PAS 2025: “Windracers, AVF Team up in Africa”

UK-based Win­drac­ers, who has devel­oped heavy-lift car­go drones under the name ULTRA, and Avi­a­tion ser­vices char­i­ty, Avi­a­tion Sans Fron­tieres, announced at the Paris Air­show (PAS) this week, they are col­lab­o­rat­ing “to deploy a dual-drone sys­tem designed to over­come the logis­ti­cal chal­lenges of deliv­er­ing med­ical sup­plies to iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties,” explains a press release.

The ini­tia­tive com­bines Avi­a­tion Sans Fron­tieres’ oper­a­tional exper­tise in human­i­tar­i­an avi­a­tion with Win­drac­ers’ robust air­craft tech­nol­o­gy, inte­grat­ed pro­pri­etary autopi­lot sys­tems and mis­sion con­trol soft­ware.

At the 2025 Paris Air Show in Le Bour­get, a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment in human­i­tar­i­an avi­a­tion took cen­ter stage: the launch of a joint #dronel­o­gis­tics ini­tia­tive by @ONG_ASF and @Windracers. #Avi­a­tion­Sans­Fron­tières #Win­drac­ers #ULTRAMK2 https://t.co/L66XFugqrY

— Logis­tics Update Africa (@LogUpdateAfrica) June 16, 2025

Stephen Wright, Founder and Group Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Win­drac­ers, com­ment­ed, “Logis­tics is the back­bone of human­i­tar­i­an aid, often rep­re­sent­ing 60 to 80 per­cent of expens­es, depend­ing on the sec­tor of activ­i­ty. We devel­oped ULTRA with this exact idea in mind, to pro­vide low-cost means of deliv­er­ing human­i­tar­i­an aid to hard-to-reach loca­tions for peo­ple who need help the most.”

He added, “We’re already putting this into place in Malawi, where we are estab­lish­ing a ded­i­cat­ed oper­a­tional base to sup­port human­i­tar­i­an and devel­op­ment mis­sions.”

The Win­drac­ers ULTRA MK2 is at the heart of the project.  Heavy-lift long dis­tance self-fly­ing car­go air­craft capa­ble of trans­port­ing a load of up to 150kg, with a range of around 1,000km. 

The release explains, “The Win­drac­ers plat­form is dual-use, mul­ti-mis­sion and offers an option­al 3‑door drop bay floor to safe­ly and accu­rate­ly para­chute aid and sup­plies if required. In the com­ing weeks, and thanks to cold chain inno­va­tion, it will under­go tri­als focused on the deliv­ery of vac­cines and oth­er tem­per­a­ture-sen­si­tive med­ical sup­plies across remote areas.”

The Win­drac­ers ULTRA MK2 on Dis­play at PAS (Cred­it: Tim Robin­son)

Stephane Blandi­no, Project Man­ag­er for Avi­a­tion Sans Fron­tieres, remarked, “By com­bin­ing our oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence with cut­ting-edge drone tech­nol­o­gy, we are devel­op­ing a solu­tion that is both inno­v­a­tive and ground­ed in the real­i­ties of the field, sus­tain­able, scal­able, and adapt­ed to the needs of the most remote com­mu­ni­ties. It’s about mak­ing health­care acces­si­ble — regard­less of dis­tance.” He added, “This project rep­re­sents a poten­tial turn­ing point for human­i­tar­i­an logis­tics in Africa.”

By inte­grat­ing local train­ing, reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance, and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, the part­ner­ship aims to cre­ate a replic­a­ble mod­el for human­i­tar­i­an drone logis­tics across Africa.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://windracers.com/ultra/

https://asf-fr.org/fr

(Top image: Win­drac­ers ULTRA MK2)

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