6 ms·

Wisk Aero: Autonomous Urban Air Mobility

32 points by lisper 4y ago

Wingman4l7 4y ago
What a fantastically BS header video -- everyday people getting into what appears to be a real vehicle, using a customer tablet interface, seatbelts... and then no shots of it taking off or even spinning up. Might as well be a fiberglass mockup; maybe it is. Don't pretend that you have a commercial vehicle if you don't actually have one.
- fallingmeat 4y ago
  They do have a flight test program.
  - Wingman4l7 4y ago
    That's encouraging to hear, but then why lead with this commercial-use-ready fantasy video instead of showing a real flight test?
    - addaon 4y ago
      This might be more your speed -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nLlkLuP_mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nLlkLuP_mo
      - fallingmeat 4y ago
        ^ this guy knows what he is talking about :). sup man
        addaon 4y ago
        Heya!
      - tomcam 4y ago
        Fractional-size model though, right?
        addaon 4y ago
        Nope, that's their full-size fifth generation aircraft, a two seater.
- jafo 4y ago
  My grandfather told me shortly after Kitty Hawk, posters appeared in Manhattan claiming "Soon! New York to Paris in 15 hours by air!" with glamorous people walking toward a Concorde-like airplane. If you are going to believe the BS header video, you might as well believe this BS story.
  - osrec 4y ago
    Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the OP?!
    - jafo 4y ago
      Yes
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >My grandfather told me shortly after Kitty Hawk, posters appeared in Manhattan claiming "Soon! New York to Paris in 15 hours by air!" with glamorous people walking toward a Concorde-like airplane. To be fair, the posters were absolutely correct. It was soon after Kitty Hawk that it became possible and even commonplace to fly on commercial passenger aircraft from NY to Paris in 15 hours or less. Of course, this depends on exactly how you define "soon"...
- Animats 4y ago
  It is a really awful video. The same clips are repeated two and three times. And no takeoff and landing video. There's older video of a previous prototype taking off, landing, and flying around.[1] That gives a sense of how it handles. It's a reasonable design. More practical than the eHang.[2] The eHang has been around for years; it's a quadrotor drone scaled up to carry people. It has the big problem of all pure-thrust craft - no glide capability. Flies OK, but not much range. There have been a few other drone-like vehicles built like that. None seem to be deployed. Range and battery life are a huge problem. Having a wing helps. Once transition to forward flight has been made, power requirements are much lower. So the range becomes useful. And there's at least the potential to glide to a controlled crash on power failure. There's been a lot of interest lately in VTOLs that take off on electric power and then use a wing and pusher prop for cruise. There are even drones like that, with ranges of hundreds of miles. This is much simpler mechanically than tilting wing concepts, which are mechanical nightmares. Look up how the Osprey's power train works. It's also nice seeing those props above head height, rather than down at ankle and head level like the eHang. This has potential. [1] https://youtu.be/9nLlkLuP_mo https://youtu.be/9nLlkLuP_mo [2] https://www.ehang.com/ehangaav https://www.ehang.com/ehangaav
  - aeontech 4y ago
    What do you think about Lilium? https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8 https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8
- zoom6628 4y ago
  Videos best watched muted. The script was a torrent of Bay Area BS that said nothing more than “it’s a self flying taxi”.
- kkoppenhaver 4y ago
  I watched this one that came out and it goes into a bit more detail of what they have currently viable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEeCp5xJj8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEeCp5xJj8
bayouborne 4y ago
"..we’ve designed-in multiple redundant systems and engineered out all single points of failure." Can this aircraft glide or auto-rotate to the earth if it has a catastrophic power malfunction?
- Wingman4l7 4y ago
  It's possible it could have a ballistic full-aircraft recovery parachute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst... I would hope these would be standard on vehicles that cannot "dead-stick" (glide) to landing like a fixed wing, or auto-rotate to the ground like a helicopter.
  - Ancapistani 4y ago
    In forward flight, I wonder what its glide ratio is? In VTOL, safety is a much greater concern. Six props with what appear to be independent motors makes me feel a lot better about it from the start, though. What’s its TWR?
    - addaon 4y ago
      Not going to answer anything not obvious from the video (sorry), but it's actually twelve independent motors -- the six that catch your eye in that opening shot are the front six, you can just see another six behind them.
      - Ancapistani 4y ago
        I wouldn’t expect you to go into extreme detail based on a random, pseudo-anonymous poster on a forum! :) My point being that if the TWR is > ~1.5 - and I’m quite sure it is, or VTOL would be very difficult - then you can “safely” lose a prop and still be able to get back to the ground.
        addaon 4y ago
roughly 4y ago
So, I don't mean to be a hater, and it looks like they've put a lot of effort into this from a technical standpoint, but this does not actually solve actual practical problems for actual urban mobility for any reasonable fraction of the population. The aircraft need to take off and land from somewhere, and given that they're multi-ton objects with rapidly-spinning metal protrusions, that'll need to be designated spaces. Designated spaces mean rate limiting - think of a taxi queue outside an airport. These will not just be allowed to fly _anywhere_ - they will have approved flight paths, because there's no way we'll allow a substantial number of flying vehicles to just fly wherever without some kind of controls, and they'll absolutely require more space between them than cars on a highway get. They've got a range of 90 miles, which is nice, but what's the turnaround time look like? How long between flights does it take to get the air taxi back in the air? This may be a fine way for the wealthy to avoid traffic between their tower and the airport, but there's absolutely no world where this makes any kind of genuine impact on traffic or urban transit broadly.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  There will always be a VC who does not understand basic geometry and you can just take his money for this flying taxi garbage every time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - forgetfreeman 4y ago
    You say that in jest any yet it's so accurate that I can name at least one pharmaceutical company that went in on the flying taxi grift to score several rounds of funding.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    What does it have to do with geometry? And FWIW, there is more space in the sky than on earth, where cars are rather prevalent.
    - 4y ago
twobitshifter 4y ago
“Autonomy” but thankfully it acts like a drone for the tricky parts. I’m not sure that this solves our traffic problem. A four passenger plane might end up just like a 4 passenger car - mostly empty, but because it’s flying using more energy, taking up more space, and creating a lot more noise. It opens up more capacity than using a road alone, but when everyone wants to go to the same football match by air-taxi, you’re going to end up with these things circling for miles.
imglorp 4y ago
Several comments are worried about gliding on power failure on these craft. A couple observations. Commercial airliners like Airbus with electrically actuated control surfaces have redundant power buses, crossbars, actuators etc. A multirotor doesn't actually need full power to emergency land, just enough o hold a descent rate of 10-20 kts like a parachute. If run all your motors at less than full power normally, then if you lose a few, you have some capacity to throttle up the remainder in concert to emergency land. I'd be more concerned about how it selects an emergency landing spot over a city.
ilaksh 4y ago
Terrific job. I hope this stuff really takes off soon. Side issue -- also, the volume on the video is too low.
e12e 4y ago
Somewhat related: https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-this-chinese-flying-taxi-xpeng-x2-take-flight-above-dubai https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-this-chinese-flying-taxi... "Watch This Chinese Flying Taxi Take Flight Above Dubai" > The XPeng X2, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle from EV firm XPeng Inc, soared in the skies of the United Arab Emirates city during a test flight on Monday. While the flight was uncrewed, the company said that they conducted a manned flight in July 2021. > Watch the action for yourself below: https://youtu.be/f_YLwHWy0aQ https://youtu.be/f_YLwHWy0aQ
- dmix 4y ago
  If this is going to happen anywhere it will most likely happen outside the West.

32 points by lisper 4y ago

What a fantastically BS header video -- everyday people getting into what appears to be a real vehicle, using a customer tablet interface, seatbelts... and then no shots of it taking off or even spinning up. Might as well be a fiberglass mockup; maybe it is. Don't pretend that you have a commercial vehicle if you don't actually have one.

fallingmeat 4y ago
They do have a flight test program.
- Wingman4l7 4y ago
  That's encouraging to hear, but then why lead with this commercial-use-ready fantasy video instead of showing a real flight test?
  - addaon 4y ago
    This might be more your speed -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nLlkLuP_mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nLlkLuP_mo
    - fallingmeat 4y ago
      ^ this guy knows what he is talking about :). sup man
      - addaon 4y ago
        Heya!
    - tomcam 4y ago
      Fractional-size model though, right?
      - addaon 4y ago
        Nope, that's their full-size fifth generation aircraft, a two seater.
jafo 4y ago
My grandfather told me shortly after Kitty Hawk, posters appeared in Manhattan claiming "Soon! New York to Paris in 15 hours by air!" with glamorous people walking toward a Concorde-like airplane. If you are going to believe the BS header video, you might as well believe this BS story.
- osrec 4y ago
  Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the OP?!
  - jafo 4y ago
    Yes
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >My grandfather told me shortly after Kitty Hawk, posters appeared in Manhattan claiming "Soon! New York to Paris in 15 hours by air!" with glamorous people walking toward a Concorde-like airplane. To be fair, the posters were absolutely correct. It was soon after Kitty Hawk that it became possible and even commonplace to fly on commercial passenger aircraft from NY to Paris in 15 hours or less. Of course, this depends on exactly how you define "soon"...
Animats 4y ago
It is a really awful video. The same clips are repeated two and three times. And no takeoff and landing video. There's older video of a previous prototype taking off, landing, and flying around.[1] That gives a sense of how it handles. It's a reasonable design. More practical than the eHang.[2] The eHang has been around for years; it's a quadrotor drone scaled up to carry people. It has the big problem of all pure-thrust craft - no glide capability. Flies OK, but not much range. There have been a few other drone-like vehicles built like that. None seem to be deployed. Range and battery life are a huge problem. Having a wing helps. Once transition to forward flight has been made, power requirements are much lower. So the range becomes useful. And there's at least the potential to glide to a controlled crash on power failure. There's been a lot of interest lately in VTOLs that take off on electric power and then use a wing and pusher prop for cruise. There are even drones like that, with ranges of hundreds of miles. This is much simpler mechanically than tilting wing concepts, which are mechanical nightmares. Look up how the Osprey's power train works. It's also nice seeing those props above head height, rather than down at ankle and head level like the eHang. This has potential. [1] https://youtu.be/9nLlkLuP_mo https://youtu.be/9nLlkLuP_mo [2] https://www.ehang.com/ehangaav https://www.ehang.com/ehangaav
- aeontech 4y ago
  What do you think about Lilium? https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8 https://youtu.be/ywJWka1evH8
zoom6628 4y ago
Videos best watched muted. The script was a torrent of Bay Area BS that said nothing more than “it’s a self flying taxi”.
kkoppenhaver 4y ago
I watched this one that came out and it goes into a bit more detail of what they have currently viable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEeCp5xJj8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEeCp5xJj8

bayouborne 4y ago

"..we’ve designed-in multiple redundant systems and engineered out all single points of failure." Can this aircraft glide or auto-rotate to the earth if it has a catastrophic power malfunction?

Wingman4l7 4y ago
It's possible it could have a ballistic full-aircraft recovery parachute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Syst... I would hope these would be standard on vehicles that cannot "dead-stick" (glide) to landing like a fixed wing, or auto-rotate to the ground like a helicopter.
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  In forward flight, I wonder what its glide ratio is? In VTOL, safety is a much greater concern. Six props with what appear to be independent motors makes me feel a lot better about it from the start, though. What’s its TWR?
  - addaon 4y ago
    Not going to answer anything not obvious from the video (sorry), but it's actually twelve independent motors -- the six that catch your eye in that opening shot are the front six, you can just see another six behind them.
    - Ancapistani 4y ago
      I wouldn’t expect you to go into extreme detail based on a random, pseudo-anonymous poster on a forum! :) My point being that if the TWR is > ~1.5 - and I’m quite sure it is, or VTOL would be very difficult - then you can “safely” lose a prop and still be able to get back to the ground.
      - addaon 4y ago

roughly 4y ago

So, I don't mean to be a hater, and it looks like they've put a lot of effort into this from a technical standpoint, but this does not actually solve actual practical problems for actual urban mobility for any reasonable fraction of the population. The aircraft need to take off and land from somewhere, and given that they're multi-ton objects with rapidly-spinning metal protrusions, that'll need to be designated spaces. Designated spaces mean rate limiting - think of a taxi queue outside an airport. These will not just be allowed to fly _anywhere_ - they will have approved flight paths, because there's no way we'll allow a substantial number of flying vehicles to just fly wherever without some kind of controls, and they'll absolutely require more space between them than cars on a highway get. They've got a range of 90 miles, which is nice, but what's the turnaround time look like? How long between flights does it take to get the air taxi back in the air? This may be a fine way for the wealthy to avoid traffic between their tower and the airport, but there's absolutely no world where this makes any kind of genuine impact on traffic or urban transit broadly.

jeffbee 4y ago
There will always be a VC who does not understand basic geometry and you can just take his money for this flying taxi garbage every time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- forgetfreeman 4y ago
  You say that in jest any yet it's so accurate that I can name at least one pharmaceutical company that went in on the flying taxi grift to score several rounds of funding.
- FabHK 4y ago
  What does it have to do with geometry? And FWIW, there is more space in the sky than on earth, where cars are rather prevalent.
  - 4y ago

twobitshifter 4y ago

“Autonomy” but thankfully it acts like a drone for the tricky parts. I’m not sure that this solves our traffic problem. A four passenger plane might end up just like a 4 passenger car - mostly empty, but because it’s flying using more energy, taking up more space, and creating a lot more noise. It opens up more capacity than using a road alone, but when everyone wants to go to the same football match by air-taxi, you’re going to end up with these things circling for miles.

imglorp 4y ago

Several comments are worried about gliding on power failure on these craft. A couple observations. Commercial airliners like Airbus with electrically actuated control surfaces have redundant power buses, crossbars, actuators etc. A multirotor doesn't actually need full power to emergency land, just enough o hold a descent rate of 10-20 kts like a parachute. If run all your motors at less than full power normally, then if you lose a few, you have some capacity to throttle up the remainder in concert to emergency land. I'd be more concerned about how it selects an emergency landing spot over a city.

ilaksh 4y ago

Terrific job. I hope this stuff really takes off soon. Side issue -- also, the volume on the video is too low.

e12e 4y ago

Somewhat related: https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-this-chinese-flying-taxi-xpeng-x2-take-flight-above-dubai https://www.thedailybeast.com/watch-this-chinese-flying-taxi... "Watch This Chinese Flying Taxi Take Flight Above Dubai" > The XPeng X2, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle from EV firm XPeng Inc, soared in the skies of the United Arab Emirates city during a test flight on Monday. While the flight was uncrewed, the company said that they conducted a manned flight in July 2021. > Watch the action for yourself below: https://youtu.be/f_YLwHWy0aQ https://youtu.be/f_YLwHWy0aQ

dmix 4y ago
If this is going to happen anywhere it will most likely happen outside the West.