Skyways
About
About Skyways
Skyways’ V2 aircraft combines vertical take-off and landing with wing-borne cruise for routine cargo transport. The production platform carries up to 30 pounds in an internal cargo volume, uses Jet A-1 or JP-5 fuel and is designed for missions extending to roughly 450 miles and eight hours depending on payload and operating conditions.
The larger V3 programme increases capacity to approximately 100 pounds and targets ranges beyond 1,000 miles. Skyways develops the airframe, autonomous flight stack, ground-control system and logistics workflow as one transport system, with more than 200 V3 development flights reported. The company targets military resupply, maritime logistics and commercial routes where runway-independent delivery changes operating time or cost.
Products
Deployments
- Customer site
Skyways V2 flew daily 50-mile round-trip logistics missions to RWE’s Arkona offshore wind farm, carrying loads up to 22 pounds in about 26 minutes. - RWE Arkona Skyways V2 deployment
Source
Supply
Supply chain relationships
- United States Air Force
Outbound - Equipment - Skyways supplies V3 autonomous cargo drones for U.S. Air Force production-transition contract
Source
Funding
- 2025-06-26 - Debt facility - $5M - Skyways secures $5M debt facility for cargo-drone production
Skyways secured a $5 million debt facility from Leonid Capital Partners to accelerate V3 cargo-drone production. - source: skyways.com
Investors
- Leonid Capital Partners - Lead - VC - 1 funding event - first seen 2025-06-26
Team
- Charles Acknin - Founder
Timeline
Events
- 2025-08-21 - Deployment - Skyways completes cargo drone flights for U.S. military
Project ULTRA included Skyways BVLOS cargo-drone flights between airports for the U.S. military. Skyways was the only UAS provider at the Project ULTRA event. The work tested long-range autonomous unmanned cargo aircraft logistics for defense operations.
Source - 2025-06-26 - Funding - Skyways secures $5M debt facility for cargo-drone production
Skyways secured a $5 million debt facility from Leonid Capital Partners to accelerate V3 cargo-drone production. The credit facility targeted delivery of V3 autonomous cargo drones for U.S. Department of Defense demand. Skyways tied the financing to production acceleration rather than early R&D.
Source - 2025-06-09 - Contract Award - Skyways wins $37M USAF award for V3 cargo drones
Skyways received a $37 million U.S. Air Force AFWERX award to move its V3 cargo aircraft toward full-rate production. The award supported transition of the V3 autonomous cargo aircraft from prototype to production. Skyways described the V3 as a long-range autonomous unmanned cargo aircraft system.
Source
Relations
Relationships
- U.S. Air Force AFWERX
Contracting Authority - AFWERX awarded Skyways $37 million to transition V3 cargo drones toward full-rate production.
Context
Comparable profiles
- Avion
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
- Speedbird Aero
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
- Maple Aviation
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
- Ninano Company
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
- Fengyi Technology
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
- Zipline
stack adjacency - Drone Delivery Oem
Shared workflows
- Tornyol
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Voltair
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Brumby
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Buoyant Aero
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Kalam Labs
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Paladin
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- HyLight
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Zeitview
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Easy Aerial
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- DroneUp
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- PABLO AIR
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
- Azur Drones
workflow adjacency - Autonomous Drone Companies
Context tags
- Autonomous drone systems participation - Workflow - Skyways belongs in the autonomous drone companies peer group based on its robotics segment and product or workflow focus.
- Drone delivery OEM - Stack Layer - Skyways's robotics role maps to the drone delivery oem stack layer.
Commercial
- Skyways wins $37M USAF award for V3 cargo drones
2025-06-09 · Order / contract · Skyways received a $37 million U.S. Air Force AFWERX award to move its V3 cargo aircraft toward full-rate production.
Source