On a November morning in a cow-dotted field 90 minutes outside Austin, Texas, I watched three drones — two Skyways V2s and a V3 — lift off in near-unison.
The “hangar” was a converted trailer, with a shabby RV doubling as a command center, augmented with a pop-up tent to provide some shade. A chunk of astroturf, dotted with precision landing targets, indicates where the drones take off and land. A single port-a-potty completed the setup.
Yet from this humble patch of pasture, American drone company Skyways is trying to reinvent how the world moves cargo.
“We’re building the world’s largest autonomous aircraft fleet for cargo delivery,” said Isaac Roberts, Skyways’ chief commercial officer. “The catch is, if you can make something carry cargo, you can also eventually carry people. That’s where the real utility — and opportunity — begins.”
Skyways’ ambitions stretch far beyond this Texas field. The Austin-based startup designs and manufactures long-range, hybrid drones that can ferry supplies across oceans and into war zones, all without a pilot onboard. Its aircraft, already used by the U.S. military and commercial operators overseas, blend vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) rotors with a heavy-fuel engine for extended range — nearly 500 miles for the current V2 model, and over 1,000 miles for the next-generation V3.
Despite its rustic test site, Skyways already has a number of paying clients worldwide, and it has been generating revenue since early in its existence. Those companies include ANA Holdings in Japan, which not only flies Skyways drones between Okinawan islands but has also invested $1 million through its corporate venture fund. In Europe, Skyports’ success has led to talks with logistics giants like DSV and potential contracts with the Royal Australian Navy.
Acknin’s strategy, he said, is to “prove the model where conditions are toughest.” Offshore wind farms, disaster zones, and military exercises are all proving grounds for an aircraft designed to bridge what he calls the “middle mile” — the gap between warehouses and the final delivery point.
How Skyways fits into the current drone landscape
“We’ve certainly seen one trough of disillusionment,” Roberts said, referring to the rise and fall of countless drone startups. “But I think we’re in the second wave now — and it’s not business-to-consumer anymore. It’s business-to-business, and business-to-government.”
Founder and CEO, Charles Acknin, has spent the past eight years building Skyways into a hybrid company: part defense contractor and part commercial logistics innovator. The company holds one of the largest U.S. Air Force STRATFI contracts ever awarded, worth $37 million. These days, it’s a go-to partner for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight testing with the Department of Defense.
Much of the renewed interest in the drone industry comes from the way people have been using drones in Ukraine.
“Ukraine changed the landscape for the drone space,” Roberts said. “The Department of Defense needs contested logistics capabilities, especially in a near-peer conflict with China. But that same aircraft that serves a naval base today could deliver medical supplies tomorrow.”
But it’s also delivering in the private sector. In October, Skyways aircraft performed a first-of-its-kind cargo drop to a wind turbine in the Baltic Sea. Working with RWE and Skyports Drone Services, the company’s V2 flew 50-mile round trips in winds approaching 30 knots. The use case? It cut what would have been a two-hour crew transfer vessel trip down to just 26 minutes.
“Standing up BVLOS operations offshore is no small feat,” Acknin said. “We’re proud to see our aircraft chosen for some of the toughest missions out there.”
What Skyways is doing differently from other drone makers
Though this was Skyways’ first demo day, the company is far past the prototype stage. At Demo Day, I saw a team of pilots working out of laptops on folding tables. It was one pilot per drone (though not necessarily because of the tech but to remain in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration rules).They worked behind screens set up under the tent and out of the back of the RV. There, a live feed tracked each flight path, colored lines snaking across a map of central Texas.
After the aircraft returned from its autonomous loop and landed, a technician crouched to detach its cargo bay panel, dissemble the drone and load it in his car, showing off how portable the drone is despite its massive size.
At the demo, we saw two versions of the V2 aircraft and one version of the V3 aircraft. V3 is a slightly larger, sleeker aircraft with an extra pusher propeller that they say is “3x the capabilities of V2.” It’s technically the seventh generation Skyways aircraft, and the culmination of eight years of work.
Skyways began not with a fuselage but with code. That’s likely due in part to the leadership’s background. CEO Acknin’s career largely began as a software engineer at Google. The company’s proprietary SkyNav software can coordinate multiple aircraft at once.
But its hardware is most noticeable. Skyways plans to ramp up V3 production next year, with full-rate manufacturing by the end of 2027. The company now counts more than 30 employees and is hiring aggressively — Roberts called out during the demonstration for engineers and pilots to “come join us.”
“Our operational authority creates an insurmountable competitive moat — not just for us, but for our customers,” Roberts said. “We’re not asking them to imagine what’s possible. We’re showing them what’s flying right now.”
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