Unfortunately, it failed to find a way to turn the project into a viable business venture. “No matter how hard we looked, we could not find a path to a viable business,” Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun told TechCrunch. The company had another project called Cora that developed two-seater autonomous taxis. Since that one evolved into a joint venture with Boeing, which will soon conduct passenger trials in New Zealand, Heaviside is its only known initiative at the moment.

Kitty Hawk revealed Heaviside, its all-electric plane, in 2019. Like Flyer, it’s a one-seater vehicle that’s capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) like a helicopter, though it’s supposed to be 100 times quieter. “Going forward, we are doubling down on Heaviside as our primary platform,” its announcement reads. “But we would never have gotten here without launching and learning from Flyer, and the amazing team of people who built and operated it.”

If the names Cora or Kitty Hawk sound familiar to you, it’s because they’ve been kicking about in this sector for a while, albeit in varying forms. Kitty Hawk was formed in 2016; a secretive flying-car company that enjoyed the lucrative backing of Google co-founder Larry Page. Under the management of Sebastian Thrun — the Stanford AI expert responsible for Google’s self-driving car unit — the company created the two-seated autonomous aircraft, Cora.

In 2018, Kitty Hawk announced it was teaming up with Air New Zealand to launch the world’s first autonomous air taxi service, but without a major manufacturing partner it turned instead to Boeing, and in 2019 Wisk was born. Its goal is to develop a flying taxi service that can be summoned by an app, and flown by a combination of autopilot systems and a remote human pilot.

This isn’t a new aspiration, of course. Uber has grand plans for its Elevate program, while Germany’s Volocopter made big promises about its own offering. But such projects often fall foul of funding problems, technical difficulties and legislative challenges. If Wisk’s passenger trials go ahead and are successful, the dream of flying taxis may actually start to come to fruition in a tangible way.

It’s also tiny, as you can make out in a picture with a person crouching next to the aircraft with seating for one. TechCrunch got up close and personal with Heaviside, noting that at the moment the cockpit seats its passenger on bare carbon fiber.

Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun told TechCrunch “The calculus here is that this has to be socially acceptable for people,” while demonstrating Heaviside’s capability to fly overhead without being any louder than an office air conditioner. It’s also intended to support both manual and autonomous flight, although regulatory approval could be quite a way off.

In its latest round of funding, Volocopter has been backed by Geely, the Chinese automotive group which manufactures Volvo and Lexus cars as well as London’s electric black cabs. It has also secured the support of German automotive giant Daimler, which is looking to invest in back ride-sharing, autonomous vehicle and taxi services.

Volocopter raised a total of 50 million Euros (about $55 million) with an aim to bring its air taxi service to China. The company says it can use this money to launch a commercial flying taxi within three years. Given its reveal last month of its fourth-generation eVTOL, or electric take-off and landing aircraft, it may well be able to meet its goal and begin trials in Singapore later this year.

The German company faces competition in the skies, however, from the Kitty Hawk air taxi company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page and from Uber which is working on its own flying taxis.

Both sides have clear incentives to forge an alliance . Kitty Hawk has already shown promise with Cora (above), an autonomous electric taxi prototype that’s already in testing in New Zealand. However, it’s still a relatively small outfit. Even with former Google exec Sebastian Thrun at the helm and the backing of Google’s Larry Page, it doesn’t have nearly as many resources as industry veterans. Boeing’s help could both give it a safety net and ensure that any finished air taxis reach large customers.

As for Boeing? Simply put, this could help it maintain a competitive edge against Airbus and other rivals. While the aircraft maker already has an autonomous electric taxi prototype, that doesn’t mean it’s completely comfortable with its progress to date. This could help it catch up or pull ahead in areas where it’s currently weak. Whatever the exact reasons, you might sit in an airborne taxi sooner than you think — once the infrastructure is in place, that is.