A cargo plane flew 80 kilometers without a pilot: how is it possible?

In November, a conventional cargo plane flew a standard 50-mile (80-kilometer) route without humans on board, marking a milestone in the development of automated aviation.

Reliable Robotics, an automation systems company based in California, announced the successful flight in early December after the Cessna 208B Caravan took off safely, flew for 12 minutes, and landed without a pilot inside the aircraft. This is stated in a press release from Reliable Robotics.

Pilotless flight: how is it possible?

The flight system allows a pilot on the ground to remotely control the aircraft. The model aims to prevent loss of control during the flight, as well as to increase safety during takeoff and landing, the company said.

The pilot sends signals to the aircraft via encrypted satellite signals. He uses an interface similar to that used by air traffic controllers.

Robert Rose, CEO of Reliable Robotics, tells CNN:"The way they control the plane is essentially a set of parameters: you can think of it as 'choose your own adventure' depending on where the plane is. There is a certain set of buttons that allow the pilot to redirect it to another place."

Each message sent to the plane during the flight contains landing instructions in case of a communication failure.

"We can say the plane is autonomous," Rose told CNN. "If you tell it not to do something or if you lose contact with it, it will do the last thing you told it to do. It has no direct human control."

The purpose of the system

This system has been under development since 2019. As a result, it can solve the problem of pilot shortage. An aviation expert, David Soucy, told CNN that the automated flight model still requires a real pilot to fly the aircraft. They must be certified to fly the plane from the cockpit.

"But the difference is that the pilot doesn't have to make a stopover. You don't have to wait to get on the next flight. So this will have a big impact on the pilot shortage we have today," Sousi told the publication.