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FedEx to test autonomous drone cargo delivery with Elroy Air, with mid-mile flights to start from next year

FedEx and Elroy Air are to test launch autonomous drone car­go deliv­ery flights for mid­dle-mile deliv­ery in 2023, using Elroy’s Chap­ar­ral autonomous air car­go sys­tem to move ship­ments between sor­ta­tion loca­tions. 

FedEx says the expo­nen­tial growth of e‑commerce has accel­er­at­ed the demand for reli­able, effi­cient trans­porta­tion and logis­tics solu­tions through­out all stages of the sup­ply chain. 

Joe Stephens, senior vice pres­i­dent, glob­al plan­ning, engi­neer­ing and tech­nol­o­gy, FedEx Express, said: “FedEx was built on inno­va­tion and we are always look­ing toward new tech­nolo­gies to help enhance the logis­tics indus­try through improved safe­ty, effi­cien­cy and cus­tomer ser­vice. We look for­ward to con­tin­ued test­ing and learn­ing through­out our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Elroy Air.” 

Elroy Air announced its Chap­ar­ral autonomous air­craft in Jan­u­ary, an eVTOL aer­i­al car­go sys­tem that can autonomous­ly pick up to 500 pounds of car­go and deliv­er it by air up to 300 miles. The Chap­ar­ral is capa­ble of longer-range flights with­out the need for addi­tion­al infra­struc­ture, such as air­ports or charg­ing sta­tions.

Kofi Asante, Elroy Air’s VP of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment and Strat­e­gy, said: “We are proud to work with FedEx to build the next gen­er­a­tion of express logis­tics. When you’re not lim­it­ed by chal­leng­ing infra­struc­ture, traf­fic, or air­ports, logis­tics can reach more peo­ple, faster than ever before. We look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er to cre­ate a new future for how we get goods to peo­ple around the world.”

FedEx and Elroy Air have been work­ing togeth­er since Jan­u­ary 2020 and will con­tin­ue their col­lab­o­ra­tion to pur­sue cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and begin flight test­ing in 2023. 

In Novem­ber 2021, Elroy Air part­nered with AYR Logis­tics to devel­op an autonomous aer­i­al car­go deliv­ery ser­vice for human­i­tar­i­an use. 

The announce­ment was made at the Dubai Air Show and includes the com­mit­ment by AYR to pur­chase up to 100 Chap­ar­ral air­craft to expand its human­i­tar­i­an logis­tics busi­ness.

Chap­ar­ral is a tran­si­tion­ing ‘Lift + Cruise’ VTOL air­craft with sep­a­rate ver­ti­cal and cruise flight lift fans and a hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­train for long-range mis­sion capa­bil­i­ties. 

Elroy Air has devel­oped light­weight, aero­dy­nam­ic mod­u­lar car­go pods that can be pre-loaded by ground per­son­nel and picked up by the air­craft before take­off. At the deliv­ery loca­tion, the car­go pod is low­ered to the ground and released after the sys­tem has land­ed. 

The Chap­ar­ral sys­tem can retrieve anoth­er pre-packed pod and trans­port the pod to its next des­ti­na­tion, cre­at­ing a bi-direc­tion­al con­vey­or belt through the sky.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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