General Aviation

General Aviation

Building highly automated, remote air traffic control towers to bring modern ATC to the 90% of airports that have no tower today.

New York City, NY
3 employees
transportation, hardware, government, ai, software_development
Seed · $500K
Founded 2026

About General Aviation

General Aviation is rebuilding the air traffic control (ATC) system from the ground up to handle the ever-growing number of commercial and private aircraft, plus new users like drones and rockets.

The U.S. air traffic control system is decades old — built on radar and radio technology from the post-WWII era — and is bursting at the seams. Traffic has doubled and tripled since the system was designed, safety incidents persist, taxpayers spend $15-20 billion annually maintaining decrepit equipment, and there aren't enough controllers to staff the system. General Aviation is introducing modern technology as a new vendor to the FAA, aiming to do for air traffic control what companies like Anduril have done for defense.

With an early team including Tesla and SpaceX alumni with deep aviation backgrounds, General Aviation is tackling one of the most critical and underinvested pieces of public infrastructure. The company believes better ATC will give us cheaper flights, safer skies, and wider access to aviation.

The culture is intensely in-person, hands-on, and fast-moving. This is a small team where every person makes a massive impact — working across hardware and software, from sensor packages and RF systems to real-time perception, automation, and controller-facing applications. The team values engineers who build things, sustain interest in hard problems, and push through bureaucratic sludge to ship real products into the world.

Open positions (1)

Company details

Team Size3
LocationNew York City, NY
Industrytransportation, hardware, government, ai, software_development

Funding

Total raised

$500K

Last stage

Seed

Investors

Y Combinator
Pioneer Fund
Rebel Fund

Founders

Ben Frank

Ben Frank

Founder at General Aviation. Previously started two aviation software companies: Rotabull and Seer Aerospace (acquired by Aviation Week). Also, previously at Rotor Technologies, which built autonomous helicopters. Flies and fixes planes.

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.