Wisk Aero plans to unveil sixth-generation of eVTOL this October

U.S Air taxi devel­op­er, Wisk Aero, expects in Octo­ber to unveil its sixth gen­er­a­tion ver­sion of eVTOL air­craft which the com­pa­ny then aims to bring to FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, reports flightglobal.com.

While Ver­ti­cal Aerospace’s VX4 Air­craft attract­ed the pri­ma­ry fly­ing taxi head­lines at this year’s Farn­bor­ough Air­show, Wisk’s full-size dis­play of its fifth gen­er­a­tion eVTOL, a two-seat mod­el called Cora, locat­ed in a large chalet build­ing off­set from the main halls, still wowed the crowd.

Exec­u­tives from Cal­i­for­nia-based Wisk and its pri­ma­ry finan­cial part­ner Boe­ing, are quick to point out that their team is among only a few to have cracked the com­pli­cat­ed prob­lem of devel­op­ing an air­craft capa­ble of tak­ing off and land­ing ver­ti­cal­ly, and then tran­si­tion­ing into for­ward flight.

Wisk Aero ‘Cora’ at Farn­bor­ough

Bri­an Yutko, Chief Engi­neer for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Future Mobil­i­ty at Boe­ing, remarked, “Doing that is a very dif­fi­cult flight-con­trol prob­lem. There are only a few that can design a plane that can take-off ver­ti­cal­ly and fly hor­i­zon­tal­ly.”

Explains flight­glob­al, “Cora has 12 wing-mount­ed lift­ing fans and one aft-mount­ed push­er pro­peller. A typ­i­cal take-off involves ascend­ing ver­ti­cal­ly to about 40ft, then tran­si­tion­ing to for­ward flight, a process tak­ing about 25 sec­onds.” Gary Gysin, Wisk CEO, says his com­pa­ny is fly­ing test air­craft “almost every day” and that its fleet “has logged some 1,600 tri­al flights.” As for the lat­est air­craft ver­sion, he enthused, “We will be fly­ing the new ver­sion soon.”

This six-gen­er­a­tion pro­to­type will like­wise have wing-mount­ed lift-fans, but Gysin has declined to say, if it will also have a push­er pro­peller.

Gary Gysin

Wisk and com­pet­ing devel­op­ers of eVTOL air­craft ulti­mate­ly see their designs becom­ing autonomous. While its rivals see a need for pilot­ed vari­ants, ini­tial­ly, Wisk’s air­craft will be autonomous from the start. Yutko affirmed, “We will cer­tifi­cate the first pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing autonomous air­craft.”

Due to tech­ni­cal require­ments asso­ci­at­ed with full auton­o­my, Wisk is not say­ing when it hopes to achieve cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, free­ing engi­neers to focus on safe­ty-of-flight con­sid­er­a­tions. Gysin describes Boeing’s back­ing as crit­i­cal, point­ing out, “We are able to tap their aero­space exper­tise.”

Watch Video: “Wisk Aero at Farn­bor­ough Air­show”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B9ITvdnYd8

Wisk has some 500 peo­ple work­ing on the eVTOL project, includ­ing about 100 Boe­ing engi­neers. Oper­a­tions are being per­formed at sites in Cal­i­for­nia, St Louis and Vir­ginia, as well as else­where in the east­ern USA.

Wisk has not said where it expects to pro­duce its air taxi, but Gysin says: “It won’t be in Cal­i­for­nia. It’s not the low­est-rent dis­trict in the world!” He antic­i­pates Wisk could build up to 2,000 eVTOL air­craft with­in five years of ser­vice entry. Unlike some com­peti­tors, the com­pa­ny intends to oper­ate its air taxis, “At least at first,” says Gysin. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to be for­ev­er”.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://wisk.aero

(News Source: https://www.flightglobal.com)