US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and FAA Unveil Companies Selected for Country’s eVTOL Integrated Pilot Program (eIPP)

Archer, BETA Tech­nolo­gies, Elec­tra, Joby Avi­a­tion and Wisk are among those select­ed by US Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Sean Duffy and the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to be part of the coun­try’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP).

The OEMs have been includ­ed in eight pro­pos­als, which form the first-of-its-kind ini­tia­tive out­lined in Pres­i­dent Trump’s ‘Unleash­ing Drone Dom­i­nance’ Exec­u­tive Order. It aims to accel­er­ate the safe inte­gra­tion of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty air­craft into the US Nation­al Air­space, ensur­ing the coun­try leads the way in avi­a­tion inno­va­tion. Oth­er com­pa­nies named include Ampaire, Elroy Air and Reli­able Robot­ics.

These pilot projects will cre­ate one of the largest real-world test­ing envi­ron­ments for next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft in the world. In addi­tion, data from the pilot projects will be used by the FAA to devel­op new reg­u­la­tions that safe­ly enable this futur­is­tic tech­nol­o­gy at scale. The Amer­i­can pub­lic will start to see oper­a­tions begin under this pro­gram by sum­mer 2026.

The eight select­ed projects span 26 states and involve lead­ing air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers, oper­a­tors and state part­ners. They include a range of oper­a­tional con­cepts, includ­ing:

• Urban air taxi ser­vices
• Region­al pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion (includ­ing short Take­off and Land­ing air­craft)
• Car­go and logis­tics net­works
• Emer­gency med­ical response oper­a­tions
• Autonomous flight tech­nolo­gies
• Off­shore and ener­gy-sec­tor trans­porta­tion

Duffy said: “Thanks to Pres­i­dent Trump, the future of avi­a­tion is here — and it’s going to dra­mat­i­cal­ly improve how peo­ple and prod­ucts move. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the great Amer­i­can inno­va­tors behind each of these excit­ing pilot pro­grams.

“Work­ing togeth­er, we will ensure Amer­i­ca leads the way in safe­ly lever­ag­ing next-gen air­craft to rad­i­cal­ly rede­fine per­son­al trav­el, region­al trans­porta­tion, car­go logis­tics, emer­gency med­i­cine, and so much more.” 

FAA Deputy Admin­is­tra­tor Chris Roche­leau, added: “These part­ner­ships will help us bet­ter under­stand how to safe­ly and effi­cient­ly inte­grate these air­craft into the Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem.

“The pro­gram will pro­vide valu­able oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence that will inform the stan­dards need­ed to enable safe Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions. We appre­ci­ate the strong inter­est reflect­ed in the many pro­pos­als we received.”

Specifics on Select­ed Projects

The fol­low­ing projects were select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram:

New York and New Jer­sey (Part­ners: Archer, BETA, Elec­tra, Joby)
Mul­ti­ple indus­try part­ners will col­lab­o­rate on 12 dif­fer­ent oper­a­tional con­cepts across New Eng­land, includ­ing eVTOL pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions at the Man­hat­tan heli­port.

Texas (Part­ners: Archer, BETA, Joby, Wisk)
Indus­try part­ners will sup­port region­al flights con­nect­ing Dal­las, Austin, San Anto­nio, and even­tu­al­ly Hous­ton, with air taxi net­works expand­ing from each city to extend region­al reach.

Utah (Part­ners: Ampaire, BETA, Joby, Oth­er)
Four states span­ning the Pacif­ic North­west, the Rocky Moun­tains, and the Plains of Okla­homa will test a wide range of next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft and oper­a­tional con­cepts.

Penn­syl­va­nia (Part­ners: BETA, Elec­tra, Oth­er)
The NASAO AAM Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive will work across 13 states to revi­tal­ize region­al flights across the coun­try, includ­ing routes sim­i­lar to those sup­port­ed through the Essen­tial Air Ser­vice pro­gram.

Louisiana (Part­ners: BETA, Elroy Air, Oth­er)
Oper­a­tions will test car­go and per­son­nel trans­porta­tion capa­bil­i­ties to enable flights over the high seas into the Gulf of Amer­i­ca and to ener­gy indus­try loca­tions in Louisiana, Texas, and Mis­sis­sip­pi.

Flori­da (Part­ners: Archer, BETA, Elec­tra, Joby, Oth­er)
A statewide effort fea­tur­ing mul­ti­ple indus­try part­ners will include three phas­es of oper­a­tions focused on car­go deliv­ery, pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion, automa­tion, and med­ical response, sup­port­ed by sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic and pri­vate invest­ment.

North Car­oli­na (Part­ners: BETA, Joby, Oth­er)
Work­ing with indus­try part­ners to estab­lish pilot­ed med­ical and region­al oper­a­tions across the state while also devel­op­ing an autonomous flight oper­a­tion extend­ing into Vir­ginia.

City of Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co (Part­ner: Reli­able Robot­ics)
A focused project designed to achieve ear­ly advances in autonomous oper­a­tions through an exist­ing part­ner­ship with an advanced auton­o­my devel­op­er already oper­at­ing in the region and coor­di­nat­ing with the FAA.

OEM reac­tion

Archer

Archer has been select­ed for pro­grams in Texas, Flori­da and New York as part of White House’s eIPP, which it says marks a major step toward bring­ing elec­tric air taxis to mar­ket in the Unit­ed States. 

The com­pa­ny will now work across these loca­tions, with its part­ners includ­ing the Texas Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, the Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and the Port Author­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey, to pre­pare for flights of its Mid­night air­craft under the eIPP, includ­ing stand­ing up local oper­at­ing teams, infra­struc­ture and pro­ce­dures to ensure safe, mea­sured deploy­ment. 

Adam Gold­stein, founder and CEO of Archer, said: “This is the clear­est sign yet from the White House, the FAA and the DOT that bring­ing air taxis to mar­ket in the Unit­ed States is a real pri­or­i­ty. We appre­ci­ate Sec­re­tary Duffy and Admin­is­tra­tor Bedford’s lead­er­ship and are excit­ed to bring Mid­night to the skies of some of America’s largest cities.”

Archer expects this effort to gen­er­ate valu­able oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence that will help inform future deploy­ments in the US and dri­ve pub­lic accep­tance, includ­ing as it con­tin­ues to pre­pare for air taxi oper­a­tions in Los Ange­les for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Much like rob­o­t­axi pilot pro­grams across the US, this pro­gram allows Archer to work with fed­er­al reg­u­la­tors, states, and com­mu­ni­ties to both build trust and estab­lish the play­book for safe­ly scal­ing elec­tric air taxis across the coun­try. 

BETA Tech­nolo­gies

BETA was select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in sev­en of eight eIPP launch pro­grams – the most of any elec­tric air­craft devel­op­er. These sev­en pro­grams would see BETA oper­ate in at least 10 states across the U.S.

This includes flight oper­a­tions with BETA’s ALIA CTOL and VTOL air­craft, as well as ground sup­port oper­a­tions with the company’s Charg­ers and Ground Sup­port Equip­ment (GSE). The step­wise approach, with CTOL oper­a­tions first and VTOL to fol­low, reflects BETA’s broad­er entry-into-ser­vice and eIPP deploy­ment strate­gies.

Through the eIPP, BETA will begin oper­a­tions with our part­ners in:

• New York, con­duct­ing car­go and med­ical logis­tics in upstate New York and Ver­mont in part­ner­ship with Metro Avi­a­tion and the Port Author­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey
• Texas, car­ry­ing out med­ical sup­ply dis­tri­b­u­tion and car­go logis­tics mis­sions across the state with Metro Avi­a­tion, Bris­tow Group, and Future Flight Glob­al
• Utah, car­ry­ing out car­go and med­ical logis­tics to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties across the state with UPS, Alpine Air Express, and Bris­tow Group
• Mary­land and Vir­ginia, car­ry­ing out organ deliv­ery logis­tics with Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics as part of the Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ship
• Louisiana, part­ner­ing with Bris­tow Group and Metro Avi­a­tion to car­ry out onshore logis­tics sup­port for off­shore ener­gy pro­duc­tion in the Gulf of Amer­i­ca and improv­ing med­ical access in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties
• Flori­da, car­ry­ing out car­go and med­ical logis­tics with Repub­lic Air­ways and Metro Avi­a­tion to increase con­nec­tiv­i­ty for urban and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties
• North Car­oli­na, con­duct­ing mis­sions to improve access to health­care and dis­as­ter response logis­tics with UPS and Metro Avi­a­tion

Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO, said: “This pro­gram is a bold sig­nal of America’s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing our lead­er­ship posi­tion in aero­space. Being select­ed for more appli­ca­tions than any oth­er OEM is a tes­ta­ment to our safe and reli­able oper­a­tions and this team’s abil­i­ty to deliv­er.

“Our air­craft will car­ry out a range of mis­sions, from crit­i­cal car­go and med­ical to pas­sen­ger. With our pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty already online, we’re posi­tioned to man­u­fac­ture and deploy air­craft now. This pro­gram will allow us to begin those mis­sions, bring­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty and access to com­mu­ni­ties across the U.S.”

BETA’s selec­tion, and the impend­ing oper­a­tions under eIPP, fol­lows the company’s long his­to­ry of real-world fly­ing – includ­ing, most recent­ly, cross­ing a mile­stone 125,000 nau­ti­cal flight miles in ALIA air­craft in late 2025. In addi­tion to a series of flight demon­stra­tions across the U.S. last year, BETA has also been fly­ing its air­craft through­out Europe, as well as in Nor­way and New Zealand with cus­tomer part­ners.

The com­pa­ny is also build­ing net­works of mul­ti­modal, inter­op­er­a­ble charg­ing infra­struc­ture across the globe.

Kris­ten Costel­lo, Head of Gov­ern­ment and Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs at BETA, added: “For years, we’ve been build­ing out our charge net­work, forg­ing rela­tion­ships with state DOTs, and part­ner­ing with lead­ing oper­a­tors with this vision of AAM in mind. We look for­ward to bring­ing that vision to real­i­ty and applaud the FAA and U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion on this for­ward-lean­ing ini­tia­tive.”

Elec­tra

Elec­tra will work with pub­lic and pri­vate part­ners on ground­break­ing demon­stra­tions includ­ing con­nect­ing urban and region­al des­ti­na­tions in Flori­da and link­ing met­ro­pol­i­tan cen­ters in New York, New Jer­sey, and Penn­syl­va­nia. The com­pa­ny also sup­port­ed the sub­mis­sion from the State of Louisiana.

Marc Allen, CEO of Elec­tra, said: “This is an his­toric moment in Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, as Elec­tra stands shoul­der to shoul­der with oth­ers in the space to chart a course that will trans­form the way we trav­el. Our entire team thanks Pres­i­dent Trump, Sec­re­tary Duffy, and Admin­is­tra­tor Bed­ford for their vision­ary lead­er­ship to accel­er­ate the adop­tion of AAM.

“This Admin­is­tra­tion is open­ing the door for an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny to demon­strate how hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion works at scale, to reimag­ine how we use the skies, and to change the way that peo­ple get to where they want to go. It’s Amer­i­can inno­va­tion at its best, and it show­cas­es how Electra’s Ultra Short has become an essen­tial part of the AAM land­scape.”

Elec­tra was select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the fol­low­ing demon­stra­tions:

• FL: In Flori­da, Elec­tra is col­lab­o­rat­ing on an Ultra Short Access Point demon­stra­tion that high­lights how AAM air­craft can con­nect dense urban cores with region­al des­ti­na­tions. The pro­pos­al eval­u­ates can­di­date AAM routes across the state and lever­ages part­ner­ships with Ver­ti­ports by Atlantic and region­al air­line oper­a­tors to demon­strate prac­ti­cal, scal­able oper­a­tions. The ini­tia­tive is being led by the Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (FDOT)
   
• NY/NJ:  Elec­tra is also sup­port­ing a pro­posed New Jer­sey to New York City route in part­ner­ship with infra­struc­ture providers includ­ing Sig­na­ture Avi­a­tion and Ver­ti­ports by Atlantic. This use case demon­strates how Ultra Short air­craft can con­nect major met­ro­pol­i­tan cen­ters using exist­ing heli­port infra­struc­ture, offer­ing a faster, low­er-noise alter­na­tive to both ground con­ges­tion and con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion options. The ini­tia­tive is being led by the Port Author­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey (PANYNJ)
   
• PA: In coor­di­na­tion with a Penn­syl­va­nia-led coali­tion, Elec­tra is advanc­ing a pro­posed Ultra Short Access Point demon­stra­tion link­ing Atlantic City to region­al des­ti­na­tions, includ­ing feed­er ser­vice into Philadel­phia (KPHL). This effort focus­es on using exist­ing avi­a­tion assets—such as state test sites and med­ical centers—to prove how region­al air­line part­ners and Ultra Short air­craft can unlock under­served 50 to 500 mile trips. The ini­tia­tive is being led by the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (Pen­nDOT

Elec­tra is also a sup­port­ive part­ner of the ini­tia­tive led by the State of Louisiana through the company’s part­ner­ship with Bris­tow Group Inc., the glob­al leader in inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able ver­ti­cal flight solu­tions.

Elec­tra is har­ness­ing hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion and break­through design to devel­op an air­plane with unmatched per­for­mance, includ­ing the abil­i­ty to safe­ly take off and land in just 150 feet.

Elroy Air

Com­ment­ing on the news via LinkedIn, a post from Elroy Air said: “We’re excit­ed to share that Elroy Air and our part­ners in Louisiana were select­ed by the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion for the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty and Elec­tric Ver­ti­cal Take­off and Land­ing (eVTOL) Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP).

“We’ll work along­side our com­mer­cial part­ner Bris­tow Group and the Houma-Ter­re­bonne Air­port (HUM) to put Chap­ar­ral to work deliv­er­ing car­go in and around the Gulf area and to ener­gy indus­try loca­tions in Louisiana, Texas, and Mis­sis­sip­pi.

“This is a major moment for advanced air mobil­i­ty, and we look for­ward to work­ing with the FAA to accel­er­ate the safe inte­gra­tion of next-gen­er­a­tion autonomous car­go drones into the nation­al air­space and ensure the Unit­ed States leads the way in avi­a­tion inno­va­tion.”

Joby Avi­a­tion

Through the eiPP Joby has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin ear­ly oper­a­tions this year in Ari­zona, Flori­da, Ida­ho, New Jer­sey, New York, North Car­oli­na, Okla­homa, Ore­gon, Texas and Utah, mark­ing a major mile­stone for the U.S. air taxi indus­try with the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate Joby’s path to com­mer­cial ser­vice.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby Avi­a­tion, said: “This is a defin­ing moment for Amer­i­can inno­va­tion. Instead of just read­ing about the future of flight, com­mu­ni­ties across Amer­i­ca are going to be able to see it in the skies above their own cities this year.”

“Qui­et, elec­tric air taxis fly­ing real routes are a pow­er­ful demon­stra­tion of Amer­i­can lead­er­ship in action, and proof that we’re build­ing the next gold­en age of avi­a­tion right here in the U.S.”

In addi­tion to its air taxi air­craft, Joby was also select­ed for appli­ca­tions that include Joby’s Super­pi­lot™ autonomous flight tech­nol­o­gy plat­form. Designed to enable high­ly auto­mat­ed oper­a­tions over time, Super­pi­lot™ has the poten­tial to fur­ther expand the range of use cas­es part­ner states can explore under the pro­gram.

Joby is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the fol­low­ing pro­grams that have been select­ed as part of the eIPP:

• Flori­da: A statewide effort that will include three phas­es of oper­a­tions focused on car­go deliv­ery, pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion, automa­tion, and med­ical response, sup­port­ed by sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic and pri­vate invest­ment
• Port Author­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey: Joby will col­lab­o­rate on mul­ti­ple oper­a­tional con­cepts across New Eng­land, includ­ing air taxi pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions at the Man­hat­tan heli­port
• Texas Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion: This appli­ca­tion will sup­port oper­a­tions con­nect­ing Dal­las, Austin, San Anto­nio, and even­tu­al­ly Hous­ton, with air taxi net­works expand­ing from each city to extend region­al reach
• North Car­oli­na Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion: This appli­ca­tion will work with indus­try part­ners to estab­lish pilot­ed med­ical and region­al oper­a­tions across the state while also devel­op­ing an autonomous flight oper­a­tion extend­ing into Vir­ginia
• Utah Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion: This appli­ca­tion cov­ers four states span­ning the Pacif­ic North­west, the Rocky Moun­tains, and the Plains of Okla­homa and will test a wide range of next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft and oper­a­tional con­cepts

Joby’s first FAA-con­form­ing air­craft for Type Inspec­tion Autho­riza­tion (TIA) is set to fly short­ly, mark­ing a major step on the path toward Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The com­pa­ny reg­u­lar­ly flies pilot­ed, full-tran­si­tion flights — tak­ing off ver­ti­cal­ly, tran­si­tion­ing to wing­borne cruise, and return­ing to ver­ti­cal land­ing — as part of a com­pre­hen­sive real-world flight test pro­gram, demon­strat­ing the oper­a­tional matu­ri­ty required to par­tic­i­pate in the eIPP pro­gram.

Joby recent­ly announced plans to scale pro­duc­tion to four air­craft per month in 2027, sup­port­ed by expand­ed facil­i­ties in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia and Day­ton, Ohio, in order to meet unprece­dent­ed glob­al demand for its tech­nol­o­gy.

Reli­able Robot­ics

Under the eIPP, Reliable’s whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary, Albu­querque-based com­mer­cial air car­go oper­a­tor Reli­able Air­lines, will con­duct autonomous air car­go oper­a­tions from Albu­querque Inter­na­tion­al Sun­port (ABQ), New Mexico’s largest com­mer­cial air­port, to Duran­go-La Pla­ta Coun­ty Air­port, CO (DRO) and San­ta Fe Region­al Air­port (SAF).

The Reli­able Auton­o­my Sys­tem will enhance safe­ty and save lives by direct­ly address­ing the most com­mon caus­es of avi­a­tion acci­dents. Its always-on autopi­lot – enabled for taxi, take­off, en route and land­ing – will sub­stan­tial­ly reduce the risk of loss of con­trol (LOC) and con­trolled flight into ter­rain (CFIT), two of the most com­mon caus­es of fatal acci­dents in avi­a­tion.

Reliable’s Detect and Avoid sys­tem, which includes its state-of-the-art radar and the FAA’s Advanced Col­li­sion Avoid­ance Sys­tem X (ACAS X), autonomous­ly mit­i­gates traf­fic con­flicts. The FAA has accept­ed Reliable’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plans and the company’s tech­nolo­gies inte­grate with exist­ing infra­struc­ture and air­craft, requir­ing no mod­i­fi­ca­tions to exist­ing air­ports.

Robert Rose, CEO and co-founder, Reli­able Robot­ics, said: “Selec­tion for the high­ly-com­pet­i­tive eIPP demon­strates the focus of Pres­i­dent Don­ald J. Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion on lever­ag­ing air­craft auton­o­my to enhance avi­a­tion safe­ty and Unit­ed States com­pet­i­tive­ness.

“The tech­nol­o­gy we’re cer­ti­fy­ing with the FAA will sub­stan­tial­ly enhance the safe­ty of region­al air car­go oper­a­tions and demon­strate that large UAS can be inte­grat­ed into con­trolled air­space. Our work under the eIPP will con­nect more com­mu­ni­ties with air ser­vice while accel­er­at­ing Reliable’s mis­sion to make avi­a­tion safer and more acces­si­ble.”

Wisk

As one of the pri­ma­ry pri­vate-sec­tor eVTOL part­ners for the Texas-led pro­pos­al, Wisk will help dri­ve the pro­gram’s oper­a­tional exe­cu­tion, lever­ag­ing its autonomous sys­tems and Gen 6 air­craft, as well as its sub­sidiary SkyGrid’s Stra­ta sys­tem.

The eIPP selec­tion is a land­mark mile­stone that allows Wisk to gain invalu­able data from flight expe­ri­ence in the U.S. Nation­al Air­space, effec­tive­ly and safe­ly intro­duc­ing the future of autonomous air trav­el in Wisk’s pri­ma­ry U.S. launch mar­ket.

Wisk’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the eIPP will fol­low a rig­or­ous, three-phase “crawl-walk-run” approach as part of a mul­ti-year phased flight pro­gram:

• Ini­tial Phase: Estab­lish the foun­da­tion through focused flight oper­a­tions in ded­i­cat­ed areas to refine autonomous sys­tems, flight pro­ce­dures, and pre­ci­sion ground-based coor­di­na­tion
• Inte­gra­tion Phase: Tran­si­tion into ded­i­cat­ed routes to val­i­date the oper­a­tional safe­ty case and demon­strate the safe and seam­less inte­gra­tion of autonomous air­craft with exist­ing air traf­fic
• Advanced Oper­a­tions Phase: Scale to Wisk’s Gen 6 air­craft, con­duct­ing high-fre­quen­cy oper­a­tions that pro­vide the FAA with the data need­ed to accel­er­ate final cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and inform future poli­cies and rules

Sebastien Vigneron, CEO of Wisk, said: “Hav­ing our part­ners at TxDOT select­ed under the eIPP pro­gram is the green light we’ve been work­ing toward. The insights we gath­er in Texas are not just lim­it­ed to our air­craft or the state; we are val­i­dat­ing the entire dig­i­tal and phys­i­cal ecosys­tem.

“This pro­gram allows us to per­form real-world oper­a­tions that can be trans­lat­ed into FAA pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tions, ensur­ing that when Wisk launch­es our full com­mer­cial ser­vice, the reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment is as ready as our air­craft.” 

Data col­lect­ed from Wisk’s Texas oper­a­tions will pro­vide the FAA with essen­tial answers to crit­i­cal reg­u­la­to­ry gaps, includ­ing Air­wor­thi­ness, Ground Risk, and Pilot Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gram, along with our ongo­ing work at the Texas Cen­ter for Advanced Avi­a­tion Tech­nolo­gies (CAAT), will specif­i­cal­ly inform the devel­op­ment of Auto­mat­ed Flight Rules (AFR) and help define the roles of remote super­vi­sors in a scal­able air­space mod­el.

This col­lab­o­ra­tive effort direct­ly sup­ports the mod­ern­iza­tion of air traf­fic man­age­ment, cre­at­ing the dig­i­tal and oper­a­tional blue­print required to define the future of avi­a­tion and ensure the safe inte­gra­tion of autonomous flight into our skies.

Wisk’s Gen 6 air­craft — the design that’s going through FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — took its first flight in Decem­ber 2026 and is cur­rent­ly in an active flight test pro­gram.

eiPP Back­ground

More than 30 pro­pos­als were sub­mit­ted for the eIPP pro­gram from across the coun­try. Sub­mis­sions were eval­u­at­ed by a tech­ni­cal review team from DOT and FAA.

Pro­pos­als were assessed based on their abil­i­ty to accel­er­ate the inte­gra­tion of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty air­craft, the breadth of oper­a­tional con­cepts pro­posed, poten­tial reg­u­la­to­ry and pol­i­cy insights, expe­ri­ence in air­craft devel­op­ment or man­u­fac­tur­ing, and the strength of indus­try, aca­d­e­m­ic, and gov­ern­ment part­ner­ships.

Fol­low­ing this review process, the eight projects list­ed above were select­ed to advance the next phase of the pro­gram.