From cargo to commuters — Skyways’ roadmap to human flight

In a wind-swept stretch of central Texas, Skyways’ team of pilots is launching aircraft that don’t look anything like your average quadcopter. Skyways is an American drone company focused on building drones that can carry heavy payloads, whether that’s high-tech sensors, cargo or gasoline (yes, these are hybrid drones) to go distances long enough that they could theoretically fly across the U.S. from Mexico to Canada. Ultimately though, the Skyways roadmap has the company chasing a much bigger goal: to carry a type of cargo that’s much more precious.

“We’re starting with cargo, but the end game is people,” Skyways CEO Charles Acknin said.

Unlike the glossy urban air taxi startups vying for headlines, Skyways has taken a quieter, grittier route. The Austin-based company has been building and flying its autonomous cargo aircraft for years — first for the U.S. Department of Defense, now for commercial clients across Japan and Europe. Its approach is iterative, not theoretical: every generation of aircraft flies real missions, gathers real data and gets refined.

“What’s different about Skyways,” Acknin said, “is that for every iteration we do, we put it in the hands of our customers and learn from them. That sets us apart from the rest of the industry where you see a lot of testing. This is the lean startup playbook.”

The result is a company that’s less about big reveals and more about steady evolution — an aerospace version of software’s “move fast and learn.” Skyways’ aircraft has three times the capabilities of its predecessor but retains the same fundamentals: long range, hybrid propulsion, and the ability to carry meaningful payloads. Acknin insists that pragmatism is their competitive edge. “We’re not interested in making an exotic platform just for the sake of cool tech,” he said. “We want something that works — that customers can operate today.”

The Skyways roadmap: defense roots

Many drone companies started in the commercial space and pivoted to military. Some, like Skydio and Teal, even started in the consumer space before pivoting to military. Skyways took the opposite approach.

“On day one, we identified that defense was going to be a key market,” Acknin said. “It turned out to be a good choice when you look at companies that started commercial and pivoted later. Even the big players like Joby and Archer are moving toward defense now.”

The rationale was practical: defense customers have deep pockets, high stakes and fewer regulatory barriers.

“They have actual pain points,” Acknin said.

That bet is paying off. The company’s work under U.S. military contracts — including the Navy and Air Force — gave Skyways the runway to build aircraft rugged enough for contested environments. At the same time, its drones are already flying beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) in Europe and Japan. While Acknin is “pessimistic” that the FAA’s long-awaited Part 108 rule will arrive on schedule, he says the company is ready to scale the moment it does.

A supply chain made without China — almost

Skyways’ defense customers also pushed the company to rethink its supply chain early.

“When we got our first Navy contract in 2019, there was never a world where they were going to be okay with us using Chinese parts,” Acknin said. “They saw V2.5 and said, ‘You’ve got 30 parts from China — fix this.’”

That ultimatum set the tone for Skyways’ sourcing strategy.

“I won’t claim 100 percent of the parts aren’t from China — you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone making an entire aircraft without some Chinese components,” Acknin admitted. “The battery cells still come from China. But that was the first time we really started addressing this challenge.”

Acknin said he has plans to eventually move away from Chinese-made battery cells so their drone will have no Chinese-made parts whatsoever.

The digital lift

For all its metal and composite, Skyways’ secret sauce might be software. The company’s autonomy stack is built around SkyNav, a proprietary command system that coordinates fleet operations while integrating with third-party UTM (unmanned traffic management) vendors.

“We’re not afraid of writing software,” Acknin said. “If it makes sense to integrate with an existing tool, we’ll do it. But we want to see customers use those tools and see if they actually drive value.”

Connectivity — a perennial challenge for long-range drone operations — has improved dramatically with Starlink.

“Before Starlink, it felt like the AOL days,” Acknin said. “It would take a minute for a page to load. Now it’s like watching Netflix.”

Want to learn more about the Skyways roadmap? Check out my profile of the company from last week.

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