Skyways

Founded in 2016, Skyways is a defense prime contractor based in Austin, United States working in unmanned systems, naval systems.

Skyways is an Austin, Texas-based autonomous aviation company that designs and manufactures long-range, hybrid VTOL unmanned cargo aircraft. The company's platforms use electric VTOL propulsion combined with fuel-powered cruise engines, allowing operation from ships, offshore platforms and remote sites without runways. Skyways owns and operates its aircraft under a flight-as-a-service model, handling operations, maintenance, regulatory compliance and system improvements for customers. Its work covers defense and commercial markets under a dual-use architecture. Defense customers include the US Navy, the US Air Force and Japanese self-defense forces, with logistics and resupply missions to ships and forward locations. Commercial work includes offshore wind turbine deliveries, inter-island logistics in Japan with ANA, and energy sector operations. Skyways develops its own autonomy stack and machine learning pipeline, using operational flight data to improve computer vision and 1:N operation, where one operator supervises multiple aircraft. The company has stated long-term plans to progress from cargo drones to larger aircraft capable of carrying passengers.