A ‘sky taxi’ is set to launch after an aerospace company’s advancements with electrical vertical take off landing – meaning the Uber of the skies could be on the horizon.
Wisk Aero was formed in 2019 as a collaboration between Boeing and Google co-founder Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk aircraft company.
Seven years on, they are giving exciting hints at the future of sky-taxis, and have completed the first flight of their sixth-generation aircraft, as reported by Need To Know.
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“The flight is a pivotal step forward in Wisk’s journey to deliver the first certified, autonomous passenger-carrying electrical vertical take off landing (eVTOL) to market in the US,” a spokesperson for Wisk said.
“Wisk is the only company to have designed, built, and flown six generations of eVTOL aircraft.
“The aircraft performed its initial vertical takeoff, hover, and stabilised flight manoeuvres at Wisk’s flight test facility in Hollister, CA.
“This success validates the aircraft’s core flight systems and is a critical first step in an extensive testing campaign.”
Wisk’s advancements in the eVTOL market have enabled them to have an increased focus on automating the machines so they essentially fly themselves, whilst still keeping on-the-ground human oversight.
The aerospace company claims that the combination of automation with humans on the ground providing a watching eye is a scalable model, which may allow the service to eventually scale up without sacrifices to safety and cost.
Now that the Mountain View, California-based company’s initial hover flight has been completed, the team are focusing on certifying the safety of its sixth-generation design, alongside improvements to its own internal simulation models and overall system performance.
The spokesperson said: “The initial phase of testing will focus on building out the hover regime, concentrating on takeoffs, landings, and low-speed stability before expanding to higher speeds and altitudes, including complex manoeuvres such as longitudinal transition, lateral transition, and pedal turns.
“Each test provides crucial data to verify our control laws, structural loads, and aircraft dynamics, allowing for refinement as needed.”
Wisk’s goal with the development of it’s eVTOL technology is delivering a brand new transportation model that will improve the US’s foothold in the aviation sector, whilst also making flying safer globally.
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