Historic First Flight: Boeing’s Wisk Autonomous eVTOL Soars
Boeing subsidiary Wisk Aero achieved a major aviation milestone on December 16, 2024. Its Generation 6 autonomous electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft completed its first unpiloted flight at the company’s test facility in Hollister, California.
The 30-second hover flight represents a significant step toward bringing the first certified autonomous passenger-carrying aircraft to market in the United States. The Gen 6 aircraft performed vertical takeoff, hover, and limited forward movement entirely autonomously, following a preprogrammed flight plan without remote piloting.
Guillaume Beauchamp, Wisk’s senior director of aircraft development, confirmed this was “not a remote-piloted flight” but rather the aircraft executing commands from its autonomous system.
Wisk’s Generation 6 eVTOL is designed to carry up to four passengers with a 90-mile range and cruise speeds up to 120 knots. The aircraft operates without an onboard pilot, with human oversight provided by ground-based supervisors.
The company plans to launch commercial operations in Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami before 2030, with certification efforts already underway with the FAA.
This achievement follows four years of development, including extensive ground testing and component validation. Wisk has previously conducted over 1,750 test flights with earlier aircraft generations, making it the only company to have designed, built, and flown six generations of eVTOL aircraft.
Source: https://verticalmag.com/press-releases/wisk-completes-first-flight-of-generation-6-autonomous-evtol/