Cleared for Takeoff - Real AI stories from the industries move the world.

Benjamin Tosado
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Technology

Cleared for Takeoff is the podcast for the executives bringing AI into the industries the world depends on: aviation, aerospace and defense, manufacturing, and distribution. These industries keep the world connected, built, supplied, and secure. They fuel progress in every other industry, and AI is changing how they all operate. Every episode, a senior leader shares their real AI story: the decisions, the challenges, and the outcomes that matter. Hosted by Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud.

Episodes

  1. Nov 5

    Autonomy that Matches the Mission with Mike Flanigan CEO of Seasats

    Matching Autonomy to the Mission with Mike Flanagan, CEO of Seasats Autonomous Maritime Systems, Mission Autonomy & AI How do you know when an autonomous system is ready for a real mission? Mike Flanigan, co-founder and CEO of Seasats, has built robotic boats that can run fully on their own, but he says customers rarely use them that way. What they want is a boat that carries out the mission, sends updates, and checks in at key decision points, the way a good team would. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, host Ben Tosado speaks with Mike about autonomous maritime systems, mission autonomy, and the role of AI in uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) across defense, government, and commercial operations. Mike's interest in ocean robotics goes back to 2012, when he joined a group of friends in Rhode Island building an autonomous boat to carry a message in a bottle across the Atlantic. That project launched their careers, and after years in different roles across the industry, several of them came back together to found Seasats. Today, the company deploys long-endurance autonomous surface vessels for commercial and defense customers, taking on work traditionally performed by crewed vessels. In this episode: - How to tell whether an autonomy demo is ready for a real mission, using Mike's one-question test- Why customers choose boats that check in, even when they could run silent- How a mission's envelope decides what the boat handles alone and when it reports back- How AI at the edge cuts camera and sensor data down to the small share that matters- Where robotic boats are already replacing crewed work, from maritime surveillance to fisheries monitoring and seafloor surveys- How size, speed, payload, and endurance determine which vessel fits which mission- How agentic AI is changing the way hardware companies build- What military customers and investors look for before they trust a robot with a mission- Why Mike thinks swarms are overhyped For leaders across the Defense Industrial Base, aerospace, government, and commercial technology, this is a practical look at what it takes to move autonomous systems from demonstration into real-world operations. About Mike FlaniganMike Flanigan is the co-founder and CEO of Seasats, a company developing long-endurance autonomous surface vessels for defense, government, and commercial applications.Seasats: https://seasats.com Chapters:0:00 Introduction1:15 From a message in a bottle to a robotics company2:08 The second generation of ocean robots4:26 What the boat decides and what it reports back5:33 Why no-comms missions are rare7:01 Processing data on board7:49 A small robotic boat spots a billion-dollar warship8:48 The jobs robots can take on at sea12:37 Why Seasats builds the whole system14:20 How agentic AI is changing development17:44 Matching the vessel to the mission19:59 What military customers need to see21:06 What investors heard from customers23:01 Rapid round About Cleared for TakeoffCleared for Takeoff explores the people, technologies, and ideas moving innovation forward across defense, aerospace, and the broader national security ecosystem. Hosted by Ben Tosado, CEO of Deep Blue Cloud. Subscribe for more conversations on defense technology, AI, autonomous systems, and innovation. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.deepbluecloud.io/cleared-for-takeoff/Deep Blue Cloud: https://www.deepbluecloud.io/ #ClearedForTakeoff #MaritimeAutonomy #DefenseTech

  2. Oct 22

    The Partner Bench is the Strategy: When the Deadline Can't Move, with Jennifer Torlone, Technoedje

    In this episode, we talk to Jennifer Torlone, co-founder and CEO of Technoedje, about how a strong partner bench helps companies scale under pressure. She shares what it took to move Unical Aviation to the cloud in just 12 weeks, how to keep up with the pace of private equity in an industry where downtime isn’t an option, and why security and data governance have to come before AI.

  3. Oct 8

    What Aviation AI Experiments Are Missing: Ownership, Strategy and ROI, with Glenn Antoine, Founder of Venture Strategy Advisors

    In this episode, we talk to Glenn Antoine, founder of Venture Strategy Advisors, about what aviation AI experiments are missing: ownership, strategy, and ROI. He shares why organizations should focus less on what technology can do and more on whether they can rely on it, and how piling on tech can get in the way of the problems they're actually trying to solve. Key Takeaways from this episode: Stalled growth is usually an execution problem, not a market problem. Glenn walks through what he looks for first: slow decisions, weak feedback loops between customers and product, manual processes, and unclear ownership. As he puts it, if you have 10 owners, you don’t have an owner, and at some point more effort stops creating more capacity.AI multiplies whatever it’s dropped into, including chaos. Glenn explains why companies should start with the business problem they most need to solve instead of asking where they can use AI, and why the whole organization, from product and QA to infrastructure and security, needs to be ready before one team speeds up.The biggest AI wins come from augmenting people, not replacing them. Glenn shares how taking repetitive work off people’s plates makes teams more productive while they stay in control of the outcome, and why capturing experienced people’s knowledge in your systems helps new team members get up to speed faster. It all starts with good data.Every business needs a flight plan, and it needs to be revisited. Glenn compares running a company to a cross-country flight: plan before you take off, watch for changing conditions, adjust when needed, and lean on advisors the way pilots lean on ATC, while still owning the outcome.

  4. Sep 24

    Speed and Trust: Building AI the Pentagon Actually Uses | Mailani Veney, Kana Systems

    The Department of Defense spent months trying to recruit Mailani Veney, but she kept saying no because she didn't think she had the right background. What changed her mind was realizing they didn't need a defense expert. They needed someone who could bring innovative technology and make an impact fast. Critical decisions were still relying on data that people processed manually, and getting the information together could take weeks. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, Ben Tosado sits down with the CEO and founder of Kana Systems to talk about how Kana helps defense teams turn huge amounts of data into faster decisions, why trust matters as much as speed, and what companies should plan for before they start working in the federal space.

  5. Sep 10

    AI in Marketing: Data, Metrics, and Buyer Behavior with Omi Diaz-Cooper

    Most episodes of Cleared for Takeoff sit down with an operator or a technology leader. This one is different. Omi Diaz-Cooper is CEO of Level 350 Advertising, a platinum certified HubSpot partner who has spent over 21 years studying how B2B aviation buyers actually behave: what pressures they're under, how they justify a purchase, and what risk feels like when a plane is grounded and a part is missing. In this episode, Ben Tosado talks with Omi about why sales, marketing, and IT need to align around the same data and the same definition of success before AI can help at all, what that buyer behavior actually looks like in aviation, and why the companies pulling ahead are the ones that took their data as seriously as their relationships.

    AI in Marketing: Data, Metrics, and Buyer Behavior with Omi Diaz-Cooper

  6. Aug 27

    AI Barriers in Aviation and Defense, with Srinivas Matlapudi, AWS

    Cost pressure and data fragmentation look the same whether you're talking to an aviation company or a manufacturer. But the defense industrial base plays by its own rules. Srinivas Matlapudi, a solutions architect at AWS covering aviation, manufacturing, and the defense industrial base, sees both sides of that line up close. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, Ben Tosado talks with Srinivas about what actually separates companies moving fast on AI from the ones stuck at step one, how AWS's co-funding programs work behind the scenes, and why compliance - not appetite - is the real bottleneck for AI in defense. Srinivas named four things that separate companies ready for AI from companies that are not: data you can actually find and query, cloud infrastructure, someone who understands both the data and the operations, and leadership genuinely behind it. Only the first two can be bought. The other two are about how the company is put together and who is willing to protect the work while it is still unproven. His line on that: if you expect a return in 90 days, do not start. It takes 12 to 18 months, and the team has to be shielded from revenue pressure the whole way.

    AI Barriers in Aviation and Defense, with Srinivas Matlapudi, AWS

  7. Aug 13

    From Marketplace to Agents: Building Airvoyant with Jon Baker

    Aviation parts procurement is one of the largest and most manual cost centers in the industry. In this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, host Ben Tosado, CEO of Deep Blue Cloud Computing, talks with Jon Baker of AAR about Airvoyant, the AI-driven procurement platform launched at MRO Americas. Airvoyant connects airlines and MROs directly to an ecosystem of more than 5,000 suppliers through Aeroxchange, is built natively on AWS, and integrates with Trax and other ERP systems, using AI agents to analyze supplier quotes and generate purchase recommendations. Jon walks through the platform’s origin, the decision to pivot from a marketplace model to an agentic architecture, how the sourcing agent scores recommendations with human-in-the-loop review, and his vision for a lean AI foundry building the roadmap ahead: agents for demand consolidation, vendor optimization and automated negotiation.

    From Marketplace to Agents: Building Airvoyant with Jon Baker

  8. Jul 28

    Where AI Is Actually Working, with James Barnes

    AI is moving faster than anyone can report on it. The useful question is where it’s solving real problems right now. In the first episode of Cleared for Takeoff, host Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud, sits down with James Barnes, VP of Operations, to separate practical application from speculation across three industries: aviation, where AI augments compliance-heavy work like parts procurement and line maintenance; manufacturing, where AI fails when it’s treated as an IT line item instead of a business outcome; and distribution, where field technicians replace 20 minutes of portal searching with one phone call to an AI agent. Plus: AI building AI, and why governance stays human. Follow Cleared for Takeoff and never miss an episode.

  9. Episode 1

    Cleared for Takeoff Trailer

    Aviation keeps the world connected. Manufacturing builds it. Distribution moves it. And AI is changing how all three operate: faster, smarter, and with higher stakes than any other industry. Cleared for Takeoff is the podcast for the leaders navigating that transformation. Every episode, we sit down with a senior executive from aviation, manufacturing, or distribution to hear their real AI story: the decisions, the challenges, and the outcomes that matter. Hosted by Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud. Follow now so the first episode lands in your feed.

    Cleared for Takeoff Trailer
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    8 Episodes

Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

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About

Cleared for Takeoff is the podcast for the executives bringing AI into the industries the world depends on: aviation, aerospace and defense, manufacturing, and distribution. These industries keep the world connected, built, supplied, and secure. They fuel progress in every other industry, and AI is changing how they all operate. Every episode, a senior leader shares their real AI story: the decisions, the challenges, and the outcomes that matter. Hosted by Ben Tosado, Founder of Deep Blue Cloud.

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