

Joby’s eVTOL air taxi program is further along. The company places itself in the fifth and final stage of the FAA type certification process, with testing continuing on conforming aircraft for type inspection authorization. It <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-03-12/joby-flies-first-faa-conforming-evtol">flew the first FAA-conforming aircraft</a>, N547JX, in March. FAA pilots still need to fly the aircraft for certification credit, and the agency must review the data before issuing a type certificate. Joby has not said whether the for-credit flights have started.
The aircraft Joby is flying from Perot Field this week is an earlier “company-conforming” prototype registered N545JX. That aircraft conducted a series of demonstration flights around New York City in April.
<h2>Kicking off the eIPP, state by state</h2>
Flights under the eIPP began in July, when Beta Technologies and United Therapeutics <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-07-10/beta-flies-manufactured-organs-first-eipp-mission">carried manufactured organ products</a> along the Virginia-Maryland corridor in the all-electric Alia CX300 airplane. Elroy Air and Bristow <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-09-02/elroy-air-bristow-fly-autonomous-freighter-louisiana">flew an uncrewed Chaparral freighter</a> in Louisiana in late August. Archer began its <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-09-03/archer-plans-city-city-tour-midnight-evtol">city-to-city tour</a>, branded “No Roads,” on September 8 with a piloted Midnight round trip between Salinas and Hollister, California. It plans eIPP flights in Texas, Florida, and New York.
Archer and <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/futureflight/2026-08-14/beta-turning-its-evtol-competitors-customers">Beta</a> separately announced today that they will extend their electric aircraft charging venture to Texas. In July, the two companies and Macquarie Capital launched America’s Consortium for Electric Skyways to build interoperable chargers at up to 250 locations nationwide by 2030. They plan to work with TxDOT over the coming months to decide where in the state to put them. Both companies expect to fly their respective electric aircraft prototypes in Texas within months.
“The future of aviation is taking flight in Texas,” said TxDOT emerging aviation tech director Sergio Roman. “The eIPP is a first-of-its-kind effort to safely integrate electric aircraft into U.S. airspace, and building the charging infrastructure to support those operations puts Texas squarely at the center of the next generation of aviation—improving safety and connectivity for communities across the state.”

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