Wisk Aero: U.S Flight Testing Begins in LA

Wisk Aero announced last Fri­day (Octo­ber 6th), its autonomous fifth-gen­er­a­tion eVTOL named Cora, has begun flight tri­als at the Long Beach Air­port in Los Ange­les. Bri­an Yutko, the company’s CEO, point­ed out, “The loca­tion does not mean Wisk will launch com­mer­cial­ly in the city.”

These tri­als rep­re­sent anoth­er impor­tant step for the com­pa­ny towards gain­ing Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the FAA for its next sixth next-gen­er­a­tion eVTOL air­craft.

Wisk, a sub­sidiary of Boe­ing, unveiled the four-pas­sen­ger autonomous Gen 6 a year ago. Apart from the type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion after meet­ing all of the Agency’s design and safe­ty stan­dards, the com­pa­ny needs to receive oper­a­tional approval and super­vi­sor qual­i­fi­ca­tion before it can com­mer­cial­ly fly and oper­ate an air taxi ser­vice.

At present, Wisk has an exper­i­men­tal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the FAA for its fifth-gen­er­a­tion, which allows the com­pa­ny to test the air­craft. Los Ange­les is the third tri­al loca­tion. Wisk also tri­alled the Gen 5 ear­li­er this year in Oshkosh, Wis­con­sin and out of the San Luis Obis­po Air­port, Cal­i­for­nia. Yutko said Wisk will like­ly test in oth­er areas as well.

Yutko told TechCrunch.com, “Test­ing goes well beyond the air­craft. You have to be able to get the peo­ple and the sys­tems work­ing togeth­er in real envi­ron­ments to learn and iter­ate. This is real-world auton­o­my we’re talk­ing about.” 

Bri­an Yutko

It is impor­tant to empha­sise that com­pared to the major­i­ty of eVTOL com­pa­nies who will use onboard pilots to fly their air­craft, Wisk, like Chi­na-based EHang and Xpeng, will be fly­ing its craft autonomous­ly.

Wisk is present­ly build­ing the sixth-gen­er­a­tion air­craft and is hop­ing to receive an exper­i­men­tal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the FAA by 2024. Yutko stat­ed the Gen 6 should be fly­ing at the next UP Sum­mit, to be held in Ben­tonville, Arkansas in a year’s time.

Oth­er eVTOL com­pa­nies are also “crank­ing up test flights”. Joby announced last week it has start­ed pilot­ed tri­als of its pre-pro­duc­tion pro­to­type air­craft in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia. Pre­vi­ous­ly, a major­i­ty of Joby’s test flights were lim­it­ed to remote­ly pilot­ed maneu­vers from a ground con­trol sta­tion.

Four pilots com­plet­ed a series of tri­als to gain infor­ma­tion on the aircraft’s han­dling and pilot con­trols. Tests includ­ed tasks and maneu­vers that pilots would need to accom­plish in real-world oper­a­tion such as ver­ti­cal take­offs, tran­si­tion­ing to for­ward flight, decel­er­at­ing and land­ing.

Joby Avi­a­tion to include pilot on board its eVTOL air­craft, as com­pa­ny expands flight test pro­gramme

Chief Test Pilot James Den­ham com­ment­ed, “After com­plet­ing more than 400 ver­ti­cal take-offs and land­ings from the ground, it is a priv­i­lege to sit in the cock­pit of our air­craft and expe­ri­ence first-hand the ease and intu­itive nature of the design that the Joby team has devel­oped.”

Mean­while, in August, the FAA issued Archer a Spe­cial Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­tifi­cate for its Mid­night air­craft, enabling the com­pa­ny to begin flight test oper­a­tions.

For more infor­ma­tion

 https://wisk.aero)

(News Source: https://techcrunch.com)

(Top image: Wisk Aero ‘Cora’ Gen 5 — Cred­it: Wisk)