American-born startup Pyka launches the world's largest autonomous electric cargo plane

Humanitarian cargo is a relevant use case for the drones we're building, says Pyka CEO Michael Norcia

Pyka CEO Michael Norcia discusses the potential for the "Pelican," an autonomous electric plane designed for complex agricultural operations on farms. Norcia tells "The Claman Countdown" the goal is to have an aircraft that can affordably operate with minimal infrastructure while delivering critical cargo to people who need it. 

MICHAEL NORCIA: I think humanitarian cargo’s a really relevant use case for drones like what we’re building. Really the goal is to have an aircraft that can operate from very, very minimal infrastructure in a really affordable way, and right now that’s just not possible with piloted aircraft. We’re still early days with the vehicle, it's not quite ready to send to Turkey, but we’re getting there.

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It’s mostly customers who are looking to do basically daily delivery between two locations and a fairly minimal infrastructure or don’t have enough cargo volume to warrant a large aircraft, etc. So interisland commerce is a relative use case right off the bat.