Today at AFA we introduced the @Cessna SkyCourier UX with @TextronAviation, a cargo concept with no cockpit, powered by Merlin Pilot. Contested logistics needs a proven airframe and trusted autonomy, and the SkyCourier UX pairs both. Read more: businesswire.com/news/home/2…

Today I got the opportunity to stand on a ramp in Fort Worth and narrate a Merlin Pilot demonstration flight for federal and state transportation leaders. The occasion was the kickoff of Project NEXUS, the multi-state program the @FAANews and the @TxDOT just launched to work out how advanced air mobility fits into the National Airspace System. TxDOT invited us as a guest to bring a Merlin Pilot-equipped Cessna Caravan and demonstrate what aircraft-agnostic autonomy looks like in practice. The press release has the detail on what we demonstrated: globenewswire.com/news-relea…

One autonomy brain, many aircraft. That's our approach, and why we're designing the Merlin Pilot to fly everything from Cessna Caravans to the C-130J. I talked with the @BBC's Zoe Corbyn for her new piece on where autonomous aviation actually stands. Link to the full article in the comments.

Honored to welcome @SenWhitehouse (D-RI) to Quonset yesterday, the first time a sitting senator has joined us for a demo flight.

Building certified autonomy means earning regulatory trust at every step. It’s measured work, but it compounds. @CivilAviationNZ has granted @MerlinAero a Part 146 Aircraft Design Organization certificate. This means that certain aircraft design changes that used to route through an outside organization can now be approved by our own engineers with delegation authority. Read more in the press release below.

Cool! Will look into how to do that...

We recently completed what we believe to be the first autonomous landing of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft in @EAA AirVenture history. Really proud of the team that made this happen, and big thanks to the EAA air and ground crews for their help to make this possible. Check out the press release below.

Excited to work with @ILAerospaceIAI on bringing autonomy to commercial cargo aircraft. Read more here. globenewswire.com/news-relea…

No traditionally crewed, fixed-wing aircraft has ever flown autonomously in commercial revenue service. We're targeting New Zealand in 2027. Our goal is for Merlin to be the first company to do that with real autonomy on real planes flying real routes in revenue-generating operations. We've been operating a flight test center in Kerikeri since 2022, logging hundreds of autonomous flights with Merlin Pilot, the same system we're certifying with New Zealand's CAA on a concurrent validation pathway with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). We're now approaching the final phases of that certification journey. Many of the companies attempting to commercialize autonomous flight are using custom-built eVTOL airframes or remote operators. We're doing it the hard way, on fixed-wing aircraft with autonomy in the cockpit, because we believe that's what the future of aviation actually looks like.

I've been thinking about how to explain what Merlin is building in terms that connect to where the broader AI conversation is going. Jensen Huang's Physical AI framework is the clearest map I've seen. Merlin Pilot is a precise match for what he describes - and we believe we're further along in deploying it than anyone else in aviation. First post is up on the @MerlinAero blog. Worth a read if you follow autonomous systems or AI infrastructure.