Boeing-backed air taxi upstart Wisk plans to fly you across town at UberX prices by 2030
- Reference: 1708590607
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/02/22/wisk_regulatory_challenges/
- Source link:
"There's a very comprehensive process for us to go through to be approved, to be certified, and approved to conduct autonomous operations, so we won't be carrying passengers and we won't be undertaking operations until the [US Federal Aviation Authority] FAA and other regulators as appropriate have been fully set aside," MacGowan admitted at the Singapore airshow on Wednesday.
Wisk's Generation 6 eVTOL is an electric four-passenger plus luggage vehicle, which is expected to be flying by the end of the year. It will operate between 2,500 and 4000 feet, with a range of 90 miles, a speed between 110 and 120 knots, and a charge time of 15 minutes.
[1]
Approval from regulators like the FAA would mark the first time a pilotless commercial aircraft could carry passengers. The aircraft would be supervised by a Wisk staff member on the ground, monitoring and taking on the role of communicating with air traffic control for several vehicles at a time.
[2]Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight
[3]Delta Air Lines throws $60m at flying taxi startup Joby Aviation
[4]Waymo services driverless car software after Phoenix truck collision
[5]Boeing wants autonomous flying cabs in US airspace by 2030
But while regulatory approval to fly is one thing, take-off and landing presents a whole different problem.
"In terms of the landing locations, this is really fascinating. What we are doing is we are taking aviation that for so many decades is operating from fixed nodes, and we're bringing it into a city, and we're bringing it into the community," enthused the VP.
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"And so we spend as much time talking to city planners, rail planners, ferry planners, as we do with people in the aviation environment, because we're looking at this multimodal connection and how does that kind of aircraft integrate not only into existing aircraft and the aviation environment, but how do they link into mass transit and ground transport hubs," she posited.
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A Wisk air Taxi prototype - Click to enlarge
Wisk expects it will need to tailor its operations to the peculiarities of different cities. It is looking to place some “vertiports” in the center of cities – to meet customer demand in those locations – and others that are for maintenance and other operations.
On Wednesday, Wisk [9]announced a partnership with the city of Sugar Land, Texas that will see it to assess vertiport locations at the regional airport and lay the foundation for establishing a network across nearby Greater Houston.
The public transportation-starved area relies heavily on road infrastructure. Houston is the kind of place where having access to a household car is practically mandatory. Expansive multi-lane highway systems interlace like a complex web across the metro, connecting suburbs and the city center. Commuting can take hours, depending on traffic conditions.
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Houston's transport challenges are expected to worsen with a recent population boom that has [11]ranked it the second fastest growing metro in America.
The additional cars on the road, combined with a push to house residents further from the city center, could serve as the perfect incentive for a population to overcome any hesitations or safety concerns related to pilot-free aircraft.
MacGowan said the company has experienced "no significant incidents" out of the 1,750 test flights logged by the upstart across five iterations of its aircraft
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However, reluctance is understandable given the recent spate of accidents from autonomous cars, which don't even leave the ground and travel far slower than aircraft.
MacGowan revealed that with regard to social acceptance, Wisk had seen "a little bit of an age difference" with younger people being more keen.
Regardless, MacGowan also conceded that Wisk had found in talks with regulators that they all have autonomy in their sights, in the United States and abroad, including her territory in Asia Pacific.
"This is the direction the industry is moving in," she declared. "Autonomy allows for safety, it allows for predictability, and allows the scale as we start to see the kinds of numbers of aircraft that are projected for Asia and around the world." ®
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[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/08/boeing_737_max_9_airplanes/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/12/delta_joby/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/waymo_files_recall_after_pheonix/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/21/boeing_wants_driverless_flying_cabs/
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[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/02/22/supplied_wisk_air_taxi.jpg
[9] https://wisk.aero/news/press-release/wisk-sugar-land/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZdcpWEHegN1th4caYXb6qAAAAVc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-population-biggest-city-18108718.php
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[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Drones as a Service?
Doesn't Boeing have anything to do with it mean it'll be deadly enough already without having to think about scenarios?
Re: Drones as a Service?
Their involvement did make me wonder whether it would be a Routemaster-style operation, open at the back. Probably easier to hop off than to hop on, though.
Traffic is easier in the air
"...reluctance is understandable given the recent spate of accidents from autonomous cars, which don't even leave the ground and travel far slower than aircraft"
While the height factor would make any potential accident in an air taxi far more serious (indeed probably fatal) than a small prang in a robo-car, autonomous navigation is far, far easier for vehicles that are free to move in 3 dimensions in a much less congested space. Of course there needs to be a sort of local air-traffic controller, and as with other aircraft it is the takeoff and landing that are the riskiest, rather than flight itself. If it's regulated by aviation authorities to the same standard as aircraft (hopefully also to a better extent than FAA-Boeing!!!), combined with the incentives from the company side (essentially one single crash with passenger fatality could send the company instantaneously bust) mean that I expect reliability to be quite high.
On the other hand, delivering flights at the same cost point as an Uber is a WTF?? However much volume the flying taxis are produced in, it's never going to be as cheap as a saloon car, and it clearly takes more energy to go from A to B in the air than on the ground. That's not accounting for extra initial calls for aviation regulation, and additional ongoing costs for the traffic management. In fact the company is probably betting on the fact that people are willing to pay (much) more than Uber prices to avoid traffic (not to mention the 'cool' factor)
Re: Traffic is easier in the air
I was more thinking "are they going to map every aerial cable, or only operate to areas that don't have such things"
Re: Traffic is easier in the air
They're going to map every aerial cable, around the airports. Sorry, I mean Vertiports. [Spit!] I think they should go with Mark Kermode here (BBC film reviewer), who had a mental block on air and couldn't remember the word airport - so heard himself saying "aeroplane station".
Anyway the revolutionary thing is supposedly going to be price and numbers. And I presume it's very short take-off and landing. But you are going to fly from little city centre airports, if you can get planning permission, to litle private fields and regional airports. So you'll control the height of buildings and infrastructure in the airspace and approaches to the airports, as you normally would. And then the thing will cruise at 2,000ft.
No
No pilot, no fly.
Well that's a big nope from me.
Even if it was free.
Re: Well that's a big nope from me.
Free? Shit, I wouldn't use it if they paid me.
Far, far too many things to go wrong.
I rather suspect my insurance will also say no ... if it doesn't already.
All very well but where are the flying cars and personal jetpack I was promised?
Almost there...
personal jetpack
[1]https://gravity.co/flight-experience
[1] https://gravity.co/flight-experience
Interesting
For me at least the airframe sounds interesting. The only thing is, over here it would (if it were an airplane, i.e. with a pilot on board) be classified as a multi engine airplane. The current regulations are a bit old fashined I guess.
Now, if it were a bit lighter, you might be able to get this as "experiemental / ultra light", though this comes with other baggage (my friend who is building his own plane in his garage told me).
At least it serves as an innovation platform for conventional aircraft ...
I don't wish to be picky, but...
I've found a rather major problem with Boeing's design here.
It will operate between 2,500 and 4000 feet, with a range of 90 miles, a speed between 110 and 120 knots, and a charge time of 15 minutes.
The range and charge time are fine. But a plane that can't go below 2,500ft and can't go slower than 110 knots is going to have serious difficulty loading and unloading the cargo passengers. Obviously they can get out with parachutes, but how are they going to get in?
Is it a bit like Speed? If the speed / altitude drops below miniums the bomb in the aircraft explodes? I'm sure that if Boeing thought about this more, they could remove that bomb, and have room for an extra paying passenger.
There's an easy method to get passengers onboard too: [1]Link to Wiki
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system
Re: I don't wish to be picky, but...
at that height you can't even join the mile high club!
Drones as a Service?
My evil little mind took no time at all to consider this scenario:
Load flying taxi with incendiaries or explosives (no passengers, no pilot) and request a flight to your desired destination.
Icon to the right for obvious reasons...
What countermeasures are in place or planned?