GALLERY: Wisk unveils the four-seater, Gen 6 aircraft it intends to certify for the AAM market

Wisk has revealed its Gen 6 eVTOL air­craft — the world’s first self-fly­ing, all-elec­tric, four-pas­sen­ger ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing air taxi.

The mod­el will be the com­pa­ny’s go-to-mar­ket air­craft and rep­re­sents the first-ever can­di­date for type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the FAA of an autonomous eVTOL. Gen 6 com­bines indus­try-lead­ing autonomous tech­nol­o­gy and soft­ware, human over­sight of every flight, and an over­all sim­pli­fied design to deliv­er one of the safest pas­sen­ger trans­port sys­tems in com­mer­cial avi­a­tion.

Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk, said: “In 2010, we set out to find a way to skip traf­fic and get to our des­ti­na­tion faster. That inspi­ra­tion evolved into a mis­sion to deliv­er safe, every­day flight for every­one. Over the past 12 years, we’ve pur­sued that mis­sion through the devel­op­ment of five dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions of full-scale air­craft.

“Our 6th Gen­er­a­tion air­craft is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of hard work from our indus­try-lead­ing team, learn­ings from our pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions of air­craft, com­mit­ment from our investors, and the evo­lu­tion and advance­ment of tech­nol­o­gy.”

Through its strate­gic part­ner­ship with Boe­ing, Wisk has a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage lever­ag­ing more than 100 years of Boe­ing exper­tise in air­craft devel­op­ment, scale man­u­fac­tur­ing, and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In addi­tion, Boeing’s eVTOL and auton­o­my engi­neer­ing resources help fur­ther advance Wisk’s devel­op­ment.

With this air­craft, Wisk says it will rede­fine long-stand­ing con­cepts of flight and ush­er in a safer, scal­able, and more acces­si­ble era in avi­a­tion. Wisk’s newest air­craft will set the stan­dard for the air taxi mar­ket and the future of trav­el by lever­ag­ing:

A Safe­ty-First Approach

Through a mul­ti­fac­eted approach — includ­ing autonomous flight with human over­sight, a sim­pli­fied design with few­er mov­ing parts, ful­ly redun­dant sys­tems, and no sin­gle point of fail­ure — Wisk’s air­craft is being designed to exceed today’s rig­or­ous avi­a­tion safe­ty stan­dards of a one-in-a-bil­lion chance of an acci­dent.

Autonomous Flight with Human Over­sight

Wisk is one of the only Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) com­pa­nies to pur­sue a self-fly­ing first approach. This approach is core to the company’s over­all strat­e­gy and is most impor­tant­ly a crit­i­cal ele­ment in bring­ing one of the safest sys­tems to mar­ket in avi­a­tion. It is also the key to unlock­ing the scale and the full poten­tial for the broad­er AAM indus­try. Wisk’s mul­ti-faceted self-fly­ing first approach includes:

● Lever­ag­ing the same proven tech­nol­o­gy that accounts for more than 93% of auto­mat­ed pilot func­tions on today’s com­mer­cial flights
● New, inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy such as improved detect and avoid capa­bil­i­ties, sen­sors, and more Wisk’s log­ic-dri­ven, pro­ce­dur­al-based, deci­sion-mak­ing soft­ware which pro­vides reli­able, deter­min­is­tic out­comes
● Mul­ti-vehi­cle super­vi­sors that pro­vide human over­sight of every flight and have the abil­i­ty to inter­vene when need­ed

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions and Per­for­mance

Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion air­craft lever­ages key learn­ings and insights from its pre­vi­ous five gen­er­a­tions of eVTOL air­craft to deliv­er a new lev­el of per­for­mance.

● Cruis­ing speed: 120 knots
● Range: 90 miles with reserves (~144 kilo­me­tres with reserves)
● Alti­tude: 2,500 — 4,000 ft above ground
● Seats: 4
● Dimen­sions: <50 foot wingspan
● Pow­er: elec­tric
● Oper­a­tion: Autonomous with human over­sight

Design and Con­fig­u­ra­tion

Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion air­craft design and con­fig­u­ra­tion includes:

● Pro­pri­etary 12 pro­peller design and boom con­fig­u­ra­tion with improved propul­sion sys­tems. Tilt­ing propul­sion units in front of the wing and fixed lift units aft of the wing are opti­mised for range, improved air­craft con­trol and per­for­mance, and effi­cient ener­gy man­age­ment
● A raised wing design, extend­ed booms, and increased size and num­ber of pro­peller blades to improve safe­ty, sta­bil­i­ty, and the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence, while reduc­ing both in-cab­in noise and the aircraft’s over­all noise foot­print
● A larg­er pas­sen­ger cab­in with 4 seats and ample stor­age for bag­gage and per­son­al car­ry-on items, mak­ing it one of the most ver­sa­tile air taxis in the mar­ket

Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence

Wisk leads the indus­try in cus­tomer research, incor­po­rat­ing key design aspects based on direct feed­back from future pas­sen­gers. Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion air­craft has been designed with a tremen­dous amount of thought toward safe­ty, com­fort, and over­all pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.

By incor­po­rat­ing an auto­mo­tive-like inte­ri­or design, Gen­er­a­tion 6 brings an ele­vat­ed pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence. With opti­mal vis­i­bil­i­ty, a spa­cious lay­out, com­fort­able seats, and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty fea­tures like WiFi and charg­ing, pas­sen­gers will have the flex­i­bil­i­ty to enjoy the view, be pro­duc­tive, or sim­ply relax.

Afford­abil­i­ty and Acces­si­bil­i­ty

Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion air­craft is designed to be a ser­vice for every­one, with a price tar­get of $3 per pas­sen­ger, per mile. In addi­tion to afford­abil­i­ty, Wisk has made acces­si­bil­i­ty a cor­ner­stone of its design process.

Gen­er­a­tion 6 incor­po­rates a num­ber of acces­si­bil­i­ty fea­tures, from an entry and exit designed for indi­vid­u­als across the mobil­i­ty spec­trum, to user inter­faces that seam­less­ly accom­mo­date peo­ple liv­ing with hear­ing, vision, and oth­er impair­ments. Wisk is one of the few indus­try play­ers that have pri­ori­tised cater­ing to such a wide demo­graph­ic of pas­sen­gers.

His­to­ry

Wisk began in 2010 and lat­er merged with Kit­ty Hawk Cor­po­ra­tion. Upon recog­nis­ing the com­mer­cial poten­tial of Wisk’s 5th gen­er­a­tion air­craft, the air­craft, its tech­nol­o­gy, and team were spun out to form Wisk, with an invest­ment from The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny.

Since 2010, the com­pa­ny has designed, devel­oped, and test­ed five gen­er­a­tions of air­craft and com­plet­ed more than 1600 test flights, with­out an acci­dent, using one of the world’s largest full-scale fleets of eVTOL air­craft.

In 2014, Wisk was one of the first com­pa­nies in the world to com­plete a full tran­si­tion (ver­ti­cal take­off to wing­borne flight) and, in 2017, was the first com­pa­ny in the USA to fly an autonomous, all-elec­tric, ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing air taxi designed for pas­sen­ger use.

Pic­ture cred­it: Wisk