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A2Z Drone Delivery Launches RDSX Pelican Hybrid VTOL

U.S‑based A2Z drone deliv­ery announced this week the launch of its RDSX Pel­i­can Hybrid VTOL, reports a press release. The company’s test facil­i­ty for over a year now, is locat­ed in Anji Coun­ty, a scenic moun­tain bam­boo for­est, close to the pre­fec­ture-lev­el city of Huzhou in north­west­ern Zhe­jiang province, Chi­na, allow­ing the company’s engi­neers to tri­al the Pel­i­can on a dai­ly basis under nat­ur­al sur­round­ings with diverse topog­ra­phy and envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.

The release states, “The new Pel­i­can lever­ages a hybrid VTOL air­frame with no con­trol sur­faces to com­bine the reli­a­bil­i­ty and flight sta­bil­i­ty of a mul­ti­ro­tor plat­form, with the extend­ed range of a fixed wing craft. With no ailerons, ele­va­tor or rud­der, the Pelican’s durable-yet-sim­ple design elim­i­nates com­mon points of fail­ure and expo­nen­tial­ly extends oper­a­tional time between main­te­nance over­hauls.”

It adds, “Designed to meet the 55-pound take­off weight lim­i­ta­tion for FAA Part 107 com­pli­ance, the Pel­i­can can car­ry pay­loads of 5 kilos on mis­sions up to 40 kilo­me­tres roundtrip.”

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The Pel­i­can can be employed for extend­ed range oper­a­tions and deliv­ers pay­loads from alti­tude with the company’s RDS2 drone deliv­ery winch. This hybrid VTOL has no con­trol sur­faces which max­imis­es reli­a­bil­i­ty and whether for res­i­den­tial food and med­ical deliv­er­ies or aer­i­al map­ping, drone inspec­tion, forestry ser­vices, search and res­cue oper­a­tions, water sam­ple col­lec­tion, off­shore deliv­er­ies, min­ing, etc., the craft “is avail­able in mul­ti­ple con­fig­u­ra­tions to meet diverse mis­sion para­me­ters.”

The release con­tin­ues, “For mis­sions where the drone is able to safe­ly land at its des­ti­na­tion, a sim­ple ser­vo-release mech­a­nism can release pay­loads and expand the Pelican’s pay­load capac­i­ty… With no ser­vos to replace and min­i­mal mov­ing parts, the Pelican’s design extends the time between rec­om­mend­ed main­te­nance over­hauls to reduce down­time and cost. The Pel­i­can is also designed to min­imise oper­a­tional costs for com­mer­cial drone deliv­ery fleets and offers an attrac­tive 13 cents/kg/km oper­at­ing cost.”

Aaron Zhang, Founder and CEO of A2Z Drone Deliv­ery, com­ment­ed, “Our devel­op­ment is not just about max­imis­ing per­for­mance, it’s about cre­at­ing usable tools designed to get work done. The new RDSX Pel­i­can is an effi­cient, long range deliv­ery plat­form in that last-mile fleet.”

The Engi­neer­ing Team from Anji Coun­ty (Aaron Zhang third from left)

RDSX Pel­i­can Fea­tures Include:-

: Cruise Speed – 45 knot cruis­ing speed to tra­verse routes quick­ly.

: Max Pay­load Capac­i­ty – Con­fig­urable up to 7–8 kg pay­load capac­i­ty.

: Par­cel Pick­up – Retrieve pay­loads up to 5 kg while main­tain­ing hov­er at a safe alti­tude.

: Max Range – 50 km max range with no payload/40 km max range with 5 kg pay­load.

: Max Take­off Weight – 55lb.

: Oper­a­tional Costs – 13 cents per kilo­gram per kilo­me­tre.

: A2Z 4G Link – The auto­mat­ic net­work selec­tor seam­less­ly tran­si­tions between mul­ti­ple 4G net­works and a mesh radio link to opti­mise con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

: A2Z Ground Con­trol Sta­tion – Portable ground con­trol sta­tion enabled with A2Z QGround­Con­trol.

: Pric­ing and Con­fig­u­ra­tions — Start­ing at USD29,000, the Pel­i­can is offered in mul­ti­ple mod­el vari­a­tions.

Tri­als Occur on a Dai­ly Basis

The com­pa­ny which orig­i­nat­ed in 2016 as a U.S drone deliv­ery project from the research-based Brown Uni­ver­si­ty, is now accept­ing pre-orders for the RDSX Pel­i­can that will be ful­filled on a first-come-first-served basis with ini­tial deliv­er­ies expect­ed for June 2023. A2Z Drone Deliv­ery will dis­play the craft at the upcom­ing AUVSI XPONENTIAL (May 9th-11th in Den­ver, CO), where it can found at booth 1830.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.a2zdronedelivery.com/

(All images: A2Z)

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