Falck has announced a collaboration with Silicon Valley’s Kitty Hawk, a company known for its advanced eVTOL aircraft. The emergency response and healthcare company partnered with Kitty Hawk to establish a joint innovation platform involving Project Heaviside, Kitty Hawk’s latest eVTOL aircraft, to be used in EMS operations. 

The partnership builds on Falck’s previous drone initiative, Vertical, which focuses on assessing the feasibility of drone technology in the prehospital and ambulance services of the future. Now with Project Heaviside, Falck aims to test and evaluate new technologies on a larger scale, making emergency healthcare more accessible and affordable. Project Heaviside is notable even among other eVTOL competitors for its noise level; the aircraft is exceptionally quiet while remaining fast and maneuverable. Project Heaviside has undergone 13 prototype designs and over 700 test flights since its launch. With this partnership, Kitty Hawk will also provide their engineering team with decades of experience in commercial aviation, aerospace, automotive engineering, flight testing, and industrial design.

Photograph: Kitty Hawk

“The agreement with Kitty Hawk takes us to the next level in our commitment to integrate eVTOL aircraft into our ambulance operations. Kitty Hawk brings the technology, while we at Falck contribute with our ambulance service area as a use case. This combination gives us the best conditions to investigate how we can jointly unleash the potential of new technology and develop the ambulance-borne health solutions which are likely to set the standard in the near future,” said Jakob Riis, CEO of Falck.

According to Sebastian Thrun, Co Founder and CEO of Kitty Hawk, “We are excited to be working with Falck to collaborate on bringing our Heaviside aircraft for emergency services, first in Denmark and then to other areas. Falck is an innovative leader in the area and this agreement marks a first and important step in making eVTOL available to more people.”

Falck expects to introduce Heaviside in a close collaboration with customers in Denmark and Europe, followed later on by those in the United States.

Photograph: Kitty Hawk

Why it’s important: This new partnership will integrate Kitty Hawk’s Heaviside into Falck’s Emergency Medical Services, which will give Heaviside an opportunity for real-world use, and help decrease Falck’s overall emergency response time. A successful application of the Heaviside within Falck’s program will help enable a successful commercial future for Heaviside, as well as eVTOL as a whole.  

Source // PR Newswire

Related: 

• Falck Initiates Manned Drone Paramedics Program
• Kitty Hawk Heaviside

Kitty Hawk has announced this week it is ending its Flyer program to focus on its heavier prototype, Heaviside launched last year. This update is to no surprise as the bulk of the eVTOL/aerial mobility market has shifted from the inception of the Flyer to larger vehicles with the ability to carry multiple passengers. Heaviside fits the bill with a top speed of 180 mph and a range of 100 miles.

Kitty Hawk’s Flyer frame in 2015.

“Today, we are winding down the Flyer project,” Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun and Flyer President Alex Roetter wrote in a blog announcement. “We have learned what we needed from it—things like vehicle design and testing, manufacturing aircraft, and most of all, how humans would experience eVTOL. We are proud to have built the first electrically-powered VTOL aircraft in the world flown by non-pilots.”

It should be noted, the incredible accomplishments of Kitty Hawk’s Flyer program were important in developing a deep understanding and strategy for bringing a commercial eVTOL vehicle to market. During its history, Kitty Hawk built over 111 prototypes and conducted in excess of 25,000 test flights.

In its blog post detailing the sunset of the Flyer program, Thrun and Roetter say that, with the closing of Flyer, they are “doubling down” on Heaviside. Further, Kitty Hawk and Boeing have been working for the past year on a strategic partnership centered on another prototype design dubbed Cora, a semi-autonomous two-seat aircraft (now renamed Wisk).

Why it matters: With an impressive logbook of flight tests completed and technical understanding of developing eVTOL platforms, Kitty Hawk is well positioned to get their Heaviside prototype into flight test with a strong configuration from the start. With backing from the likes of Google co-founder, Larry Page, as well as their Silicon Valley roots, Kitty Hawk promises to be a continued voice in the aerial mobility space, as they embark on a new chapter for the company.

Kittyhawk, the eVTOL air taxi company building a single-person, remotely-piloted electric aircraft in Palo Alto, CA, has just announced it is shutting down.

Founded by self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, Kittyhawk had been advancing aviation for more than a decade and had built and flown more than 100 aircraft.

Wisk, the company’s joint venture with Boeing Co. formed in 2019, will continue to live on. Boeing has already invested $450 million in the partnership and earlier this week the two presented their vision for a world where eVTOLs can coexist with larger commercial aircraft.

“Kittyhawk’s decision to cease operations does not change Boeing’s commitment to Wisk,” a spokeswoman for the plane manufacturer said in an email. “We are proud to be a founding member of Wisk Aero and are excited to see the work they are doing to drive innovation and sustainability through the future of electric air travel.”

Insider has reported that Kitty Hawk had already shut down work on the 100-mile-capable Heaviside vehicle and that Page had become increasingly hands-off from the company, but did continue to focus on research and development efforts after the end of the Heaviside project. Other historic vehicles to be designed, built, and flown by Kittyhawk included the Flyer and Cora vehicles.

Related:

• Wisk Aero Continues Global Expansion with Launch of Montreal Hub (August 2022)
• Wisk’s 6th Generation eVTOL revealed on CBS’s 60 Minutes (April 2022)
• Wisk Looks to Resume Flight Tests for Cora (May 2020)
• Kitty Hawk Moves On From its Flyer Program (June 2020)

Why it’s important: The closure of Kittyhawk marks the end of an era for one of the early leaders in the aerial mobility industry. With its Flyer and Cora aircraft, the company helped pave the way for many of the other startups, including Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, and Lilium. However, the continued development work that is being done via spinoff company Wisk in collaboration with Boeing maintains a promising outlook for the future of urban aviation.

KittyHawk, famously funded in part by Google co-founder Larry Page, has officially received airworthiness approval for its ‘Heaviside’ eVTOL from the U.S Air Force. This means that the KittyHawk Heaviside prototype is no longer only experimental, and can be used for revenue-generating flight tests for the U.S military.

KittHawk’s ‘Heaviside’ eVTOL in flight

The Heaviside is an expertly engineered eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, featuring 8 tilting rotors that power both vertical and forward flight. The Heaviside for now is single-passenger aircraft, and will feature autonomous and remote piloting capabilities that will allow it to fly up to 100 miles on a single charge, at speeds up to 180mph. Noise emissions are 100 times quieter than a traditional helicopter, and the aircraft can take in only 30 foot by 30 foot area.

With the new airworthiness approval from the U.S Air Force, KittyHawk will be able to fly paid technology development missions for the U.S military. These missions will test new technologies and operational concepts that will expand KittyHawk’s offerings to both the world and the Air Force itself. For example, one potential application stated by Colonel Nathan Diller is the use of the Heaviside to perform communications relays that could help transmit data in areas without infrastructure. The current version of the approval is for remote operations, although the Air Force is also interested in the Heaviside’s use in personel transport.

KittyHawk is a well-funded and highly established eVTOL developer, considering that the Heaviside is not its only successful aircraft. KittyHawk was also maker of the Cora passenger eVTOL. The Cora aircraft is well on its way to commercial operations, having recently been taken over by Wisk, a new joint venture between Boeing and KittyHawk.

Why it’s important: KittyHawk is now the third eVTOL aircraft to receive an airworthiness approval certification from the U.S Air Force. Other aircraft are Beta Technologies’ Alia, the Joby Aviation eVTOL, and the Lift Hexa. Although the military is also interested in larger aircraft, it is certainly interested in 1 to 2 passenger aircraft like the Heaviside. Awarding Heaviside airworthiness approval marks the it as one of the furthest-progressed eVTOL aircraft in development.

Source // Janes, KittyHawk Aerospace

Related:

• Beta Technologies is Approved for Air Force Manned Flight Tests (May 2021)
• Joby Aviation Receives Airworthiness Approval from U.S Military (December 2020)
• Kitty Hawk’s New Project Heaviside Prioritizes Noise Reduction (October 2019)