Autonomous air taxi developer Wisk Aero is wind-tunnel testing a subscale model of its pilotless aircraft at Boeing’s V/STOL Wind Tunnel (BVWT) facility in Philadelphia.
The aerodynamics testing will encompass hundreds of test runs, informing the build of Wisk’s full-size aircraft.
The programme will also support planned flight testing of a full-size prototype, with such flights set to launch this year, Mike Ceriello, Wisk’s aerodynamics engineer, recently told FlightGlobal.
”This wind tunnel data will feed directly into the aerodynamic database for our aircraft simulation models, which will be used to support the full-scale flight test and certification programme, including flight-test planning, assessing failure scenarios and safety of flight,” he says.
Wisk is pursuing passenger-carrying, autonomous-but-supervised flights with its “Gen 6” air taxi before the end of the decade. It is currently assembling its first full-scale prototype in Mountain View, California.
Wisk shared initial images of the first under-assembly Gen 6 prototype in late December. The aircraft’s major aerostructures were assembled, with wings mated to the fuselage and “weight on skids”, chief executive Brian Yutko said at the time.
It is to be the first of several full-size prototypes, with Wisk planning on ”multiple flight-test aircraft built and test flown to inform the certification efforts for our Gen 6 aircraft”.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing, Wisk’s engineers have been leaning on the US airframer’s expertise and facilities as it advances its design, Ceriello says.
Boeing’s 4,180sq m (45,000sq ft) BVWT facility features a 12m (40ft)-diameter fan with nine wooden blades.
Wisk’s subscale model is a once-off piece of hardware that is about a quarter of Gen6’s size. Wisk’s team positions the model “to simulate a wide range of flight conditions, such as post-stall angles of attack or 90° side-slip angles for the hover configuration, which simplifies the application of data to our aircraft”, Ceriello says.
