Aviation expert joins Wisk to help drive strategy and get self-flying air taxi Cora into the sky

Wisk has appoint­ed Dan Dal­ton as its Vice Pres­i­dent of Glob­al Part­ner­ships, to dri­ve the com­pa­ny’s efforts to fur­ther its go-to-mar­ket strat­e­gy and bring its all-elec­tric, self-fly­ing taxi, named Cora, to the sky.

In his new role, Dal­ton will lead Wisk’s glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry ini­tia­tives and busi­ness part­ner­ships — work­ing with reg­u­la­tors, pol­i­cy-mak­ers, and indus­try. He will also join the company’s Exec­u­tive Lead­er­ship Team.

Dal­ton said: “It is incred­i­bly excit­ing to join a com­pa­ny that is on the fore­front of urban air mobil­i­ty. Wisk is shap­ing the future of dai­ly com­mutes and urban trav­el and we’re doing it in a way that is safe, acces­si­ble and respon­si­ble.

“I am tru­ly impressed with the Wisk team and I look for­ward to fur­ther­ing our progress.”

Pri­or to join­ing Wisk, Dal­ton served as Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Strate­gic Part­ner­ships at Air­space Sys­tems and as a vis­it­ing sci­en­tist at Lawrence Liv­er­more Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry in Cal­i­for­nia.

He has also held a vari­ety of engi­neer­ing and lead­er­ship roles at Gen­er­al Atom­ics Aero­nau­ti­cal Sys­tems and the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy.

Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk, added: “We are excit­ed to have Dan join Wisk,” said Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk. Reg­u­la­to­ry pol­i­cy and key part­ner­ships are crit­i­cal fac­tors for suc­cess in the urban air mobil­i­ty mar­ket.

“Dan’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence, strong net­work and per­son­al dri­ve will have a huge impact for Wisk as we press for­ward with our mis­sion to make safe, every­day flight a real­i­ty.”

Cora first took to the skies in 2017 and fea­tures a num­ber of safe­ty fea­tures. These include a ver­ti­cal lift sys­tem with 12 inde­pen­dent rotors, which allow the air­craft to lift off and land ver­ti­cal­ly like a heli­copter — erad­i­cat­ing the need for a run­way.

Designed for two pas­sen­gers, Cora will fly approx­i­mate­ly 1,500ft above the ground and ini­tial­ly have a range of about 25 miles plus reserves, fly­ing at speeds of about 100 miles per hour.

The air­craft already has an exper­i­men­tal air­wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cate from both the New Zealand Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and the Unit­ed States Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA). Wisk is also work­ing with the CAA on fur­ther cer­ti­fi­ca­tion goals to bring an air taxi ser­vice to the com­mer­cial mar­ket.

Based in New Zealand and the San Fran­cis­co Bay area of the Unit­ed States, Wisk is an inde­pen­dent com­pa­ny backed by the Boe­ing Com­pa­ny and Kit­ty Hawk.

For more details about Cora, vis­it www.wisk.aero