Xwing , a Bay Area aviation startup, just completed its first "gate-to-gate" autonomous flight with its flagship aircraft, a Cessna Grand Caravan 208B.
The breakthrough saw a remotely-piloted Cessna Grand Caravan 208B utility plane (equipped with the startup's AutoFlight software stack) leave the gate, taxi, take-off, land and return to the gate by itself . Xwing says that all traffic control interactions were done remotely from the ground.
Xwing completed the fully automated "gate-to-gate" flight with its self-flying aircraft.
Pilots was inside the cockpit to monitor the aircraft while it performed maneuvers on its own.
The technology is revolutionary for aviation, bringing many possibilities for future.
The autonomous Cessana flight took off at Buchanan Field Airport in Concord, California in February 2021.
All pilot had to do was sit back and monitor while the plane started up, taxied out, took off, flew, landed, taxied back, and shut down all on its own. Pilot function was limited to take over for the automated system if need be.
Xwing's "mission control center," was keeping a close watch, to where data from the aircraft include speed, altitude, pitch, and location was continuously fed.
"Over the past year, our team has made significant advancements in extending and refining our AutoFlight system to seamlessly integrate ground taxiing, take-offs, landings, and flight operations, all supervised from our mission control center via redundant data links," Marc Piette, chief executive officer and founder of Xwing, said in a statement.
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