Overview
Wisk Aero is hiring a Senior Test Pilot at its Hollister, California flight-test facility to support testing, evaluation and certification of an all-electric autonomous aircraft. Working with pilots, technicians, flight-test and systems engineers and certification specialists, the role plans and conducts tests on general-aviation support aircraft, surrogate flying test beds and uncrewed systems. The pilot evaluates test hazards, develops mitigations and produces results suitable for certification review. This is an on-site position with occasional travel to external test and training locations. Candidates need an FAA professional pilot certificate, engineering or technical education and significant flight-test or analytical aviation experience, together with safety-risk-management and multidisciplinary collaboration skills.
Responsibilities
- Write aircraft and subsystem test plans.
- Assess test hazards and establish suitable risk mitigations.
- Conduct flight tests and safety chase using crewed and uncrewed platforms.
- Develop, review and approve UAS mission trajectories.
- Report results to certification-authority standards.
- Develop operating restrictions, special test instructions, manuals and SOPs.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to describe aircraft behaviour and inform design.
Requirements
- Hold an FAA Commercial Pilot or ATP certificate for fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft.
- Hold at least an FAA Second Class medical certificate.
- Hold a bachelor's degree in a relevant engineering or technical field.
- Have five or more years as a test pilot or flight-test engineer on complex aerospace systems.
- Alternatively, have seven or more aviation-industry years with critical-thinking and data-analysis experience.
- Have flight and operational safety-risk-management experience.
- Be able to translate engineering data into operational use cases.
- Communicate and collaborate effectively across disciplines and mentor colleagues.
- At least 500 flight hours and uncrewed-aircraft or certification experience are preferred.