Taking a flight in a pilotless self-flying plane might be a wild proposition for some - but robot passenger aircraft could be the future of air travel. As a fascinating new video reveals. For his series'Airplane Mode', Nicky Kelvin, Editor at Large at The Points Guy, goes behind the scenes at Wisk Aero headquarters in Mountain View, California, to find out more about its revolutionary all-electric pilotless air taxi. What makes the plane extra futuristic is that it has electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) capabilities. In the video, Nicky meets Brian Yutko, Wisk CEO, who shows Nicky inside a Wisk Air Taxi Gen 6, the model Wisk anticipates it will seek Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) clearance for, then take to market to transport passengers.

Self-flying airplanes are gearing up for take-off, as Boeing, Airbus and other companies are testing autonomous systems and craft - but pilots are pushing back over safety risks. The technologies enable autonomous landings, handle-inflight emergencies and relax the Federal Aviation Administration's law requiring two pilots in the cockpit. Pilots have shared their concerns on Twitter, with many stating that two pilots are required in an emergency. Tony Driza, who has been an airline pilot for 40 years, posted that he can'equivocally state that when an emergency situation arises in the cockpit, a full crew is necessary to deal with it.' While autonomous airplanes are still early, Boeing's CEO Dave Calhoun said in a Bloomberg TV interview the technology will'come to all airplanes eventually.' Boeing has developed an autonomous refueling plane for the US Navy, the MQ-25.

The aviation industry is the front-runner of autonomous vehicles. It has long beat the automotive sector in the race of autonomy. People feel comfortable with the implication of self-driving vehicles when they grow fond of the concept of autonomy. The self-flying planes are already on use with the help of flight plan created by pilots. For example, if a pilot takes off the seat-belt sign, there are chances that the flight is being self-driven.

Boeing just got into the autonomous aviation game, with the goal of building jetliners that fly themselves, no pilots required. "The basic building blocks of the technology clearly are available," Mike Sinnett, Boeing's vice president of product development, said ahead of the Paris Airshow. The prospect of a pilotless passenger plane may strike you as crazy, even terrifying. But developing computer systems sophisticated enough to pull it off is well under way. Autopilot technology already does most of the work once a plane is aloft, and has no trouble landing an airliner even in rough weather and limited visibility.

NASA is exploring a new area of technology. The space agency announced Monday that three teams of researchers are exploring potential solutions for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). "Our idea is to invest a very modest amount of time and money into new technologies that are ambitious and potentially transformative. They may or may not work, but we won't know unless we try," Richard Barhydt, NASA's acting director of the Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program stated in the press release. The three teams together form the NASA's Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project are expected to publish their findings in 24-30 months.

Self-driving cars are quickly becoming a reality, but self-flying planes? It might seem far off, but NASA wants to make them happen. Today, three different aeronautics teams received the go ahead to explore projects related to unmanned autonomous aircraft. The first study explores "safe inclusion and certification of autonomous systems in aviation" -- or, to the rest of us, self-flying aircraft. This project will focus on the algorithms necessary for machines to make safe decisions on their own, without human input.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recently tested autonomously flying F-16 fighter jets in collaboration with Lockheed Martin. The tests could mark a big leap for military drone technology as these jets could be used in the future for large scale air-to-ground strikes. "This demonstration is an important milestone in AFRL's maturation of technologies needed to integrate manned and unmanned aircraft in a strike package. We've not only shown how an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle can perform its mission when things go as planned, but also how it will react and adapt to unforeseen obstacles along the way," Capt. Andrew Petry, AFRL autonomous flight operations engineer, said in a press release issued Monday by Lockheed Martin.