Pivotal names Navy test pilot Mike Ross interim CEO after Karklin exits

Why it matters

Pivotal is entering the difficult handoff from founder invention and early sales to repeatable operations. Ross's selection points toward public safety and defense as the markets that could sustain the aircraft beyond recreation.

At Pivotal, founder Marcus Leng's aircraft project is changing CEOs: Ken Karklin left after more than four years in the role, and Pivotal said in its transition announcement that board member Mike Ross became interim CEO effective August 31. TechCrunch reported the change on September 1. Pivotal said its directors would begin searching for a permanent replacement.

The transition puts another operator in charge of an aircraft project that began with founder Marcus Leng building an electric vertical takeoff and landing machine in his basement. Pivotal says Leng flew that aircraft near Warkworth, Ontario, on October 5, 2011, completing the first crewed flight of a fixed-wing, all-electric VTOL aircraft. The project became Skykar, joined the Opener group and eventually moved most of its operations to Silicon Valley.

Google co-founder Larry Page later backed Opener, which was renamed Pivotal in 2023. Page's involvement gave the project a prominent patron, although the size and structure of his investment have not been made public.

Karklin took the founder's aircraft to market

Leng handed day-to-day control to Karklin in May 2022 as Opener prepared for customer shipments. Karklin arrived after 13 years at drone maker AeroVironment, where he worked across engineering, operations, quality and program management before serving as chief operating officer. Earlier engineering roles included Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies and Touchdown Technologies.

The appointment marked Pivotal's shift from founder-led invention toward manufacturing and sales. Under Karklin, Opener became Pivotal in October 2023 and introduced Helix as its fourth-generation platform. U.S. sales opened in January 2024, with packages initially priced from $190,000 to $260,000.

Helix is a single-seat aircraft with tandem wings and eight independently controlled electric motors. The entire airframe changes orientation between vertical and forward flight, avoiding the extra moving parts required to rotate individual wings or propellers. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the 8-kWh aircraft has a stated range above 20 miles, cruises at 55 knots and can be assembled from its trailer in about 30 minutes.

Pivotal designed Helix around the Federal Aviation Administration's Part 103 ultralight rules. Operators do not need pilot or medical certificates, although Pivotal requires initial and recurrent training. The regulatory route lets Pivotal sell aircraft without completing the certification process facing larger air-taxi developers. It also limits where customers can fly: Part 103 prohibits flights over congested areas.

Karklin described his tenure as moving Pivotal "past prototypes and press releases". That claim rests largely on figures reported by Pivotal: Pivotal says its BlackFly fleet has completed over 10,000 flights across more than 100 locations, with over 50 pilots certified through its training program.

Ross arrives as Pivotal broadens the mission

Ross joined Pivotal's board on November 4, 2025, giving him roughly 10 months of exposure to Pivotal before taking the interim role. His background fits the markets Pivotal has been building alongside recreational flight.

Ross is a retired U.S. Navy commander, fighter pilot and developmental test pilot. He flew the F/A-18E Super Hornet and worked on programs including the X-47B uncrewed aircraft and the electromagnetic catapult used on Ford-class aircraft carriers. He later supported the Defense Innovation Unit and served as deputy director of its reserve detachment.

His technology career included product leadership at Samsara and Skydio. Pivotal credits Ross with helping Skydio focus on defense, public safety and enterprise customers. He subsequently joined Boeing Digital Aviation Solutions to establish an uncrewed and advanced-air-mobility group, then led global aviation data at Jeppesen ForeFlight.

That resume suggests Pivotal's board wants an interim leader who can translate a lightweight aircraft into government and institutional uses while keeping Helix moving through production. Pivotal said its priorities and roadmap remain unchanged, but Ross's appointment comes after Pivotal began pointing to field operations rather than recreational flights as evidence of progress.

In August, TechCrunch reported that a BlackFly aircraft was used to respond to an emergency in North Carolina for the first time. A flight-trained paramedic carried medical equipment directly to the scene. Pivotal said the flight reached the patient about 20 minutes before the ground ambulance, following months of operational preparation.

The Hyde County work gives Pivotal a route into public safety budgets, where a small aircraft can be pitched as a way to move a responder across water, farmland and poor roads. Pivotal also markets its platform for defense missions including logistics, rescue and special operations. Those buyers require training, maintenance and operational support around the aircraft, creating a larger relationship than a single recreational sale.

The next CEO inherits a more practical pitch

Pivotal's founding idea was personal electric flight without a runway or conventional pilot's license. Leng proved the aircraft could fly. Karklin spent four years turning that engineering base into a named production product, a manufacturing operation and early customer deployments.

Ross inherits the next test: making those deployments repeatable. A $190,000 single-seat recreational aircraft addresses a narrow market. Public safety and defense missions can give the same underlying design clearer economics, repeat use and institutional customers, provided Pivotal can establish safety and reliability under operating conditions far removed from demonstrations.

The stakes are familiar to Page. Kittyhawk, another electric-aircraft venture he backed, wound down in 2022 after years of development. Pivotal has taken a different regulatory route by building around ultralight rules and limited missions that can be attempted with aircraft available today.

Pivotal's permanent CEO will have to preserve Leng's unusual aircraft architecture while building the production, support and sales operation around it. Ross now has that job on an interim basis, at the moment Pivotal's flying machine is beginning to look less like a billionaire's moonshot and more like a tool someone might order for work.