Wisk Tests 1:3 Supervisor Ratio for Autonomous Flight

Wisk Aero and NASA have simulated a single ground-based supervisor managing three autonomous aircraft at once in controlled airspace. The exercise tested the 1:3 supervisor-to-aircraft ratio that Wisk considers essential to making commercial air taxi service affordable.

The campaign was part of a five-year Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement between NASA and Mountain View, California-based Wisk focused on integrating autonomous aircraft flying under instrument flight rules (IFR) into the National Airspace System. It builds on earlier joint work the two announced in May 2025.

Engineers linked Wisk’s Autonomy Lab in Mountain View with the Future Flight Central air traffic control simulation laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center, which houses a 360-degree, full-scale airport simulator.

Simulated scenarios followed established IFR routes between Moffett Federal Airfield and San Martin Airport in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, with air traffic controllers communicating directly with Wisk’s supervisors through both routine and contingency situations.

Remote Flight Supervision

Erick Corona, Wisk’s head of system and operations integration, called the simulation “the first time we’ve tested our 1:3 supervisor-to-aircraft ratio with NASA in a high-fidelity, high-workload environment that mirrors the complexity of the National Airspace System.”

“Proving that a single ground-based supervisor can manage multiple flights safely and efficiently is paramount to making commercial air taxi operations scalable and affordable,” Corona added.

Wisk said it used its own remote supervision system to handle navigation and communication, gathering data on response time, task latency, situational awareness, and cognitive workload with NASA’s Task Load Index and the Bedford Workload Scale. The company said the findings will inform standardized procedures meant to lighten controller and pilot workloads and could eventually support digitized alternatives such as automated flight rules. Wisk did not say when the work might move from the simulator to flight.

Formed in 2019 as a joint venture between Boeing and Kitty Hawk, Wisk became a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary in 2023 and has worked with NASA on autonomous airspace integration since joining the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign in 2020. The company is developing its four-passenger Gen 6 eVTOL aircraft, which it aims to certify as the first autonomous passenger-carrying air taxi in the U.S. Wisk flew the second of its full-scale Gen 6 prototypes for the first time in May and continues flight testing both aircraft in California.