Kitty Hawk Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer producing
electric
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...
personal air vehicle
A personal air vehicle (PAV) is a proposed type of aircraft providing on-demand aviation services.
The emergence of this alternative to traditional ground transport methods has been enabled by unmanned aerial vehicle technologies and electric pr ...
s.
History
The company was founded as Zee.Aero in 2010. It is supported by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's co-founder
Larry Page
Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin.
Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unt ...
. In September 2022, it was announced that the company was winding down, though their joint venture with Boeing,
Wisk Aero would continue.
Products
Kitty Hawk Flyer
The Flyer was a personal aircraft which was kept aloft by eight battery-powered propellers. The engineering was led by Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert. The production Flyer was introduced on 6 June 2018. A
license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
was not required to pilot the Flyer, as it was built under US
FAR Part 103 ultralight regulations.
After 25,000 unmanned or crewed flights combined, using 111 aircraft, Kitty Hawk ended the programme on 3 June 2020;
CEO
Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun (born May 14, 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, educator, and computer scientist. He is CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, and chairman and co-founder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google VP and Fellow, a Professor of Comp ...
stated that, with Flyer, the company "could not find a path to a viable business".
Kitty Hawk Cora / Cora by Wisk
Since March 2018, ''Kitty Hawk Corporation'' had been testing an autonomous, electric air taxi prototype in New Zealand called
Cora and code-named ''Zee.Aero''. In 2019, the Kitty Hawk Cora autonomous
personal air vehicle
A personal air vehicle (PAV) is a proposed type of aircraft providing on-demand aviation services.
The emergence of this alternative to traditional ground transport methods has been enabled by unmanned aerial vehicle technologies and electric pr ...
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
was split off into a joint venture between
''Wisk Aero LLC'' and
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
, becoming ''Cora by Wisk''.
In December 2019, the Cora team was rebranded and spun off as a separate company called Wisk Aero.
Kitty Hawk Heaviside
In 2019, Kitty Hawk introduced a new aircraft called the Heaviside. It is designed to be quieter than normal aircraft.
Kitty Hawk H2 (Heaviside 2)
In 2022, Kitty Hawk introduced the 2nd iteration of its Heaviside, named H2.
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Urban air mobility