DUBAI AIRSHOW 2025: “LODD Autonomous Conducts First Trial Flight of Hili Aircraft in Al Ain Region”

LODD Autonomous has con­duct­ed its first tri­al flight of Hili, a hybrid heavy-lift car­go air­craft designed, built and man­u­fac­tured in Abu Dhabi, at the company’s flight test­ing facil­i­ty at Emi­rates Fal­cons Avi­a­tion in Al Ain Region.

The event took place dur­ing the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week and was watched by UAE’s Pres­i­dent, His High­ness Sheikh Zayed bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The Hili air­craft can trans­port pay­loads of up to 250 kgs across dis­tances of close to 700 kms. It is pow­ered by a hybrid propul­sion sys­tem that com­bines elec­tric and inter­nal com­bus­tion tech­nolo­gies with­in a mod­u­lar design, ensur­ing high lev­els of effi­cien­cy, safe­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in aer­i­al car­go oper­a­tions.

His High­ness affirmed the flight reflect­ed Abu Dhabi’s Mid­dle East lead­er­ship in devel­op­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty due to the con­tin­ued sup­port of the Smart and Autonomous Sys­tems Coun­cil.

Rashid Al Man­ai, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of LODD Autonomous, added, “Our vision has cre­at­ed a thriv­ing envi­ron­ment for inno­va­tion. LODD Autonomous con­tin­ues to solid­i­fy its posi­tion as one of the UAE’s lead­ing nation­al enti­ties in advanced air mobil­i­ty, sup­port­ing the country’s vision to be a glob­al des­ti­na­tion for autonomous sys­tems, logis­tics and future avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.”

The first test flight, attend­ed by senior rep­re­sen­ta­tives from gov­ern­ment enti­ties and pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in air mobil­i­ty and autonomous sys­tems, marks a sig­nif­i­cant engi­neer­ing and oper­a­tional achieve­ment that demon­strates Abu Dhabi’s grow­ing capa­bil­i­ties in design­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing advanced avi­a­tion sys­tems.

The release explains, “The air­craft was devel­oped under an inten­sive engi­neer­ing pro­gram focused on safe­ty, pre­ci­sion and qual­i­ty, high­light­ing the emirate’s abil­i­ty to trans­form a vision into tan­gi­ble, real-world solu­tions with speed and effi­cien­cy.”

And con­tin­ues, “This achieve­ment is the result of broad strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion, which reflects inter­na­tion­al con­fi­dence in the UAE’s inno­va­tion ecosys­tem and under­scores the suc­cess of Abu Dhabi’s approach to fos­ter­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships that accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of advanced tech­nolo­gies and the trans­for­ma­tion towards sus­tain­able, autonomous air mobil­i­ty solu­tions.”

Back­ground

Found­ed in 2023, LODD designs, devel­ops, and deploys next-gen­er­a­tion autonomous sys­tems to tack­le the emerg­ing chal­lenges of mid­dle-mile car­go logis­tics. Hili is the company’s flag­ship UAV. LODD’s break­through plat­form deliv­ers scal­able, effi­cient and reli­able car­go trans­port solu­tions for diverse indus­tries.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.lodd.com

(Images: LODD)

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