Autonomous aircraft: Pilot-free crop dusters lead the way0

• & Crowdsourcing News, CoECI News, Energy & Environment Newsletter, Gaming News Roundup, Gear / Gear News and Events, Global, Global Precipitation, global warming, globalstar, Home, House, News, newsletter, Newsletters, Nexstar Media Wire News, People News, Photovogue / Editorial / News, Politics / Politics News, Property / News, Reviews, reviews-rit-ads, Security / Security News, shop, Shop Beauty, Shopping, starlink, Surface Water, trending-uk, WORLD, World / Middle East
• September 3, 2026

Pyka and Windracers are building aircraft from scratch, arguing this allows autonomy to be designed in from the outset and the aircraft tailored to the job. Others are retrofitting existing larger planes. Backed by Boeing’s investment arm, US-based Reliable Robotics is currently testing its system on the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, a single-pilot cargo plane