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Watch Video: Windracers Unveils “Next-Gen Autonomous Cargo Drone”

UK-based Win­drac­ers, a low-cost car­go drone devel­op­er, unveiled its next gen­er­a­tion autonomous car­go air­craft, the ULTRA MK2, late last week at the ME Lon­don hotel in the Strand, reports a press release. 

The release says, “With dou­ble the pow­er out­put of its pre­de­ces­sor, the Win­drac­ers car­go drone brings a 50 per­cent increase in use­ful pay­load as well as a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in fuel costs while strength­en­ing its posi­tion as the low-cost car­go drone of choice for mid­dle mile logis­tics.”

It goes on, “The ULTRA air­craft, orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived to bring down the cost of deliv­er­ing human­i­tar­i­an aid to remote com­mu­ni­ties, is designed and man­u­fac­tured in the UK and is the most accom­plished low-cost heavy lift, long-dis­tance car­go drone avail­able today.”

Win­drac­ers ULTRA is oper­a­tional today in Ukraine, the UK and U.S, enabling organ­i­sa­tions to trans­port pay­loads to remote places quick­ly, safe­ly and cost-effec­tive­ly.

Stephen Wright, Founder and Group Exec­u­tive Chair­man, com­ment­ed, “The launch of ULTRA MK2 is proof that Win­drac­ers has moved rapid­ly from an idea to a com­mer­cial organ­i­sa­tion that is meet­ing the needs of cus­tomers today. The team have per­formed phe­nom­e­nal­ly to bring the MK2 to mar­ket in such a short time and for its gen­er­al devel­op­ment over the last eight years.”

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At the hotel event, Rune Stor­vold, SVP of Obser­va­tion­al Sys­tems for NORCE, a Win­drac­ers client, detailed how the ULTRA MK2 will car­ry two types of radar sys­tems to detect changes to the Antarc­tic cli­mate, an area the car­go com­pa­ny has been very involved with.  

Benoit Gaborit, Head of Mis­sion for Avi­a­tion Sans Fron­tieres, anoth­er cus­tomer, spoke of how it will, for the first time, inte­grate a heavy lift, long-dis­tance drone into the human­i­tar­i­an aid sup­ply chain to estab­lish a ser­vice that can work in rapid­ly chang­ing con­di­tions.

Simon Thomp­son, Group CEO of Win­drac­ers, remarked, “From elim­i­nat­ing the need for a pilot to devel­op­ing a mul­ti-mis­sion plat­form that is depend­able and easy to use and main­tain, our ulti­mate goal is to bring down the cost for the end user. In ULTRA MK2, we have halved our oper­a­tional fuel cost per kilo­gram and will find even more effi­cien­cy in the future for our cus­tomers.”

The release con­tin­ues, “The air­craft can take-off, fly and land safe­ly with­out the need for a remote pilot and with min­i­mal ground oper­a­tor over­sight, whether day, night or in fog. It is con­trolled by its pro­pri­etary autopi­lot sys­tem, Win­drac­ers Autopi­lot, a mul­ti-lay­ered flight con­trol sys­tem that is robust against flight con­trol unit fail­ures and sen­sor fail­ures. The craft includes Mis­sion Con­trol, a route plan­ning and air­craft mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem with an intu­itive inter­face that requires min­i­mal train­ing.”

With the launch of the ULTRA MK2, Win­drac­ers fur­ther extends its posi­tion as the low-cost car­go drone of choice for mid­dle-mile logis­tics. The strong 10 metre wingspan fea­tures two 50 hp Hirth F23 engines, dou­bling the pow­er out­put of its pre­de­ces­sor. The air­craft offers an enhanced pay­load of 150kg while halv­ing fuel costs per kg.

The release adds, “The mul­ti-pur­pose Win­drac­ers ULTRA plat­form can detect, drop and deliv­er. It has numer­ous prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions span­ning Mail & Par­cel, Human­i­tar­i­an Assis­tance, Defence, Med­ical and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion. Win­drac­ers is used by organ­i­sa­tions with the most exact­ing stan­dards, includ­ing the British Antarc­tic Sur­vey, Avi­a­tion San Fron­tières, NORCE, Lan­cashire Fire and Res­cue, Roy­al Mail, Roy­al Navy and the UK Min­istry of Defence.” 

Win­drac­ers has com­plet­ed hun­dreds of thou­sands of kilo­me­tres of autonomous flights beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) in some of the world’s most hos­tile envi­ron­ments, from Scotland’s Orkney Islands to Antarc­ti­ca. Its Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cle (UAV) has also been con­duct­ing intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance (ISR), while sup­port­ing resup­ply for the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2023 as part of the UK Min­istry of Defence UAV sup­port pro­gram. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://windracers.com/

(Images: Win­drac­ers)

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