Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.

Hey guys, today is the last episode in my series covering the Reagan National Defense Forum at the

Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California earlier this month. I

spoke with CEO and founder Matt George. He runs Merlin Labs, the company working in the autonomous flight space.

Really fascinating category, I didn't know that much about it before diving in here and it's definitely something I like to learn more about in the future.

If there are any other topics that kind of fit into this like science and tech, future is now a category,

definitely let me know.

And speaking of letting me know, I had such a great time at the R&DF this year that I am definitely back there next year.

So if any companies, founders, feces, etc, are interested in speaking with the realignment definitely hit us up at our page

would love to feature conversations will be there for two days so have just won

this upcoming 2024 season hope you all enjoy the conversation and a huge thank you once again, the Foundation for American Innovation,

which was going to the work at this podcast and flying us out to the event.

Matt George, welcome to the realignment at R&DF.

Thank you so much for having me.

Okay, let's start here, introduce your company, Merlin.

Hey, so Merlin, the best way to think about what we're building is we're building a pilot just not a human one

So we're taking everything that's happening in a pilot's brain putting that into software

Putting that software into a box certifying that and then putting that into a wide variety of both civil and military

aircraft to enable those aircraft to fly autonomously. We're starting out

first with sort of a craw walk-run approach so we're starting out first with

putting the Merlin pilot which is what we call our system,

as the second required crew member aboard transport-class aircraft like the C-130J and the KC-135.

...