Kitty Hawk Corporation wound down on September 21, 2022, but its most important passenger-aircraft project had already moved into a separate company. The Cora aircraft program became the foundation of Wisk Aero, a Boeing-Kitty Hawk joint venture formed in 2019. Wisk survived Kitty Hawk’s corporate shutdown, became a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary in 2023, and is still developing and flight-testing its autonomous electric air taxi.
That does not mean Kitty Hawk’s flying car is available to the public—or that Wisk has started commercial passenger flights. As of August 11, 2026, Wisk’s Generation 6 aircraft remains in testing, certification, and airspace-integration work.
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What happened to Kitty Hawk?
Kitty Hawk Corporation, founded by Sebastian Thrun and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, announced on September 21, 2022, that it would wind down. The short announcement followed years of work on electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, commonly called eVTOLs, intended for short-range personal or passenger transportation. [CIT-001]
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchHowever, “Kitty Hawk shut down” is an incomplete description of what happened to the company’s aircraft programs. Kitty Hawk had several projects, and the most significant passenger-aircraft effort had already been separated from the original corporation.
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After Kitty Hawk ended its Flyer program in June 2020, its remaining corporate work centered mainly on the Heaviside family of small autonomous aircraft and the possibility of a larger derivative. The company’s shutdown therefore ended the original Kitty Hawk corporate structure and its remaining internal programs; it did not end the Cora-derived air-taxi effort that had become Wisk. [CIT-001]
Kitty Hawk’s Flyer was not the same aircraft as Wisk’s Cora
The company’s best-known early aircraft was Flyer, a small, open-cockpit electric aircraft designed around vertical takeoff and landing. Kitty Hawk reported building and flying 111 Flyer aircraft and completing more than 25,000 crewed and uncrewed flights before ending the program in 2020. [CIT-001]
Flyer should not be confused with Cora. Cora was a separate autonomous passenger-aircraft project publicly revealed in 2018. It used a different development path and ultimately became the foundation of Wisk Aero. Treating Flyer, Cora, Heaviside, and Wisk’s later Generation 6 aircraft as one continuous “Kitty Hawk flying car” creates a misleading picture of the company’s history.
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|---|---|---|
| Flyer | Kitty Hawk ended the program in June 2020 after reporting more than 25,000 flights. | It was an earlier Kitty Hawk aircraft and was not Wisk’s passenger-air-taxi program. |
| Cora | Moved into a Boeing-Kitty Hawk joint venture that became Wisk Aero. | It forms the direct corporate and technical lineage of Wisk’s air-taxi effort. |
| Heaviside | Remained associated with Kitty Hawk’s later small autonomous-aircraft work as the parent company wound down. | Its development was not the same as the Cora-to-Wisk transition. |
| Wisk Generation 6 | Continues as Wisk’s current autonomous eVTOL development program. | It is the aircraft Wisk is taking through flight testing and FAA certification work. |
How Cora became Wisk Aero
Wisk was established in 2019 as a joint venture between Kitty Hawk and Boeing. The arrangement combined Kitty Hawk’s electric-aircraft and autonomy work with Boeing’s aerospace engineering, testing, manufacturing, and certification experience. The Cora team became the foundation of Wisk, and Zephyr Airworks in New Zealand was renamed Wisk New Zealand. [CIT-002]
Boeing described Wisk as an independently operated company supported by Boeing resources. In 2023, Wisk became a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary, ending the phase in which it was formally a Kitty Hawk-Boeing joint venture while preserving the broader Boeing connection. [CIT-003]
A 2021 federal complaint filed by Wisk against Archer also described Kitty Hawk and Boeing forming the joint venture in June 2019 and the relevant entity being renamed Wisk Aero. That filing is useful for establishing the reported corporate chronology, but because it was a party filing, allegations in the litigation should not be treated as neutral findings. [CIT-004]
Why Wisk continued after Kitty Hawk wound down
Wisk was no longer simply a department inside Kitty Hawk when Kitty Hawk announced its wind-down. It had its own corporate structure, Boeing backing, a dedicated aircraft-development plan, and a certification strategy focused on autonomous air-taxi operations.
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In January 2022, Boeing announced a $450 million investment in Wisk. The funding was reported as supporting development of Wisk’s sixth-generation eVTOL and its work toward certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. [CIT-005] [CIT-006]
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That financial and technical support helps explain why Wisk continued independently of Kitty Hawk’s shutdown. Kitty Hawk’s remaining corporate programs were being wound down, while Wisk had already become the better-capitalized home for the Cora-derived passenger-aircraft effort.
What is Wisk Generation 6?
In October 2022, shortly after Kitty Hawk announced its wind-down, Wisk unveiled its Generation 6 aircraft. Wisk described it as a four-passenger, all-electric, autonomous eVTOL designed for FAA type certification. Its published design targets included:
- Capacity: four passengers
- Propulsion: all-electric
- Target cruise speed: 120 knots
- Target range: 90 miles
- Published operating altitude: approximately 2,500 to 4,000 feet
These figures are company-published design targets, not proof that the aircraft has achieved them in routine service. They also should not be read as a commercial timetable or a guarantee of the aircraft’s final certified performance. [CIT-006] [CIT-007]
Wisk’s aircraft is intended to operate without a pilot sitting onboard. The company’s operating model instead uses human personnel on the ground, including roles such as a fleet manager, multi-vehicle supervisor, ground crew, and hospitality manager. Wisk describes the autonomy system as relying on aviation automation, navigation, communications, sensors, and procedural decision-making—not on an onboard pilot and not on an unexplained “black-box AI” system. [CIT-008] [CIT-009]
“Autonomous” therefore does not mean that nobody is responsible for the aircraft. Wisk’s proposed model places human oversight and intervention capability on the ground. The practical questions include how many aircraft one supervisor can monitor, how intervention works when an aircraft encounters an unexpected situation, how lost communications are handled, and how the system integrates with conventional air traffic. Those questions are part of the development and certification challenge.
Wisk’s latest flight-test progress
Wisk’s Generation 6 program has progressed beyond a purely conceptual aircraft. Wisk reported the first Gen 6 aircraft’s initial hover flight in December 2025. It also reported the successful first flight of a second Gen 6 aircraft on May 4, 2026. [CIT-011] [CIT-012]
The second aircraft’s reported test campaign included vertical takeoff, hovering, and “chirp” maneuvers. Wisk said the two-aircraft program would be used to expand the flight envelope, including hover-to-wing-borne transitions, while refining control laws and system performance. A hover flight or early test maneuver is an important development milestone, but it is not equivalent to full-envelope testing, certification, or passenger service.
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What FAA certification still requires
A successful prototype flight does not by itself authorize an aircraft to carry paying passengers. The FAA certification framework separates several approvals and stages, including:
- Type certification: approval of the aircraft’s design and its compliance with applicable airworthiness requirements.
- Production certification: approval of the manufacturer’s production system and its ability to build aircraft that conform to the approved design.
- Operating approval: authorization for an operator to conduct the proposed commercial service under the applicable aviation rules.
Wisk says passengers will not board its aircraft until the relevant aircraft, manufacturing, and operating approvals are secured. The company anticipates commercial air-taxi service by the end of the 2020s, but that is a company projection, not a guaranteed launch date. [CIT-013] [CIT-014]
This distinction matters because many eVTOL announcements combine a prototype milestone with a future service plan. Wisk’s reported test flights show that the program is active; they do not establish that the aircraft is certified, commercially available, or operating scheduled passenger routes.
What Texas and NASA are doing with Wisk
In March 2026, the U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA selected the Texas Department of Transportation for an eVTOL and advanced-air-mobility Integration Pilot Program. Wisk says it will support the Texas effort with autonomous systems and aircraft operations intended to help examine regulatory questions involving airworthiness, ground risk, pilot certification, automated-flight rules, and the role of remote supervisors. [CIT-015]
The Texas program is best understood as a testing and policy-development pathway. It is not evidence that Wisk has received blanket permission to carry paying passengers commercially in Texas or elsewhere.
Wisk’s July 2026 newsroom material also describes collaboration with NASA to simulate multi-aircraft autonomous operations in controlled airspace. The work is relevant to validating the autonomy stack, human-supervision model, and airspace-integration procedures. But simulation and development testing are not the same as routine autonomous passenger operations. [CIT-016] [CIT-017]
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.So, did Kitty Hawk’s flying car disappear?
No—but the answer depends on which Kitty Hawk aircraft is meant.
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- The early Flyer program ended in 2020.
- Kitty Hawk Corporation announced its own wind-down in 2022.
- The Cora passenger-aircraft effort had already moved into Wisk in 2019.
- Wisk continued under Boeing and became a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary in 2023.
- Wisk’s current Generation 6 aircraft is still undergoing testing and certification work.
It is also inaccurate to say that Kitty Hawk itself is still developing the aircraft. The company that now owns and operates the relevant program is Wisk Aero, under Boeing ownership. The more precise description is that Wisk inherited the Cora lineage and continues the autonomous eVTOL effort that originated partly from Kitty Hawk’s work.
What this means for people waiting for flying taxis
Wisk’s progress is meaningful because it has moved from an early corporate project to a Boeing-owned development program with multiple test aircraft, flight testing, and formal work toward FAA approval. But the commercial question remains open.
Before a passenger could book a Wisk flight, the program would need to demonstrate compliance with the aircraft’s certification requirements, establish a conforming production system, obtain the required operating approvals, and prove that the ground-supervision and airspace procedures work at the intended scale. Infrastructure, local operating permissions, maintenance, emergency procedures, and passenger-handling arrangements would also need to be established.
For now, Wisk is closer to an active aerospace certification program than to a consumer transportation service. The company’s anticipated end-of-decade service goal should be treated as a target that depends on successful testing and regulatory approval—not as a firm launch date.
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Did Kitty Hawk and Wisk Aero shut down together?
No. Kitty Hawk Corporation announced its wind-down on September 21, 2022, but Cora had already been transferred into Wisk Aero, a Boeing-Kitty Hawk joint venture formed in 2019. Wisk continued after Kitty Hawk wound down and became a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary in 2023.
Is Wisk Aero flying passengers commercially?
No. As of August 11, 2026, Wisk’s Generation 6 aircraft remains in flight testing, FAA certification work, and airspace-integration development. Wisk has discussed commercial service by the end of the 2020s, but that is a company projection rather than an operating service.
What happened to Kitty Hawk’s Flyer aircraft?
Kitty Hawk ended its Flyer program in June 2020 after reporting that it had built and flown 111 aircraft and completed more than 25,000 crewed and uncrewed flights. Flyer was separate from the Cora-derived Wisk air-taxi program.
What is the difference between Cora and Wisk Generation 6?
Cora was the earlier autonomous passenger-aircraft project that became the foundation of Wisk. Generation 6 is Wisk’s current four-passenger, all-electric autonomous eVTOL development program, designed for FAA certification.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Kitty Hawk Corporation is gone, but the Cora passenger-aircraft program did not vanish with it. It had already become Wisk Aero, which is now wholly owned by Boeing and continues testing its Generation 6 autonomous eVTOL. Wisk has reported hover and flight-test milestones, along with Texas and NASA integration work, but it has not yet launched commercial passenger service or made a certified flying car available to the public.
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