We spent an hour or so getting input from JoeBen and various Joby Energy team members regarding our little project and also discussing details of their large projects. I would have loved to have taken pics and posted them here showing the amazing R&D and prototyping in progress at the facility, but I'm been around long enough to know better than to try -- we were just lucky to have been allowed in to see it for ourselves.
The team at Joby have taken on a project that would intimidate many far larger organizations and have gone far without blinking. Kudos to Joeben and the entire team.
While at the engineering facility, we noticed some carbon tubing that would be ideal for our propeller spars and JoeBen went to the supply closet and grabbed us some. We had been considering using the upper portion of windsurfing masts -- sufficiently stiff and relative cheap off of Ebay, but this material is absolutely perfect and thanks to Joby Energy's generousity, even more economical. Thanks Joeben.
A shot of the carbon spar material -- about 80" long, 15/16" in diameter and ~1/16" wall thickness.
