Freightways trials airfreight service with a view to pilotless flights

Wednesday, 28 June 2023

Freightways is trialling a new airfreight service using small aircraft equipped with a sophisticated autopilot that could eventually replace pilots onboard.

The service will use two popular Cessna Caravan utility aircraft flying between Kerikeri in Northland to Palmerston North, with a stop in Auckland.

The urgent freight service is operated by Merlin Lab, a United States-based company that is developing a technology called Merlin Pilot that it hopes will eventually lead to fully autonomous aircraft.

The Merlin Pilot is initially designed to significantly reduce pilot workload and eventually do away with the pilot on freight flights on small planes, and allowing large aircraft to be flown by just one pilot rather than two.

Merlin Pilot can already take-off and land an aircraft on its own and manage all phases of flight enroute, with a safety pilot onboard.

More than 500 autonomous flights have been conducted from Merlin’s research and development facilities in Mojave, California, United States and Fairbanks, Alaska.

Freightways chief executive Mark Troughear said the trial was ideal for parts of New Zealand, such as the Far North that were particularly difficult to send overnight freight and parcels from.

Previously a parcel from the Far North bound for Wellington would have travelled almost the length of the country, with its journey starting by van to Whangārei, where it was put on a truck to Auckland, then flown to Christchurch on a freighter aircraft and back up to Palmerston North by air, where it was put on a truck to Wellington to finally be delivered at the start of the business day.

Using smaller aircraft, which in the future might be autonomous, to get the urgent freight out of the far north direct to Palmerston North was much more efficient, Troughear said.

Gisborne and Wairoa were other examples of communities that were regularly cut off by weather related road closures, so flying a small aircraft with about a tonne of urgent freight and supplies on board was of real value, he said.

Troughear said Freightways became interested in adopting increased cockpit automation to help cope with a global shortage of pilots before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Automation in the smaller parts of aviation would take some of the pressure off having to find more pilots, as well as giving them tools that allowed them to operate the aircraft more safely, he said.

Two pilots would supervise the trial flights while Merlin staff integrated its software and hardware into the fleet, Troughear said.

Merlin was working with the Civil Aviation Authority to certify its systems before reducing to one pilot flights, and eventually fully autonomous flights, he said.

Merlin Lab New Zealand chief executive, and Northlander, Shaun Johnson, said Kerikeri was chosen as the company’s base because the region had relatively uncongested airspace, which allowed for easy flight testing.

“Full automation will be some years away yet in New Zealand. Our primary focus is on certifying the Merlin Pilot,” Johnson said.

The pilots would monitor the aircraft systems and communicate with air traffic control and collect data.

Pilot Andy Cardno has just returned from Alaska where he spent about 20 days flying aircraft equipped with Merlin Pilot.

“I’m probably the only Kiwi that can claim full autonomous take off to touch down flying,” he said.

“It’s pretty cool. I have been a pilot for a while, but it is an interesting feeling operating in an aircraft that does that kind of stuff.”

He still had to taxi the aircraft to and from the runway.