Kitty Hawk

History

2022: Company Closure

On September 22, 2022, it was reported that Kitty Hawk, an electric aviation startup founded by Sebastian Troon with the support of GoogleLarry Page, co-founder, was shutting down.

The company said on Twitter and in a post on LinkedIn that it was winding down its operations: Шаблон:Quote 'We have decided to terminate Kitty Hawk. We are still working on detailing what happens next.

Kitty Hawk, an electric aviation startup, is shutting down.

Its technology is expected to continue in the form of a joint venture between Wisk Aero and Boeing. Wisk's operations will not be affected by the closure of Kitty Hawk, Boeing said. Kitty Hawk set up its Wisk venture with Boeing in 2019 and the planemaker invested $450 million in the partnership.

Kitty Hawk was founded in 2010 when the company, known at the time as Zee.Aero, decided to pioneer the market for so-called eVTOLs - electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft - eventually with the aim of ensuring the economic democratization of airspace. The work of the company was carried out in secret. Kitty Hawk was led by Sebastian Troon, a Google veteran who worked on self-driving cars, augmented reality glasses and other projects.

Kitty Hawk's goal was to create air transport that could be remotely controlled, was smaller and easier than other eVTOLs, and could take off from virtually anywhere. The company aimed for a cost of less than $1 per 1.5 km.

Kitty Hawk built and flew 111 aircraft and conducted more than 25 thousand successful flights with and without crew. In June 2020, however, that program was shut down and about 70 employees laid off to focus on developing the Heaviside, a more functional and quieter electric aircraft that could fly and land anywhere autonomously. Heaviside has been in development since 2016, but it was only publicly unveiled at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in 2019.

In 2021, Kitty Hawk reached another milestone, demonstrating flight after at Ohio State. The demonstration was part of a collaboration with the FAA, Air Force and SkyVision, a ground-based radar service. By that time, the company had built more than 16 H2 devices.

By 2022, however, the situation has become less clear. Kitty Hawk was reported to have been working on Heaviside in 2022. However, its website hints at another stage in the company's development. Kitty Hawk said it was working on the first commercial air taxi, a vehicle based on the H2 platform that would be small, lightweight, quiet and remotely controlled.^[1]

Notes