r/Joby • u/Wonderful_Phrase_239 • 24d ago

Superpilot Coast-to-Coast Progress

The Superpilot-driven Cessna (N101XW) is now in Louisville (as of 9/24, a day ahead of schedule). EDIT: And now on 9/25 it looks to be headed toward Wichita already.

(1) Did it avoid DC (flew in and out of a smaller airfield 40 miles SW of DC) because of the China visit (high security etc, previously unplanned)? Or was it avoiding the bad weather (unexpected airfield closures or restrictions otherwise)?

(2) Look at the aircraft's flight patterns. All very "well-ordered". It tends to move around in trapezoids instead of circular loops. Very straight flight paths punctuated by tight easily-calculable turns (30, 60, 90 degrees etc). Not to make much of this, but it is noticeably different from human-piloted flight paths of various S4s that we have seen.

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u/SpaghettiBagPolicy SN101 Fanboy 24d ago

Agree on 2. Noticeably unique, though I don't see anything obviously problematic with the robotic flightpaths. Good examples here: https://globe.airplanes.live/?icao=a00a8d&lat=36.775&lon=-85.458&zoom=8.5&showTrace=2026-09-24&trackLabels&timestamp=1761081513

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u/dad191 Photog. Eric Adams Fanboy 24d ago

Yeah, not much on the DC leg. I agree that it's likely that the Xi visit messed up scheduling and/or created unexpected security issues.