Textron, Merlin offer unmanned Cessna Skycourier for Pacific island resupply

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Aerospace conglomerate Textron and artificial intelligence firm Merlin Labs have unveiled a new unmanned aircraft concept to kickstart conversation about Pacific logistics, the companies announced today.

The companies’ proposal would take Textron’s Cessna Skycourier and remove the cockpit altogether, replacing it with a flip-up nose for easier automated loading and a Merlin Pilot AI to fly the plane. The Skycourier’s capabilities — three tons of payload, a thousand miles of range and ability to operate from austere airstrips only half a mile long — make it an ideal low-cost complement to the much larger cargo aircraft in the Air Force’s current fleet, the companies argue, especially for supplying scattered island outposts in the Pacific.

“The aircraft’s being operated from literally from the Arctic to the Amazon. There are three different island nations in the Pacific that have airline fleets of them,” said Bobb Gibbs, Textron’s vice president for special missions and defense, in a conversation with reporters. “They land in gravel, grass, whatever you need.”

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Admittedly, SkyCourier can’t replace existing Air Force transports: Its thousand-mile range won’t get it from Guam to Manila, for instance. But retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Kyle Kremer, a member of Merlin Labs’ advisory board, argued that it could complement them, filling a vital niche distributing supplies from major hubs to small and scattered island outposts.

“The benefits of this come in … through the ability to disperse the forces amongst the Second Island Chain, [e.g.] Palau, Tinian, Saipan, pick your various islands,” Kremer told reporters today. “We can’t devote C-130s and C-17s to do a lot of these little shuttle missions, [so] that’s where you’re going to need smaller platforms.”

The unmanned aircraft would also allow the Air Force to preserve its human pilots for the long-haul missions, Kremer argued.

Merlin and Textron could further offer an optionally manned version, with both a cockpit and an AI pilot, added Merlin Labs CEO and Founder Matt George. Merlin’s AI can fly a range of other aircraft, he noted, including Textron’s Cessna Caravan and King Air.

The Skycourier itself is modular, with passenger, cargo, and air-ambulance configurations, Gibbs said, and the companies are happy to hear feedback from the military on desirable modifications.

Despite years of discussion on “contested logistics” for future wars, Gibbs said, “I don’t feel like the Department of War has really made that step forward to say, okay, we’re going to solve this. They keep asking us to bring them rocks, and what we’re doing here is saying [we] literally could get you an airplane tomorrow.”