Mayman Aerospace receives $1.25 million funding from AFWERX Agility Prime initiative

Cal­i­for­nia-based May­man Aero­space, a world leader in high-speed, com­pact VTOL air­craft and vec­tored thrust con­trol, has con­firmed a $1.25 mil­lion fund­ing from the US Air Force AFWERX Agili­ty Prime ini­tia­tive.

The fund­ing to con­tin­ue devel­op­ment of the Speed­er Air Util­i­ty Vehi­cle (AUV) demon­strates that AFWERX, a Tech­nol­o­gy Direc­torate of the US Air Force Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry under Agili­ty Prime, con­sid­ers that Speed­er can meet increas­ing mil­i­tary require­ments for con­test­ed logis­tics sup­port.

The grant will sup­port the next phas­es of the ultra-com­pact VTOL Speeder’s devel­op­ment, which offers diverse con­fig­u­ra­tions to sup­port mul­ti­ple mis­sion require­ments.

Capa­ble of mov­ing over 600lb of pay­load at 500mph, Speed­er will deliv­er essen­tial materiel and sup­port in active mil­i­tary the­atres. Addi­tion­al­ly, mis­sions aimed at extend­ing sur­viv­abil­i­ty can be sup­port­ed that require a com­bi­na­tion of speed, accu­ra­cy and imme­di­a­cy.

Sim­ple to oper­ate in autonomous, remote, or pilot­ed modes, Speed­er flight oper­a­tions can be han­dled in the field and the air­craft rapid­ly deployed to meet imme­di­ate mis­sion needs. The plat­form is scal­able from as small as a suit­case to the size of a small car, trans­portable in a pick-up truck, and requires min­i­mal field sup­port.

May­man Aero­space is found­ed by name­sake David May­man, who said: “Speed­er is a dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy that is chang­ing the way we think about small VTOL air­craft.

“It is per­fect­ly suit­ed to com­plex, demand­ing and often dan­ger­ous Depart­ment of Defense con­test­ed logis­tics mis­sions. With the AFWERX fund­ing we are bet­ter posi­tioned to deliv­er and cer­ti­fy Speed­er for mil­i­tary require­ments with­in the next eigh­teen months.”

The ground foot­print is min­i­mal com­pared to a heli­copter, and it is also sig­nif­i­cant­ly less com­plex, mak­ing it far less expen­sive to pro­cure and oper­ate. Tur­bine-pow­ered Speed­er is not restrict­ed by the per­for­mance lim­i­ta­tions of cur­rent and near-future bat­tery tech­nolo­gies, lift­ing heavy pay­loads at high speed with easy field refu­elling using Jet A‑1, SAF or diesel.

AFWERX pro­gram direc­tor Lieu­tenant Colonel Nathan Diller said: “We wel­come May­man Aero­space to the pro­gramme and we are pleased to be sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and test­ing of their air­craft, and look for­ward to the results.”

Speed­er may be flown under full con­trol using vec­tored-engine thrust, or with quick-fit aero­dy­nam­ic sur­faces for extend­ed range mis­sions. Its com­pact size, high-speed and low-alti­tude flight char­ac­ter­is­tics ensure Speed­er presents a chal­leng­ing tar­get for small arms, MANPADS and IADS, avoid­ing the inher­ent vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of rotary-wing and oth­er trans­port assets.

May­man Aero­space has already com­plet­ed ini­tial teth­ered flight tri­als with two Speed­er pro­to­types. Tri­als with a third, the P2 pro­to­type, are cur­rent­ly under­way. P2 can be con­fig­ured with four or eight engines and is antic­i­pat­ed to fly off-teth­er under FAA Exper­i­men­tal cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the end of 2022.