Uncrewed Cargo Plane Makes FAA-Approved Test Flight (1)

Reliable Robotics Corp. said Wednesday that it’s flown a small cargo plane on loan from FedEx Corp. without a human on board, a step toward the autonomous flight startup winning regulatory approval for its remote-pilot system.

In coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, the 12-minute flight of the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan on Nov. 21 took off from and landed at Hollister Municipal Airport in Northern California. A remote pilot handled all the radio calls and monitored the plane during the flight from about 50 miles away at the company’s command center in Mountain View, California. It was Reliable ...