Merlin Labs has secured a major contract with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to develop and integrate its autonomous flight technology into legacy military transport aircraft. The agreement—valued at up to $105 million—marks a significant step in the Pentagon’s push toward crew reduction and autonomy in contested airspace operations.
Merlin’s Mission: Autonomy for Legacy Aircraft
Under a new indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract awarded by the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX Autonomy Prime program and managed by Air Mobility Command (AMC), Merlin will adapt its “autonomous co-pilot” software stack for use on the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules platforms.
This initiative is not aimed at full pilot replacement but rather enhancing mission flexibility by enabling reduced crew operations or supervised autonomy in high-risk environments. The Merlin Pilot system is designed to handle all phases of flight—taxi, takeoff, enroute navigation, approach, and landing—while maintaining human oversight where necessary.
The initial focus is on integrating the software into the KC-135 tanker fleet—a Cold War-era platform that remains central to global air refueling operations but suffers from high crew demands and aging avionics. The C-130J integration will follow as part of a broader roadmap toward scalable autonomy across AMC’s mobility fleet.
Technical Scope of Work
The IDIQ contract allows for task orders totaling up to $105 million over multiple years. According to Merlin’s announcement on April 30, 2024, early work will include:
- Flight testing of Merlin Pilot-equipped aircraft at Edwards AFB
- Integration with existing flight management systems on KC-135
- Demonstrations of autonomous taxiing and takeoff sequences
- Development of safety cases for FAA/DoD certification pathways
The Merlin Pilot system uses sensor fusion from radar altimeters, GPS/INS units, air data computers, and onboard vision systems to generate real-time situational awareness. It then applies AI-based decision logic to execute control inputs via digital or mechanical interfaces depending on aircraft type.
A Strategic Shift Toward Crew Reduction
This partnership aligns with broader Department of Defense (DoD) goals under Joint All-Domain Command & Control (JADC2) initiatives that emphasize distributed operations with fewer personnel exposed in-theater. By offloading routine piloting tasks to AI copilots or enabling single-pilot ops in permissive environments, USAF aims to increase sortie generation rates while reducing training costs and operational risk.
In addition to cost savings over time—especially when applied across hundreds of legacy platforms—the move toward autonomy also supports contested logistics strategies where human crews may be unable or unwilling to operate due to threat levels or denied communications environments.
From Commercial R&D Roots to Military Integration
Founded in 2018 and based in Boston with operations at Mojave Air & Space Port in California, Merlin has focused primarily on commercial cargo applications until now. Its technology was previously tested aboard modified King Air twin turboprops under FAA experimental certificates.
The company has received investment from GV (formerly Google Ventures), First Round Capital, Snowpoint Ventures, and other Silicon Valley firms—signaling strong dual-use potential between commercial cargo automation and military logistics missions.
This USAF contract represents a major pivot into defense applications at scale. While other players like Reliable Robotics and Xwing have also demonstrated pilotless cargo flights using smaller aircraft types (e.g., Cessna Caravans), Merlin’s focus on large multi-engine military platforms sets it apart as one of the first companies attempting full-scale integration with strategic airlift assets.
Challenges Ahead: Certification & Trust
The path forward is not without obstacles. Certifying autonomous systems on legacy DoD aircraft requires extensive safety case development—not only around software reliability but also human-machine teaming protocols under MIL-HDBK standards.
The USAF has emphasized that these capabilities are intended for supervised autonomy rather than fully uncrewed flight—for now. Human pilots will remain onboard during test phases as well as likely initial deployments until trust thresholds are met through thousands of safe operating hours.
If successful, this effort could pave the way for future unmanned logistics missions using modified tankers or transports operating autonomously between forward operating bases—a concept being actively explored under AMC’s Agile Combat Employment doctrine.
Implications for Future Force Design
The collaboration between Merlin Labs and AMC signals growing institutional support within DoD for integrating emerging commercial autonomy technologies into traditional force structures—not just new UAVs or optionally manned platforms but retrofits onto existing fleets that still have decades of service life remaining.
This could reshape how planners think about crewed vs uncrewed roles across ISR collection platforms (e.g., RC-135 variants), medevac missions using C-130s or CV-22s, or even future aerial refueling concepts involving unmanned MQ-25-style tankers supported by semi-autonomous legacy assets like KC-135s operating in permissive theaters with minimal oversight from ground stations or airborne controllers.
What Comes Next?
The first test flights involving Merlin Pilot-equipped KC-135 aircraft are expected before the end of FY2024 at Edwards AFB under AFWERX oversight. If successful demonstrations occur within two years—as projected—the program could transition into rapid fielding phases supported by AMC’s Phoenix Spark innovation cells across multiple wings globally.
This would mark one of the most significant steps yet toward operationalizing AI copilots within U.S. military aviation—and potentially set precedent for NATO allies seeking similar solutions amid pilot shortages and increasing demand for resilient logistics architectures under peer-threat conditions.
