Air taxi start-up Wisk Aero’s first Gen 6 prototype got off the ground for a brief hover flight on 16 December.
The Mountain View, California-based company revealed the years-in-the-making milestone in a social media post that shows the bright-yellow aircraft mid-hover.
Notably, the 69s sortie was “completely autonomous”, in line with the company’s vision of bringing a self-flying air taxi to market.
“We have lift-off! Gen 6 has successfully completed its first flight,” the start-up says. ”Thank you to every member of team Wisk and to our partners at Boeing. This moment is yours.”
The flight, conducted at Wisk’s test facility in Hollister, covered vertical take-off, hover and stabilised flight manoeuvres. The vertical lift phase saw the prototype get about 5m (16ft) off the ground.
The achievement comes shortly after Wisk completed assembly of its first full-scale Gen 6 prototype last week, and fulfils Wisk’s promise of getting their prototype in the air before year-end.
Chief executive Sebastien Vigneron says the test flight was executed “flawlessly”. It is the first step in what the company says will be an extensive flight-test campaign.
The programme will seek to validate the all-electric aircraft’s hover profile, focusing on take-offs, landings and low-speed stability. The operations team will then progress to ”latitudinal transition flight” and pedal turns.
“Each test provides crucial data to verify our control laws, structural loads, and aircraft dynamics, allowing for refinement as needed,” the company says.
Boeing-backed Wisk notes that Gen 6’s first flight builds off more than 1,750 test flights conducted by previous-generation prototypes.
“Seeing Gen 6 take flight is an exciting moment for Wisk and the future of aviation. It reaffirms our belief in autonomy, and we are even more energised to continue the journey to bring safe, everyday flight to everyone,” Vigneron says.
The operational vision includes a supervisor on the ground monitoring multiple aircraft, while the air taxis will be entirely self-contained and capable of completing missions without human input.
