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Almost 16 years to the day since the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner, Boeing has finally flown an all-new commercial aircraft — this one with four passenger seats and no pilot.
Wisk’s “Gen 6” electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft performed its maiden flight on the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 16 (the Dreamliner first flew on Dec. 15, 2009). While the bright yellow eVTOL developed by Boeing’s wholly-owned subsidiary would seem to have little in common with its parent company’s commercial airliners, the fact that it made it to first flight at all suggests that Boeing thinks otherwise.
Wisk is unique among Boeing’s commercial experiments with emerging technologies, most of which have not survived reorganizations and broader changes in leadership and strategy. Most recently, current Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg made sweeping changes during his first months in the role last year, when he proclaimed that the company needed to focus its resources “on performing and innovating in the areas that are core to who we are, rather than spreading ourselves across too many efforts that can often result in underperformance and underinvestment.”
Among other things, that stance led to Boeing’s recent divestment of Jeppesen and ForeFlight, both established businesses with well-known brands. Yet Boeing continues to invest in pre-revenue Wisk, even as Airbus and Textron Aviation have put their eVTOL projects on ice.
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