Watch Video: Wisk Aero Completes First Public Demonstration Flight at EAA AirVenture

U.S‑based Wisk Aero, the eVTOL air taxi com­pa­ny, proud­ly announced this week a suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed and first-ever pub­lic demon­stra­tion flight of its autonomous air­craft at the EAA Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh event, reports a press release. This mile­stone cel­e­bra­tion also marked the company’s first pub­lic demon­stra­tion of its Gen­er­a­tion 5 demon­stra­tor, Cora.

Wisk com­plet­ed a mul­ti-tran­si­tion flight, dur­ing which the air taxi tran­si­tioned from hov­er to wing borne action four times. The flight also includ­ed mul­ti­ple maneu­vers that demon­strat­ed the capa­bil­i­ties of the air­craft, such as hov­er, 360-degree turns in place and more.

Please Watch Video

Bri­an Yutko, CEO of Wisk, enthused, “We’re proud to demon­strate the autonomous tech­nol­o­gy behind our self-fly­ing first approach. This demon­stra­tion show­cas­es the state of readi­ness for autonomous tech­nol­o­gy and elec­tric propul­sion.” He con­tin­ued, “Com­bined with the progress we’re mak­ing on Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for our 6th Gen­er­a­tion air taxi, we’re prov­ing that auton­o­my is pos­si­ble and it’s hap­pen­ing today. We look for­ward to launch­ing the first pas­sen­ger ser­vice on an all-elec­tric, autonomous air taxi with­in this decade.”

Jim Tighe, CTO at Wisk, remarked, “For the first time, we have pub­licly demon­strat­ed ful­ly autonomous flight, con­duct­ed by an all-elec­tric, fly-by-wire, ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing air­craft.” Point­ing out, “There was no pilot on board, no pilot con­trols in the air­craft, and no stick-and-rud­der on the ground. The entire flight was oper­at­ed with the push of a but­ton.”

Back­ground

“Wisk’s pub­lic demon­stra­tion flight,” explains the release, “adds to the company’s his­to­ry of avi­a­tion firsts, includ­ing the world’s first full tran­si­tion of an eVTOL air­craft (1st Gen­er­a­tion air taxi); the world’s first pilot­ed flight of a fly-by-wire, all-elec­tric, human-rat­ed air­craft (2nd Gen air taxi, 2015); and the world’s first pilot­ed full tran­si­tion flight of a human-rat­ed eVTOL air­craft (3rd Gen air taxi, 2017).”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://wisk.aero

(Top image: Wisk Aero)