How to Use piloted in a Sentence

piloted

adjective
  • Branson’s piloted plane has already flown to space three times.
    — Marcia Dunn, orlandosentinel.com, 9 July 2021
  • When all was said and done, the first piloted flight was pushed into 2023.
    — William Harwood, CBS News, 5 June 2024
  • Iran previously made claims about shooting down piloted aircraft that turned out not to be true.
    — Sam Mednick, Los Angeles Times, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out to be false.
    — Arkansas Online, 4 Apr. 2026
  • Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true.
    — Sam Mednick, Fortune, 3 Apr. 2026
  • Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true.
    — Sam Mednick, Fortune, 4 Apr. 2026
  • In any case the mesh is an effective missile sponge, diverting anti-aircraft fire away from piloted aircraft.
    — David Hambling, Forbes, 21 Sep. 2021
  • Each needs to be berthed, unloaded and reloaded, refueled and repositioned as well as piloted in and out of a complex harbor.
    — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 29 Mar. 2026
  • The proposal involved a large double-decker platform a few feet above the water hanging from a piloted trolley.
    — Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2020
  • The Air Force is studying whether to field a fleet of drone wingmen flying alongside piloted fighter aircraft.
    — Sascha Brodsky, Popular Mechanics, 24 Feb. 2023
  • Its task was to intercept and engage a human-piloted aggressor aircraft.
    — Sujita Sinha, Interesting Engineering, 27 Jan. 2026
  • The spectacular launch marked the first piloted moonshot since the end of the Apollo program 53 years ago.
    — Miles Doran, CBS News, 1 Apr. 2026
  • The spectacular launch marked the first piloted moonshot since the end of the Apollo program 53 years ago.
    — Mark Osborne, CBS News, 11 Apr. 2026
  • If all goes well, the piloted demonstrator craft will exceed Mach 1 — the speed of sound — about 25 minutes later.
    — Mike Wall, Space.com, 28 Jan. 2025
  • Through a self-organizing network of communication nodes, the piloted fighter in the air connects to the special forces on the ground.
    — Steven Walker, IEEE Spectrum, 11 Nov. 2021
  • The piloted Shenzhou spacecraft carry astronauts and equipment to the space station.
    — New York Times, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Because the costs of launching deadly strikes with drones are lower than with piloted aircraft, civilian officials are more willing to authorize them.
    — Sarah Kreps, Foreign Affairs, 12 Feb. 2014
  • An electric aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like a conventional plane just completed its first piloted flight with a new full-scale prototype.
    — Omar Kardoudi june 21, New Atlas, 21 June 2026
  • Their spectacular launch Wednesday evening marked the first piloted moonshot since the end of the Apollo program 53 years ago.
    — William Harwood, CBS News, 2 Apr. 2026
  • The system will also allow the Air Force to boost the size of its aircraft fleet, as a single uncrewed drone will cost just a fraction of a modern, piloted fighter.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2021
  • The latest prototype will progress through all phases of piloted flight testing, including thrustborne, wingborne and transition flight.
    — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 11 June 2026
  • Some have suggested that modern antiaircraft missiles are so lethal to traditional piloted aircraft that these, too, are headed for the ash heap of history.
    — Stephen Biddle, Foreign Affairs, 10 Aug. 2023
  • The piloted Artemis 2 mission is being delayed, in part to implement a new re-entry trajectory to reduce heating.
    — William Harwood, CBS News, 5 Dec. 2024
  • Drones can get closer to utility lines than piloted helicopters and use autonomous navigation.
    — Kelly Yamanouchi, ajc, 3 Jan. 2023
  • This program, piloted last year, will help ease movement between 27 regional operators that didn’t always play well together.
    — Rachel Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Dec. 2025
  • The Valo flight was the second full transition piloted flight after the first conducted by Joby Aviation last year.
    — Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 17 Apr. 2026
  • And the action in Ukraine suggests that even more novel kinds of aerial conflict—including combat drones armed to fight in tandem with piloted aircraft—are coming to the broader world of warfare.
    — Jason Sherman, Scientific American, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Hermeus, a company that specializes in supersonic aircraft, plans to conduct its third test of an uncrewed, remotely piloted aircraft this coming fall.
    — Emma Hurt, AJC.com, 19 May 2026
  • For conventional piloted aircraft with a history of real-world operations, much of how those aircraft will function in the national airspace system is assumed.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 17 June 2025
  • Such a narrow set of tasks is an easier thing to automate than the varied and flexible operations performed by most small piloted aircraft today (or, for that matter, most self-driving cars).
    — IEEE Spectrum, 17 June 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'piloted.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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