JETX was founded in 2020 in Orlando, Florida on a single conviction: the thrust vectoring that gives fighter jets their agility could be reinvented for vertical flight. Co-founder Bryan Welcel engineered a propulsion system that redirects thrust without tilting rotors or moving nacelles, and aeronautical engineer Nelson Salas brought decades of aircraft design and operations to turn the concept into flying hardware.
What began as a single propulsion idea has grown into the only complete advanced-air-mobility stack: patented vector-thrust propulsion at the core, complemented by hybrid-electric power, combat-proven AI autonomy, and a modular, scalable platform — unified in one architecture for both civil and military use. A string of U.S. defense wins followed: the 2021 AFWERX HSVTOL Challenge, the 2023 Army xTech Autonomy Challenge, three SBIR awards, and in 2026 an Army DevX “Award-Ready” designation.
The propulsion has been independently validated through CFD analysis at the University of Central Florida and wind-tunnel testing at Tennessee Tech University, with results confirmed under the U.S. Army HEPPPS contract: under 2% thrust loss in ventral vectoring and 5–6% thrust augmentation in external vectoring.
{it.body}
{p.bio}