The Jetson One eVTOL Is Delivered to Its First Owner

After seven years of research, development, and then more development, Jetson delivered the first of its single-passenger, electric aircraft to a billionaire tech client in California. It was a long road for the Italy-based company, which experienced two years of delays following its projected launch date because of hiccups in production and certification. Some online observers called the Jetson One a “scam” and predicted the personal, drone-like aircraft would never be delivered, despite hundreds of pre-orders.

“It always takes longer than initially anticipated,” Stephan D’haene, CEO of Jetson, told Robb Report with a sense of relief, following tech guru Palmer Luckey’s series of low-altitude flights after just 50 minutes of training in Carlsbad, Calif. “You adjust software, you look at parts, and you do different iterations.”

The aircraft went through 12 iterations before being deemed ready for production. Its founder and chief technical officer Tomasz Patan (a “perfectionist,” says D’haene) insisted on bringing a “finished aircraft” to market, rather than something that looked like it was built in a garage. That demand for constant revision caused a series of time delays and cost overruns, but also led to the engineers designing proprietary parts for the aircraft, rather than relying on off-the-shelf equipment.

“Palmer Luckey’s team remarked on the quality when they saw the aircraft,” said D’haene. Patan and D’haene, who have flown the Jetson One hundreds of times, instructed their first client before he took flight. Afterwards, the billionaire remarked about how easy the aircraft was to fly. “I was kind of expecting it,” he said. “This shit is cake.” It helped that he holds a helicopter’s license.

Luckey launched Oculus in 2014, an early virtual reality company that was sold to Facebook for $2 billion, and later cofounded Anduril, a defense contractor that manufactures drones among its military-focused technologies.

Having such a noteworthy first client gives Jetson an edge, at least in publicity, over competitors in the Part 103 Ultralight space such as Pivotal, which has already put several of its Helix and Blackfly electric aircraft into consumers’ hands. The Helix, designed and produced in Silicon Valley, Calif., looks a bit more like a conventional aircraft with a fuselage and cockpit than the more drone-like Jetson One.

There are multiple start-ups vying to enter the one-seat Part 103 market, which does not require a pilot’s license, but most do not have the financial backing of Pivotal or Jetson. Israeli company AIR recently established a presence in Florida, and is marketing its two-seat eVTOL, also called “One,” in the Light Sport Aircraft category. The LSA category allows for larger aircraft but requires a Sport Pilot’s certificate issued by the FAA.

Luckey’s “Founder’s Edition,” shipped to California from Italy with two other Jetsons, will be limited to 100 units. So far, 523 Jetson One have been pre-ordered, according to D’haene, representing about $70 million. The Founder’s model has a top-of-the-line, two-tone white and carbon configuration, with extras such as front-and-rear LED lighting, leather upholstery, snap-lock removable batteries with built-in gauges, and an expanded instrument cluster with, of course, a “Founder’s Edition” welcome screen.

Being production-ready may give Jetson an edge in the market, says D’haene, but it also means the start-up can no longer be a start-up. It will now need to deal with sales, production, and owners. Jetson’s facility is now producing two aircraft per week, and by year’s end, that number should increase to four. “Eventually, we want to get to 10 per week,” says D’haene.

Jetson’s largest market is the U.S., which should comprise about 70 percent of total sales, with the rest in Europe. California, Texas, and Florida will eventually have the largest number of owners. D’haene says unit sales could reach 1,000 per year if only a percentage of the 2,000 millionaires living in the U.S.A. decide to become owners. “We have many trained aviators like Luckey who have pre-ordered, but we want to get to a market that includes people with no flight training,” says D’haene.

The Jetson One is designed with fly-by-wire technology and joystick controls for intuitive flight, multiple engines for redundancy, and a ballistic parachute as a safety feature. Its specs include a top speed of 63 mph and 11-mile range before needing to be recharged. Ultimately, D’haene would like to see the Jetson One in a Hollywood movie: “Imagine seeing Tom Cruise racing on one of these.”

Maybe. In the meantime, they’re happy to settle for a tech billionaire.