Yes. Animatronic whales were used in all of the Free Willy movies.
Although Jason James Richter, the human star of the first Free Willy film did get nose-to-snout with the mammal, the scenes in which he rides Willy around the sea park's tank are fake.
In the wide shots, Richter's stunt-double can be seen on the back of the real killer whale. ''Then when it's a close-up on me, that's the animatronic whale," says Richter.
The full-sized phony was designed by Walt Conti, who also built and operated the miniature humpbacks in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and some of the underwater wonders in James Cameron's The Abyss.
Keiko, the killer whale that starred in the film died in 2003, a year after being released into the wild. The 35ft-long, six-ton orca became too ill to eat and died of pneumonia.
Of interest, discover 10 Facts About the '90s Classic Free Willy You May Not Know, shared by MoviePilot.com.