How to fly the Joby eVTOL

[LyonHaart001]

I have to share this… I found a video on YouTube by the factory that makes the actual Joby eVTOL. This is how you fly it.

• Throttle Lever to 50% when taking off or landing, in Hover Mode, and in normal flight mode, business as usual.
• Garmin Screen: Far left Soft Key ‘Unplugged’ Selected
• Garmin Screen: Middle Soft Key ‘Flight Mode’ (not Load Mode) Selected
• Garmin Screen: Middle Soft Key ‘Load’ Mode will be for charging and opening doors. Motors stay off. With Flight mode active, she is ready to fly, joystick and throttle effect engines (motors or fans).
• Joystick/Hover/Ground mode, Takeoff Land (Screen will show engines pointed up and ‘Hover Mode’ window showing active)
• Joystick Back is ‘Up’ and Joystick Forward is ‘Down’. (Hover mode only).
• Twist Joystick is Yaw/Rudder
• Bank Joystick is Aileron, or side movement in Hover Mode
• Take-Off via pulling back on Joystick, push forward on the Throttle and you begin forward movement. Note engines changing angles, from upwards to forwards. At a certain point, the window of the flight mode goes from ‘Hover’ to ‘Flight’. Then its back to normal Flight inputs. Put back is up and push forward is down on Joystick, fly it like a normal plane. Same for throttle. So Hover Mode is totally different then Flight Mode.

She will auto hover, and she appears to hold your VS. I didnt mess with Autopilot yet, but she might have ‘Fly By Wire’ systems, which is point and go, then let go and she flies herself.

Note, if you are hovering and there is a cross wind, she will appear to be leaning. She is banking into the wind, holding position.
AUTO SHUTDOWN… When you land, and throttle and joystick are in the blue, centered, she will shut down. If you have a wheel up in the air, she keeps running. Land with ship pointed into the wind and she will shut down. All three gears must be down.
Charging. Tap the far left Soft Key on the Garmin screen and go to Charge mode. 2nd Soft Key is ‘Charge Rate’ (for the sim). 8X will be Plaid Charge mode.

Fun…!

Video Tutorial

How to Fly the Joby Aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Happy Flights…

[LyonHaart001]

Some screenshots showing the readouts for Hover mode and Flight mode, and locations of the Soft Keys for the various modes and door controls, recharging, etc.

[Mobias7]

Thanks for all this info. I’m loving this thing but I’ve been struggling a bit with it. It really is great fun to fly.

[TXEcoDragon]

In the real S4, the Left Hand Inceptor has a spring+cam return to center, a lot like most joysticks do. This returns the LHI to the 50% position. You can see this position on the left G3000 MFD in FS2024, denoted by a box which you place the LHI command dot inside. If the dot is above that box you will accelerate and if it is below that box you will decelerate, and if in hover, you’ll actually back up. Make sure to map and use the decelerate to hover/waypoint button, which can be used with the LHI in the 50% position, and this will bring you to a nice station keeping hover in TRC (Translational Rate Control).

A trick I use with dual throttles like William is using in the video above, is to leave one of the throttle levers unmapped and in the 50%position, and map the other to “throttle” (Surge), and in so doing, you can find the 50% point by feel, simply by pulling the throttle lever to align with the unmapped second lever.

To map those features mentioned above, note the following:

DECEL TO WP implementation is based on having a defined arrival airport as this will be used as a target,
activating it requires a long press of the LHI “DECEL” button, current implementation will default to DECEL TO HVR if no destination is defined in the flight plan.

The following functions can be mapped to your joystick or external hardware by looking for the key bindings in your controls menu

(FUNCTION==>FS2024 KEYBINDING NAME)

SPEED HOLD MODE ==> ARM AUTOTHROTTLE

SPEED SELECT INC ==> INCREASE AUTOPILOT REFERENCE AIRSPEED

SPEED SELECT DEC ==> DECREASE AUTOPILOT REFERENCE AIRSPEED

DECEL button ==> AUTOPILOT AIRSPEED HOLD (short and long press are supported)

DISENGAGE button ==> TOGGLE DISENGAGE AUTOPILOT

synthetic vision should be enabled in the MSFS G3000 for the flight path vector to show. This can be done via the pfd softkeys :
PFD SETTING => ATTITUDE OVERLAYS => SYNTHETIC TERRAIN

[FlyingSinger20]

Great info. Note to that there is a quite detailed PDF manual on the flightsimulator.com website. It’s 65 pages and really explains different modes of flight.
Aircraft Manuals - Microsoft Flight Simulator

[NixonRedgrave]

This is an interesting aircraft and pretty fun to mess about with.

Has anyone noted the Range “guess-o-meter” (those who own an EV will know what I mean by this) not indicating anything or very little when it does? I’d have expected it to have a generous value when parked, but it reads 0 NM.

[ZeekR5430]

The range seems like a live readout based on your current energy use and ground speed. So if you are stopped the range is 0, if you are climbing the range will show not so good, but if you are in cruise the range seems to be accurate to when the battery will run out.

[NixonRedgrave]

Ah, so it seems to behave differently to that of an EV (well, it is an EV, but I mean an automobile. )

Thanks.

[CasualClick]

Personal Comments and Observations (as Partner Dev)

Hi - the behavior is correct. The only calculation that can be made sitting stationary on the ground with no load on the engines is battery endurance. That number is a fixed value. Once you put a load on, the FMS can calculate both range and energy draw, which directly impacts battery life remaining. Hope this helps.

[NixonRedgrave]

Thanks, it does.

It’s just an interesting difference between how the guess-o-meter on an EV automobile works. I have to assume in the car it’s using either advertised range as a start point and/or historical driving behavior to calculate it.

If I walk out to the garage and look at the display in our EV with a full charge it has an estimated range even with it stationary and no load on the traction motor.

EVs are interesting, and their data reporting implementations are intriguing to ponder.

[CasualClick]

Yeah, the forecasting is a bit more conservative on air taxis - it has to be for safety purposes. When I was doing long-range testing on the eVTOLs, as the battery endurance dropped to really low levels, you’d get CAS warnings that vertical takeoff/landing was inhibited, because those modes would really suck up the power. They can both land conventionally, but the Joby’s mission profile is best played out in VTOL modes end-to-end. But it is also a pilot’s eVTOL - capable of 180 knots flat out and no autopilot (there is a LVL control) so wherever you want to get to within range, you can get there PDQ.

[NixonRedgrave]

That makes a ton of sense.

It is always amusing for us to watch the guess-o-meter change drastically with driving behavior and/or terrain.

It makes sense that there is an Endurance gauge on the Joby. We don’t use endurance as a factor in road vehicles, so that Range gauge is basically doing it all (in the car).

The Joby is really neat. I liked playing with the VoloCity in 2020, so I’m digging the evolution we’re seeing with these EVs as time passes. The Joby is far more enjoyable to fly and, like you said, is really powerful.

[Mobias7]

Its great fun in the sim. Since launch the Joby is probably the aircraft I’ve flown the most. Once you get the hang of the controls its dead easy to fly and a lot of fun. I just hope they fix the pilots head through the roof bug. I don’t get it every flight but I do get it a lot.

They should add the Joby to career mode. Its primary and probably only use in the real world is going to be as an urban aerial taxi.

[NixonRedgrave]

Looking at your second image, have they modeled temperature-based battery performance characteristics? Cold environments are a challenge for EVs.

[Mobias7]

I doubt its that accurate but I could be wrong. I’m plagued by an engine malfunction warning. Does anyone else get that? I don’t think that its linked to cold weather.

[CasualClick]

Do you get it consistently? I haven’t seen this one pop up yet, but it’s early days…

[Mobias7]

Yeah annoyingly I get it every flight,

[NixonRedgrave]

Side note: where are you flying in this photo? It’s beautiful with the lighting.

[Mobias7]

That was taken above the town in Murren in Swtizerland close to the Eiger. The little place lit up on the top is the famous James Bond mountaintop cable car restaurant, its a POI I think with one of the Swiss updates. Its a great area to explore with the Joby.

The dusk and evening lighting is the real jewel in the crown of FS2024 for me. Asobo really have nailed it particularly well with this new version.

[/grid]

[DaveR44]

The engine malfunction error is some kind of bug - it appears despite there not being an engine malfunction - probably due to the unique nature of the Joby’s powerplant. As far as I can tell, it can be safely ignored. Kind of annoying, though.