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Joby Completes Week-Long New York Air Taxi Campaign as Wisk Doubles Its Autonomous Test Fleet

Joby flew JFK-to-Manhattan routes in seven minutes during an April 27–May 1 New York campaign, days before Wisk flew its second Gen 6 autonomous prototype.

Space & Aerospace Electric Aviation
Joby Aviation eVTOL air taxi electric aviation Wisk Aero New York City advanced air mobility FAA transportation
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Overview

Two milestones last week marked the closest the electric air taxi industry has come to commercial reality. Between late April and May 1, Joby Aviation flew its S4 aircraft on point-to-point routes across New York City — including a seven-minute hop from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Midtown Manhattan — completing the first eVTOL flights in one of the world’s most complex airspaces. Four days later, on May 4, Wisk Aero flew its second Generation 6 autonomous prototype for the first time, doubling the test fleet it is using to pursue FAA certification for a pilotless air taxi service.

Both events follow a rapid sequence of industry milestones The Machine Herald has tracked since March, when the FAA selected eight projects for its eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and Joby flew its first FAA-conforming aircraft.

Joby’s New York Campaign

Joby’s S4 tiltrotor — which seats one pilot and up to four passengers, cruises at approximately 200 mph, and recharges in under 20 minutes — made its first point-to-point New York flight on April 27, departing JFK and landing at the West 30th Street Heliport in approximately seven minutes, according to Aviation Week. The same route by car takes between 60 and 120 minutes, as The Next Web reported.

The aircraft — powered by six electric motors on a 39-foot wingspan — spent approximately 20 minutes on the ground after landing without needing to recharge. Over the week-long campaign, flights connected JFK with three Manhattan heliport sites: Downtown Skyport, the West 30th Street Heliport, and the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown.

The final public demonstration took place on May 1 at the East 34th Street Heliport, hosted by VertiPorts by Atlantic in partnership with Joby, Blade, and Atlantic Aviation, according to GlobeNewswire. The event demonstrated that existing Manhattan heliport infrastructure is compatible with next-generation quiet, zero-emission aircraft.

Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade — now a wholly owned Joby subsidiary that transported more than 90,000 passengers in 2025 using Manhattan’s heliport network — framed the moment as a generational shift: “Conventional helicopter technology has not changed for over 50 years. And today you’re really getting a glimpse of not the future but the near future,” according to Aviation Week.

Joby Chief Product Officer Eric Allison noted the aircraft’s noise profile in urban operation: “When it’s flying in that forward flight mode, it’s virtually silent at 1,000 ft. We’re talking 45 dB” — matching what The Next Web described as roughly 100 times quieter than a conventional helicopter.

Founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a company statement: “New York has always been a city that defines the future by demanding better. We first flew here in 2023, and now we’ve shown what the next chapter looks like.”

Airspace and Certification Context

New York airspace, shared by JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports, is described by Aviation Week as “one of the busiest and most complex airspace in the U.S.” Successfully demonstrating point-to-point eVTOL operations there carries practical significance: it shows the S4 can integrate with dense air traffic corridors that would define commercial urban routes.

SMG Consulting founder Sergio Cecutta told Aviation Week that “This is the first operational-like flight that was ever done.” Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard added: “This is the first time you can really see how this would work as a service—not just as a test.”

On the certification front, Joby cleared Stage 4 of the FAA’s five-stage type certification process in late March 2026 and is now preparing for Stage 5 — the final conformity inspection — according to The Next Web. If Stage 5 goes as planned, the resulting certificate would be, as the outlet noted, “the first ever issued for an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in the United States,” with completion targeted for late 2026.

The New York campaign is part of the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, a White House-backed initiative spanning 26 states. Joby is named as a partner on five of the eight selected projects across 12 states, according to its company announcement. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — which has a $45 billion capital plan covering 2026–2035 — is Joby’s lead infrastructure partner for the New York project, and permanent rapid-charging infrastructure at Manhattan heliports is targeted for 2027 completion.

“This cutting-edge aircraft is exactly the kind of innovation we have a responsibility to test,” Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole said in the company statement.

If commercial operations begin as Joby projects in late 2026, the initial price target is $3–$6 per mile, comparable to Uber Black, with a JFK-to-Midtown trip estimated at approximately $200 per seat — and a longer-term goal of reaching $2–$3 per passenger mile, per The Next Web.

Wisk Doubles Its Autonomous Test Fleet

Four days after Joby’s final New York demonstration, Wisk Aero flew its second Generation 6 aircraft for the first time at its flight test facility in Hollister, California on May 4, according to a Wisk press release. The first Gen 6 began hover testing in mid-December 2025; with both aircraft now active, Wisk has doubled its certification test fleet.

The Gen 6 carries four passengers, has 12 electric propellers on a fixed-wing airframe, a cruising speed of 120 knots, and a range of 90 miles, with no onboard pilot. A ground-based Multi-Vehicle Supervisor monitors operations. The inaugural flight of the second prototype included vertical takeoff, hover, and chirp maneuvers — frequency sweeps that inject oscillations into the flight control system to measure how the aircraft responds to sudden inputs.

Wisk CEO Sebastien Vigneron said in the announcement: “Having multiple aircraft in flight testing allows us to move faster, learn quicker, and stay on the leading edge of autonomous aviation.”

Wisk distinguishes itself in the eVTOL field by pursuing certification for a fully autonomous aircraft — one where the software stack, not a licensed pilot, is the safety case. The company, a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary, has completed more than 1,750 test flights across previous generations.

Wisk is participating in the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation, with launch markets targeted as Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami.

What We Don’t Know

  • Whether the FAA will grant Joby its type certificate on the late-2026 timeline the company projects.
  • When exactly commercial fare-paying operations will begin in the United States; Joby has characterized a 2026 soft launch as possible but dependent on Stage 5 completion.
  • Whether the Port Authority’s 2027 timeline for permanent rapid-charging infrastructure at Manhattan heliports will hold.
  • Whether Wisk will achieve its first Gen 6 transition milestone — shifting from vertical hover to wing-borne forward flight — before the end of 2026 as it has indicated.
  • The FAA’s timeline for certifying a fully autonomous aircraft, a regulatory question with no precedent in U.S. aviation.