US autonomous air taxi developer Wisk Aero has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Airservices Australia aimed at safely incorporating its in-development, self-flying Gen 6 aircraft into Australian airspace.
The California start-up disclosed on 15 October that it had signed an MoU with Airservices Australia – a government-owned company that provides air traffic management services – as part of broader plans to develop an autonomous air taxi network in Australia.
The air taxi developer calls Australia an “important market for Wisk’s testing and evaluation” programme, as well as a potentially ripe commercial market.
In July, Wisk entered a partnership with Skyports Infrastructure to explore air taxi operations in Australia’s South East Queensland region ahead of the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane.
”We’re trying to be very measured in where we make commitments,” chief executive Brian Yutko said during the Farnborough air show. ”Our strategy is not to blanket the earth with partnerships but to be really targeted and make sure that… when we start to put plans in place, that they’re real.”
The company says its MoU with Airservices Australia will explore ”how advanced air mobility, and in particular uncrewed, remotely supervised aircraft, can be integrated into the Australian national airspace”. It will also “provide a forum” for discussing challenges associated with introducing remotely monitored commercial flights via workshops and simulations.
”Wisk Australia will collaborate closely with Airservices to explore airspace procedures for autonomous aircraft, digital flight approvals, and time- and trajectory-based operations, as well as how these procedures will operate within newly established vertiport environments,” the start-up says.
Boeing-backed Wisk is pursuing passenger-carrying, remotely supervised flights with its all-electric Gen 6 air taxi before the end of the decade. It is currently assembling its first full-scale prototype in Mountain View, California, with plans to launch a flight-test campaign next year.
