Middle East: Elroy Air and Barq Group in Joint Venture to Invest $200 million in New Facility to Produce Chaparral VTOL UAS

Barq Group and Elroy Air have announced an ini­tial agree­ment for a joint ven­ture which will invest $200 mil­lion to build a state-of-the-art man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Abu Dhabi to pro­duce Chap­ar­ral, Elroy Air’s autonomous hybrid-elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (VTOL) car­go UAS.

This pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty will sup­ply Chap­ar­ral sys­tems to com­mer­cial and human­i­tar­i­an cus­tomers in the Mid­dle East and North Africa (MENA) region upon receipt of all nec­es­sary approvals.

The joint ven­ture will also pro­vide after­mar­ket ser­vices, includ­ing main­te­nance, repair, and over­haul (MRO). By estab­lish­ing local pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty, the JV will meet the surg­ing demand for autonomous logis­tics in a region char­ac­ter­ized by rapid expan­sion and a need for resilient, mid­dle-mile deliv­ery solu­tions.

Ahmed AlMazrui, CEO of Barq Group, said: “Our part­ner­ship with Elroy Air is a tes­ta­ment to Abu Dhabi’s posi­tion as a glob­al leader in the future of mobil­i­ty. This $200 mil­lion invest­ment is more than a man­u­fac­tur­ing agree­ment; it is a com­mit­ment to build­ing a self-sus­tain­ing aero­space ecosys­tem in the UAE.

“The mas­sive demand we are see­ing from logis­tics providers across MENA makes it clear that local pro­duc­tion is the only way to scale effec­tive­ly. Togeth­er, we are redefin­ing how goods move across the region while sup­port­ing the ‘Make it in the Emi­rates’ ini­tia­tive.”

The Chap­ar­ral is an indus­try-first autonomous air­craft built to car­ry 300 lbs of car­go over a 300 mile range. Its hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­train enables long-range mis­sions with­out the need for charg­ing infra­struc­ture, mak­ing it unique­ly suit­ed for the MENA region’s diverse geog­ra­phy. Chap­ar­ral made his­to­ry in Novem­ber 2023 with the world’s first flight of a tur­bo­gen­er­a­tor-hybrid-elec­tric air­craft.

The new ven­ture aligns with Abu Dhabi’s Smart and Autonomous Vehi­cle Indus­try (SAVI) clus­ter objec­tives, solid­i­fy­ing the emi­rate’s posi­tion as a glob­al leader in sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion. The part­ner­ship is expect­ed to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the local econ­o­my through the cre­ation of high-val­ue aero­space jobs and the devel­op­ment of a robust region­al sup­ply chain.

Dr. Andrew Clare, CEO of Elroy Air, said: “Demand for the Chap­ar­ral in the MENA region has been immense, sur­pass­ing our ini­tial pro­jec­tions and high­light­ing the urgent need for infra­struc­ture-inde­pen­dent logis­tics.

“Abu Dhabi is the ide­al strate­gic hub for our first inter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ing foot­print. By pro­duc­ing the Chap­ar­ral local­ly with Barq Group, we are not only reduc­ing lead times for our region­al cus­tomers but ensur­ing the air­craft is built in the same envi­ron­ment where they will oper­ate. We are thrilled to part­ner with a vision­ary leader like Ahmed AlMazrui to bring this next-gen­er­a­tion capa­bil­i­ty to the UAE.”

Fol­low­ing Elroy Air’s recent­ly-announced domes­tic US pro­duc­tion part­ner­ship with Kratos, the new JV will serve a grow­ing back­log of demand for Chap­ar­ral which already exceeds 1,500 units glob­al­ly from lead­ing logis­tics and avi­a­tion ser­vices com­pa­nies includ­ing FedEx, Bris­tow, and LCI.

Elroy Air recent­ly com­plet­ed its first autonomous A to B car­go deliv­ery with the Chap­ar­ral. After the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of crit­i­cal flight mile­stones in the Unit­ed States along with all nec­es­sary approvals, Elroy Air and Barq Group plan to begin ini­tial flight oper­a­tions in the UAE in 2027 using U.S.-built air­craft fol­lowed by the start of local pro­duc­tion in Abu Dhabi in 2028.