Closing our “2026 Look Ahead” month, sponsored by Carahsoft, the Dawn of Autonomy podcast Ray Adams, President of Trajectrix and a leading voice shaping Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) strategy and standards. With more than 31 years in air traffic control and decades across aviation, Ray and his team help operators and OEMs navigate the certification, operational, and regulatory pathways required for scalable autonomous flight. Trajectrix has become a key player in supplemental detect-and-avoid for uncrewed operations through its work on independent surveillance architectures, mission planning tools, and safe integration strategies. Ray has also been a prominent advocate for performance-driven surveillance that moves beyond GPS-only assumptions—prioritizing resilient, multi-source awareness to support secure and repeatable BVLOS operations. In this episode, Ray breaks down where AAM is headed in 2026, what leaders must prioritize to meet real operational demand, and why validated data and transparent risk modeling will define the winners as BVLOS and AAM expand.
