Joby Aviation has completed the first-ever autonomous transcontinental flight across the United States, flying a converted Cessna Caravan 3,199 miles with zero control inputs from its onboard safety pilot.
The landmark journey concluded the eastbound leg of Joby’s month-long 2026 Electric Skies tour in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Performing autonomous taxiing, takeoffs, route navigation, and landings, the aircraft was remotely supervised from Joby’s Autonomy Headquarters in California and Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, at distances reaching up to 2,323 miles away. Throughout the transit, the system demonstrated its ability to operate in complex airspace, integrating into busy environments such as Phoenix Deer Valley Airport and dynamically rerouting around severe weather without prior airport familiarity.
By retrofitting an autonomous flight stack onto an already-certified airframe, Joby aims to establish a scalable framework for commercial freight, medical transport, disaster relief, and defense operations.
“This journey across America offers a glimpse into a new era of aviation,” said JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby Aviation. “Autonomy has an important role to play in the future of flight, allowing us to connect remote communities, deliver critical supplies, respond faster to disasters, support military operations, and keep pilots out of harm’s way.”
The 3,199-mile route originated at Buchanan Field Airport in Concord, California, before making key operational stops across the nation. In Phoenix, Arizona, the aircraft demonstrated dual-use capabilities for defense and emergency services as part of the state’s uFLY coalition. In Fort Worth, Texas, Joby showcased freight operations at Alliance Airport alongside its first air taxi eIPP flight, hosted with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Additional operational stops included Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina for tactical readiness evaluations and Dare County Regional Airport in North Carolina.
Upon reaching the East Coast, the aircraft conducted a low pass over the First Flight Monument at Kitty Hawk, paying tribute to the Wright brothers’ historic 1903 flight before landing in Dare County. The North Carolina operations highlighted applications for emergency medical shipping under the NCDOT eLIFT-NC healthcare initiative. Meanwhile, flights across western states contributed data to UDOT’s uFLY coalition to assist the Federal Aviation Administration in evaluating high-altitude, extreme-environment airspace integration.
Joby’s autonomy stack, built on technology acquired from Xwing in 2024, is backed by more than 400 flights and 800 automated flight hours across controlled and uncontrolled airspace. The system has also undergone testing in major military exercises, including Agile Flag—where it accelerated critical spare parts delivery by 24 hours—and REFORPAC, which demonstrated remote command of Hawaiian aircraft from Guam nearly 4,000 miles away. The aircraft is scheduled to begin its return westbound leg, featuring stops in Raleigh, Fredericksburg, Louisville, Wichita, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, and Portland.
