Joby Completes First Ever Autonomous Flight Across the United States

Joby Avi­a­tion says an air­craft equipped with its auton­o­my tech­nol­o­gy has com­plet­ed a 3,199-mile autonomous flight across the Unit­ed States, trav­el­ling from Cal­i­for­nia to North Car­oli­na with­out con­trol inputs from the onboard safe­ty pilot.

The air­craft, a con­vert­ed Cess­na Car­a­van, com­plet­ed autonomous taxi­ing, take-off, cruise and land­ing dur­ing the east­bound jour­ney. The flights were super­vised remote­ly from Joby’s auton­o­my head­quar­ters in Cal­i­for­nia and Shaw Air Force Base in South Car­oli­na, with the air­craft oper­at­ed from as far as 2,323 miles away.

The flight formed part of Joby’s 2026 Elec­tric Skies tour, which includ­ed demon­stra­tions and logis­tics tri­als at sev­er­al loca­tions. The air­craft oper­at­ed at Phoenix Deer Val­ley Air­port, one of the busiest gen­er­al avi­a­tion air­ports in the US, and demon­strat­ed its abil­i­ty to reroute around severe weath­er and thun­der­storms with­out pri­or famil­iar­i­ty with an air­port.

The air­craft also oper­at­ed from Shaw Air Force Base, where Joby demon­strat­ed poten­tial mil­i­tary appli­ca­tions, and Alliance Air­port in Fort Worth, Texas, where the com­pa­ny high­light­ed autonomous freight oper­a­tions.

The east­bound jour­ney con­clud­ed with a land­ing at Dare Coun­ty Region­al Air­port in North Carolina’s Out­er Banks. The air­craft sub­se­quent­ly con­duct­ed a low pass near the First Flight Mon­u­ment at Kit­ty Hawk, the loca­tion of the Wright broth­ers’ first pow­ered flight in 1903.

Joby said the tech­nol­o­gy could sup­port appli­ca­tions includ­ing car­go deliv­ery, med­ical trans­port, dis­as­ter response and defence logis­tics. In North Car­oli­na, the flights con­tributed to the NCDOT eLIFT-NC ini­tia­tive, which is exam­in­ing avi­a­tion-based health­care logis­tics. Oth­er flights sup­port­ed Utah’s uFLY coali­tion, which is eval­u­at­ing high-alti­tude and extreme-envi­ron­ment air­space inte­gra­tion for the FAA.

Accord­ing to Joby, its autonomous sys­tem has com­plet­ed more than 400 flights and 800 auto­mat­ed flight hours in con­trolled and uncon­trolled air­space. The tech­nol­o­gy is based on the auton­o­my sys­tem acquired from Xwing in 2024.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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