Taxies BUT in the Sky - Boeing-backed Wisk Aero reveals a four-seater autonomous air taxi

[Lightwreather]

Summary

So, you know autonomous cars? Forget about them! Air taxi startup Wisk Aero unveiled its sixth-generation aircraft, an all-electric four-seater that can fly without a human pilot. The Boeing-backed company said it will seek approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to carry passengers as part of a commercial air taxi service. 
The company has said it hopes to launch an air taxi service within the next five years, at which point it predicts conducting 14 million flights annually in around 20 major markets around the globe. Air taxis, sometimes misidentified as “flying cars,” are essentially helicopters without the noisy, polluting gas motors (though they certainly have their own unique noise profile). In addition to Wisk, companies like Joby Aviation, Volocopter, Ehang, and Archer have claimed they are on the cusp of launching services that will eventually scale up nationwide.

Quotes

Quote

Wisk, which was formed in 2019 as a joint venture between Boeing and Kitty Hawk, the flying taxi company bankrolled by Google co-founder Larry Page that recently shut down, is in a race to become the first so-called advanced air mobility company to get the green light from the FAA for passenger testing. Wisk claims that its sixth-generation aircraft is the first electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) candidate for type certification.

Under FAA rules, aviation companies need to receive three types of certification before launching a commercial service. Type certification means the aircraft meets all the FAA’s design and safety standards; production certification is the approval to begin manufacturing the aircraft; and air carrier certification means the company can officially conduct commercial air taxi services.

 

My thoughts

So, this is seems pretty interesting. Here we have a seemingly working model of an air taxi that is now in the process of being certified. Seems like a big step. However, it's viability is still in question until we actually these things up in the air. Well, I wish this endeavour goof luck and who knows with Boeing behind it might actually be certified.         

 

Sources

TheVerge

[Poinkachu]

42 minutes ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

Summary

So, you know autonomous cars? Forget about them! Air taxi startup Wisk Aero unveiled its sixth-generation aircraft, an all-electric four-seater that can fly without a human pilot. The Boeing-backed company said it will seek approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to carry passengers as part of a commercial air taxi service. 
The company has said it hopes to launch an air taxi service within the next five years, at which point it predicts conducting 14 million flights annually in around 20 major markets around the globe. Air taxis, sometimes misidentified as “flying cars,” are essentially helicopters without the noisy, polluting gas motors (though they certainly have their own unique noise profile). In addition to Wisk, companies like Joby Aviation, Volocopter, Ehang, and Archer have claimed they are on the cusp of launching services that will eventually scale up nationwide.

Quotes

 

My thoughts

So, this is seems pretty interesting. Here we have a seemingly working model of an air taxi that is now in the process of being certified. Seems like a big step. However, it's viability is still in question until we actually these things up in the air. Well, I wish this endeavour goof luck and who knows with Boeing behind it might actually be certified.         

 

Sources

TheVerge

When a single taxi takes up space of 4 cars, and when a single taxi ride is probably enough for 4 fillet mignon.
And... what do we use to get to our actual destination from the landing spot?  I'm guessing standard taxi ?

[Dominik W]

Apologies to be the fear-mongering one but...

 

WHAT IF IT JUST STARTS FALLING?

 

With autonomous cars you can just take over the wheel. With a plane though, like what am I supposed to do? Accept death?

If someone knows let me know . 

[Takumidesh]

I am an A&P and have a little experience with aircraft.

 

type certification is a long and arduous process. I worked next door to hondajet for several years and it took them nearly two decades to get type certified.

If this aircraft doesn't have a TC yet, then this is probably ten+ years from actually becoming something that you would see flying around.

 

I would also be interested in seeing how this is really any different from chartering a helicopter?

[Takumidesh]

Just now, Dominik W said:

Apologies to be the fear-mongering one but...

 

WHAT IF IT JUST STARTS FALLING?

 

With autonomous cars you can just take over the wheel. With a plane though, like what am I supposed to do? Accept death?

If someone knows let me know . 

it's just a vtol airplane, they are already flying above you all the time.

thousands of people fly on planes every day, everyone is fine. There are nearly 10,000 planes in the sky at any given moment.

[Dominik W]

On 10/3/2022 at 10:10 AM, Takumidesh said:

it's just a vtol airplane, they are already flying above you all the time.

thousands of people fly on planes every day, everyone is fine. There are nearly 10,000 planes in the sky at any given moment.

Oh I trust human pilots, airplanes are the safest method of travel despite all the media shows around plane crashes. The difference here is that normal planes and VTOL ones are flown by humans. This one is supposed to be flown without a human pilot. Just take a look at Waymo cars. I'm concerned about having "Waymo" airplanes.

 

Also modern planes do have autopilot yes, but in limited circumstances and a human pilot can immediately take over. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Dominik W
Grammar fix.

[TetraSky]

Considering a drone bought down the power grid recently, I'm not trusting this autonomous air taxi, which is basically an oversized drone.

[Takumidesh]

airplanes have a lot more discrete information than cars do. Airplanes also exist in a network where all of the airplanes explicitly communicate with each other thanks to ADS-B.

 

I distrust pilots more than the systems that exist in modern commercial aircraft. (not to say that pilots are bad)

6 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Considering a drone bought down the power grid recently, I'm not trusting this autonomous air taxi, which is basically an oversized drone.

There is a significant difference between a TC'd aircraft and a drone.

 

To Add: When you fly on a commercial aircraft it is 99% automated already. So much has been automated that the job of flight engineer has been completely deprecated. A lot of plane crashes are caused by pilot error and pilot distrust of the system.

 

Think about the systems in place for IFR in zero visibility. Localizers and glideslopes guide the aircraft to be exactly lined up with the runway, and ATC is already ensuring that the runway is clear. The pilots literally cannot see anything at all and thus must be forced to operate based on the information collected by the aircraft completely.

 

I think a lot of people don't understand just how much more information is given to an aircraft than to something like a car. Every aspect of the flight is known by the avionics on board. and this information is communicated to the surrounding aircraft. This is how you get stuff like RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimums).

[BachChain]

1 hour ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

though they certainly have their own unique noise profile

By "unique" I assume you mean "orders of magnitude worse". There's a reason why airport ground crews are legally required to wear ear protection.

[Brooksie359]

43 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

airplanes have a lot more discrete information than cars do. Airplanes also exist in a network where all of the airplanes explicitly communicate with each other thanks to ADS-B.

 

I distrust pilots more than the systems that exist in modern commercial aircraft. (not to say that pilots are bad)

There is a significant difference between a TC'd aircraft and a drone.

 

To Add: When you fly on a commercial aircraft it is 99% automated already. So much has been automated that the job of flight engineer has been completely deprecated. A lot of plane crashes are caused by pilot error and pilot distrust of the system.

 

Think about the systems in place for IFR in zero visibility. Localizers and glideslopes guide the aircraft to be exactly lined up with the runway, and ATC is already ensuring that the runway is clear. The pilots literally cannot see anything at all and thus must be forced to operate based on the information collected by the aircraft completely.

 

I think a lot of people don't understand just how much more information is given to an aircraft than to something like a car. Every aspect of the flight is known by the avionics on board. and this information is communicated to the surrounding aircraft. This is how you get stuff like RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimums).

While that is nice and all but automated systems on airplanes have failed or needed human intervention often enough that fully automated airplanes is going to be alot riskier than having a automated systems and a pilot in case of emergency or need for human intervention. 

[BuckGup]

1 hour ago, Dominik W said:

With autonomous cars you can just take over the wheel. With a plane though, like what am I supposed to do? Accept death?

If someone knows let me know . 

Anytime you are a passenger you are effectively in a self driving car that performs worse than AI. Are you going to run to the cockpit and fly a 747 when the pilot passes out? How about a train or a bus? You already accept your life is in the operators hands and as far as you know it's not even piloted by a human, so what's the difference?

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

When a single taxi takes up space of 4 cars, and when a single taxi ride is probably enough for 4 fillet mignon.
And... what do we use to get to our actual destination from the landing spot?  I'm guessing standard taxi ?

You make a point.

For the former, that will be true initially, but if enough (and a serious ask that is) IF enough people are willing to ride on it or there is some form of subsidisation, we might see its prices fall akin to the aviation boom in the 90s. Probably.

As for the later, fair.

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, Takumidesh said:

airplanes have a lot more discrete information than cars do. Airplanes also exist in a network where all of the airplanes explicitly communicate with each other thanks to ADS-B.

 

I distrust pilots more than the systems that exist in modern commercial aircraft. (not to say that pilots are bad)

There is a significant difference between a TC'd aircraft and a drone.

 

To Add: When you fly on a commercial aircraft it is 99% automated already. So much has been automated that the job of flight engineer has been completely deprecated. A lot of plane crashes are caused by pilot error and pilot distrust of the system.

 

Think about the systems in place for IFR in zero visibility. Localizers and glideslopes guide the aircraft to be exactly lined up with the runway, and ATC is already ensuring that the runway is clear. The pilots literally cannot see anything at all and thus must be forced to operate based on the information collected by the aircraft completely.

 

I think a lot of people don't understand just how much more information is given to an aircraft than to something like a car. Every aspect of the flight is known by the avionics on board. and this information is communicated to the surrounding aircraft. This is how you get stuff like RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimums).

I'm not the most savvy in this kinda field, so my question to you is :
Can this thing get... let's say..... ransomware'd or such ?
(if the company is not serious enough in cyber security I mean)

 

27 minutes ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

You make a point.

For the former, that will be true initially, but if enough (and a serious ask that is) IF enough people are willing to ride on it or there is some form of subsidisation, we might see its prices fall akin to the aviation boom in the 90s. Probably.

As for the later, fair.

I am somewhat expecting someone will ride it while carrying a huge magnet or something.
Because morons & crazies like that exist.
The thing needs to be moron & crazy proofed for sure.
Also leakproofed, because one day there'll be a drunk @$$ that vomits or pee inside, thinking it's funny.

[Dominik W]

44 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Anytime you are a passenger you are effectively in a self driving car that performs worse than AI. Are you going to run to the cockpit and fly a 747 when the pilot passes out? How about a train or a bus? You already accept your life is in the operators hands and as far as you know it's not even piloted by a human, so what's the difference?

If AI was perfect, yes.

 

But from what I currently know, AI is still pretty bad.

[Takumidesh]

16 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

I'm not the most savvy in this kinda field, so my question to you is :
Can this thing get... let's say..... ransomware'd or such ?
(if the company is not serious enough in cyber security I mean)

Sure, anything with a computer can be hacked right? I think that really boils down to is what is done locally on the aircraft vs, trying to get the information elsewhere. I would assume that the most likely attack vector would be a 3rd party reporting false ADS-B information that would cause the autonomous vehicle to correct itself erroneously. Maybe something like reporting to the aircraft that it is on a vector leading to a collision which would cause it to compensate, allowing you to 'guide' the aircraft. I do think that ADS-B stands to be improved in this regard, because as it stands now, it is open radio broadcasts. You can't necessarily hijack someone someone else's broadcast, but you could spoof as many of your own as you like. I am sure there are more attack vectors but that is just one that comes to mind.

 

16 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

I am somewhat expecting someone will ride it while carrying a huge magnet or something.
Because morons & crazies like that exist.
The thing needs to be moron & crazy proofed for sure.
Also leakproofed, because one day there'll be a drunk @$$ that vomits or pee inside, thinking it's funny.

FYI all of these things are also concerns with traditional aircraft as well.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, BuckGup said:

Anytime you are a passenger you are effectively in a self driving car that performs worse than AI. Are you going to run to the cockpit and fly a 747 when the pilot passes out? How about a train or a bus? You already accept your life is in the operators hands and as far as you know it's not even piloted by a human, so what's the difference?

It's points of failures. One of the reasons why planes are so safe is they need to have multiple points of failure to fail before it results in a crash or one huge point of failure that is difficult to happen and usually is inspected regularly to ensure the parts are in good condition. With automated systems with no pilot you are going from needing two points of failure to fail to only needing one which is a big deal. Why do you think they have copilots? Why do you think they haven't switched to fully automated for normal flights already seeing as it's largely automated already?

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, BuckGup said:

Anytime you are a passenger you are effectively in a self driving car that performs worse than AI. Are you going to run to the cockpit and fly a 747 when the pilot passes out? How about a train or a bus? You already accept your life is in the operators hands and as far as you know it's not even piloted by a human, so what's the difference?

Also pilots go through very rigorous physical examinations to make sure they are in good health to get the go ahead to fly and a co pilot is mandatory so the chances that you are without a pilot is extremely unlikely. 

[TetraSky]

I expect these to essentially be replacement helicopters for the wealthy. Basically to get them to and from the airport or something, without needing a private helicopter pilot to chauffeur them around. 

They wouldn't have any takeoff/landing spots in the city, other than the helicopter pads on top of buildings after all.

[Takumidesh]

20 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Also pilots go through very rigorous physical examinations to make sure they are in good health to get the go ahead to fly and a co pilot is mandatory so the chances that you are without a pilot is extremely unlikely. 

Pilots are historically also a major failure point and/or contributer to aircraft incidents. Even just here you are saying that pilots need to have lots of physical examinations just to make sure they are able to work. There is also general training, as well as airframe training, Psychological evaluations, etc. Those are all massive failure points that are introduced into the system. By relying on a pilot you introduce a host of uncontrollable variables, by relying on TWO pilots you introduce even more uncontrolled variables. A large portion of aircraft accidents are atleast partially because of poor crew resource management. Pilots argue, or, typically worse, pilots will give up control of a situation because they believe the other pilot has the situation completely over control.

The a320 has joysticks for primary flight controls, since they operate independently airbus had to implement overrides on the stick itself so that one pilot can forcefully take control over the aircraft. The 737-max crashes happened in part due to poor training (there was a host of other problems as well). It is increasingly rare that purely mechanical or electronic failures are the cause of accidents and often, when there is a mechanical failure the pilot will make the wrong decision because of it (like the old 737 hardovers where the rudder actuator became reversed, the pilots basically commanded the airplane to yaw left, but it yawed right. Instead of trying the other direction, the pilots became confused and continued yawing in the wrong direction (actually pressing the pedals even harder)).

 

Yes, every once in a while a pilot will land a plane in the hudson, but for every one of those events, you have a pilot crashing into the side of a mountain after locking their copilot out of the flight deck.

 

More and more airplanes are becoming fly by wire, reducing the input and control that pilots have available to them.

 

Considering the airbus a320 again, which is entirely fly by wire except for the rudder control cable. even in Direct law, things like flight stick sensitivity are still limited based on airspeed.

 

Commercial aircraft do auto landings, auto takeoff, auto go around, auto this, auto that. I have flown jump seat a number of times and the pilots mostly fly the aircraft with dials and switches, not yokes.

[IkeaGnome]

4 hours ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

first electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) candidate for type certification.

 

1 minute ago, NastyFlytrap said:

Fuel for planes and helicopters is way worse for the environment than gasoline or diesel.....

Quote

• Generation 6 represents the first-ever candidate for FAA certification of an autonomous, passenger-carrying eVTOL air taxi

https://wisk.aero

Spoiler

Where did you get that this ran off avgas? 

[Brooksie359]

32 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

Pilots are historically also a major failure point and/or contributer to aircraft incidents. Even just here you are saying that pilots need to have lots of physical examinations just to make sure they are able to work. There is also general training, as well as airframe training, Psychological evaluations, etc. Those are all massive failure points that are introduced into the system. By relying on a pilot you introduce a host of uncontrollable variables, by relying on TWO pilots you introduce even more uncontrolled variables. A large portion of aircraft accidents are atleast partially because of poor crew resource management. Pilots argue, or, typically worse, pilots will give up control of a situation because they believe the other pilot has the situation completely over control.

The a320 has joysticks for primary flight controls, since they operate independently airbus had to implement overrides on the stick itself so that one pilot can forcefully take control over the aircraft. The 737-max crashes happened in part due to poor training (there was a host of other problems as well). It is increasingly rare that purely mechanical or electronic failures are the cause of accidents and often, when there is a mechanical failure the pilot will make the wrong decision because of it (like the old 737 hardovers where the rudder actuator became reversed, the pilots basically commanded the airplane to yaw left, but it yawed right. Instead of trying the other direction, the pilots became confused and continued yawing in the wrong direction (actually pressing the pedals even harder)).

 

Yes, every once in a while a pilot will land a plane in the hudson, but for every one of those events, you have a pilot crashing into the side of a mountain after locking their copilot out of the flight deck.

 

More and more airplanes are becoming fly by wire, reducing the input and control that pilots have available to them.

 

Considering the airbus a320 again, which is entirely fly by wire except for the rudder control cable. even in Direct law, things like flight stick sensitivity are still limited based on airspeed.

 

Commercial aircraft do auto landings, auto takeoff, auto go around, auto this, auto that. I have flown jump seat a number of times and the pilots mostly fly the aircraft with dials and switches, not yokes.

Again you only hear about major situations where people land on the Hudson. It's not news when a pilot has to take manual control due to the automated system not working correctly. Also there are plenty of crashes that are due to pilot error there are also plenty of crashes due to hardware and software failures. Again relying solely on the automated systems is not smart and just making it so you only have one point of failure rather than two so you would need both the software to mess up and the pilot to mess up to cause a crash rather than if it's automated then you are basically screwed as soon as the automated system malfunctions. 

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, Lightwreather JfromN said:

without the noisy, polluting gas motors

Having an electric motor doesn't mean you're not polluting. No matter how you spin it this is a wildly inefficient way of transporting people for daily commutes. Also air traffic management would be hell if a significant number of these were to be active in a given area.

 

I'm guessing this will either be a novelty for rich people covering a handful of routes worldwide with atrocious wait times and less than ideal takeoff and landing spots or just a commercial failure.

24 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

(like the old 737 hardovers where the rudder actuator became reversed, the pilots basically commanded the airplane to yaw left, but it yawed right. Instead of trying the other direction, the pilots became confused and continued yawing in the wrong direction (actually pressing the pedals even harder)).

...are you under the impression that an automated system would handle this better? Are you familiar with how a PID control works? A machine would absolutely just press the pedal harder. A human might have a chance of figuring out what to do in an unforeseen situation like that, a piece of code definitely would not.

 

That's not to say automated flight is impossible or necessarily less safe than a human pilot but let's not kid ourselves about the actual capabilities of these systems.

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

Can this thing get... let's say..... ransomware'd or such ?

I mean... hypothetically? If it runs software it can conceivably be hijacked but depending on how it works you might not be able to access it from the outside in any way. Stuff like ransomwares and malware or viruses in general is only really a concern if your software connects to the internet or some other network you don't entirely control.

2 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Anytime you are a passenger you are effectively in a self driving car that performs worse than AI.

Except not. There's a reason humans can drive on their own while "AI" currently cannot. Self driving car accidents are not especially common but right now there has to be a human behind the wheel ready to intervene - without human intervention the figures would be much higher. There are plenty of videos of self driving cars trying to merge too aggressively or heading straight for a curb. We're still not at the point of self driven cars being safer and quite a few experts in the industry seem to hold the opinion that we may never get there across all scenarios. As of right now these systems complement a human driver making the overall driving experience safer - that doesn't mean they're safer than a human driver on their own.

 

Unless of course the human driver is intoxicated or something, which can probably be ruled out for someone who drives for a living in the vast majority of cases.

[Takumidesh]

27 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Again you only hear about major situations where people land on the Hudson. It's not news when a pilot has to take manual control due to the automated system not working correctly.

I hear about a lot of situations because I worked as a licensed commercial aircraft mechanic for years. I have also been involved in FAA investigations personally (though not from my doing). I have had extensive training on human factors, as wells as Gen Fam certs for Boeing 737NGs and Airbus A320. I was engine run and taxi qualed on Boeing 737NGs.

I actually have first hand experience riding jump seat from things like mis-adjusted trim tabs causing extreme pitch changes on simulated hydraulic failures and similar situations.

 

27 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

you would need both the software to mess up and the pilot to mess up

Often times one screw up causes the other to screw up.

 

24 minutes ago, Sauron said:

...are you under the impression that an automated system would handle this better? Are you familiar with how a PID control works? A machine would absolutely just press the pedal harder. A human might have a chance of figuring out what to do in an unforeseen situation like that, a piece of code definitely would not.

That is exactly my point. the pilot did not improve the situation by being a pilot, if the pilot did the exact same thing the machine would have done, what was the benefit of having the pilot (in this instance) and yes I am familiar with PID loops and machine controls. and not every automated control is a PID loop on an aircraft.

 

A piece of code absolutely can solve that problem. The pilot naturally rejected the feedback of other systems of the aircraft because their intuition told them it should be happening this way. It is a similar phenomena to death spirals pilots experience in IFR conditions.

 

One of the most infamous crashes is air france 296, where the pilots overconfidence and disregard for the systems present in the aircraft resulted in a crash.

The Plane was not equipped to be flown on such a small runway, requiring all VFR, and the purpose of the demonstration was to effectively bypass every restriction of the plane, deliberately disabling or otherwise maneuvering around the flight assist as much as possible, including a last minute approach change to a different runway to get closer to the crowd.

 

The plane crashed because of deliberate over confidence and defeat of the protections in place by the aircraft.

 

EDIT: I should add about the 737 hardovers. had the pilot been able to identify the actual location of the rudder ( which was deflected in the opposite direction than intended) they would have understood how to correct their actions. This is something a computer (and pid loop) would easily be able to correct for.)

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Takumidesh
additional info.

[Senzelian]

Reminds me of Volocopter

Their headquarters is right around the corner from where I live. Pretty cool machines.

 

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

A piece of code absolutely can solve that problem. The pilot naturally rejected the feedback of other systems of the aircraft because their intuition told them it should be happening this way. It is a similar phenomena to death spirals pilots experience in IFR conditions.

A piece of code can only solve that problem if it was foreseen during development. Certainly software can implement some generic failsafes that attempt to return the system to a known state, however for something as immediate and unintuitive as the plane controls suddenly reversing they won't save you. You can't account for every possible unforeseen mechanical malfunction and if you could there wouldn't be any.

8 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

One of the most infamous crashes is air france 296, where the pilots overconfidence and disregard for the systems present in the aircraft resulted in a crash.

The Plane was not equipped to be flown on such a small runway, requiring all VFR, and the purpose of the demonstration was to effectively bypass every restriction of the plane, deliberately disabling or otherwise maneuvering around the flight assist as much as possible, including a last minute approach change to a different runway to get closer to the crowd.

 

The plane crashed because of deliberate over confidence and defeat of the protections in place by the aircraft.

A demonstration during an air show is not a good example here, especially if they were going out of their way specifically to disregard instrumentation. Certainly a human pilot who also has access to a variety of flight assistance tools is going to fly safer than one who does not, much like a driver on a car with ABS and traction control is safer than a driver on a car without it.