Mountain View company touts aviation history with flight of crewless cargo plane

With nobody aboard, a cargo airplane circled the skies last month at Hollister Municipal Airport before touching down on tarmac to cheers and applause from pilots who were remotely operating the aircraft at a control center 50 miles away in Mountain View.

Reliable Robotics, a company that specializes in self-flying airplane technology, put the aircraft in the sky on Nov. 21, marking a milestone in aviation history with the first uncrewed, remotely-commanded cargo flight, according to the company.

The 12-minute flight – which included taxi, takeoff and landing – was completely uneventful, according to Robert Rose, co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics.

“Nothing exciting happened, which is what we wanted,” he said, adding that the company has spent years preparing for the flight, planning out contingencies and making sure that the aircraft responded appropriately if anything unexpected happened.

“Fortunately, we prepared enough and didn’t have to use any of that, which was good,” he said.

A Youtube video clip shows the Cessna 208B Caravan taking off from the Hollister Muncipal Airport and flying without a pilot on Nov. 21.

While perhaps not eventful, the flight was notable for the type of airplane used, a Cessna 208B Caravan. In 2019, the company flew a smaller plane, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, with nobody onboard. The recent flight of the Cessna Caravan continues its record of aviation firsts, but at a larger scale with a cargo plane.

The Caravan can carry up to 12 passengers or 3,000 pounds, making it one of the most popular cargo planes in the U.S. It is typically used as a utility aircraft, often for FedEx. Outfitting it with an advanced automation system was a major achievement, Rose said.

So was getting it approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Automated flights are usually conducted in uninhabited military settings, like the Mojave Desert. But in June, the FAA accepted the company’s certification plan, laying the groundwork to fly the Cessna out of a regular airport.

“We want this to become a commonplace activity,” Rose said, adding that Reliable Robotics is still working with the FAA to get its equipment certified for commercial use so that it can expand its operation of pilotless flights.

Reliable Robotics got its start in 2017, first in Rose’s Los Altos garage before relocating to Mountain View. With its rich history of aviation and aerospace development, as well as the draw of talent in the Bay Area, Mountain View was a natural fit for the company’s headquarters, Rose said.

Since then, Reliable Robotics has been working towards making aviation safer with technologies that put pilots in control centers rather than planes. The idea is that the automation will significantly reduce the most common causes of fatal aviation accidents, particularly with smaller planes that more often crash into terrain or lose control in flight.

The technology also will improve access to general aviation airports, with more options available for pilotless planes to service less populated areas, according to the company website.

“We believe that aircraft aviation can be so much more with safety enhancing technologies like ours, and we can go a long way to prevent accidents and save lives… And that will allow a lot more aircraft activity in the sky and give people greater access to the air,” Rose said.