“Piasecki Aircraft Unveils KARGO II: Next-Generation Autonomous VTOL For Commercial & Defence Logistics”

Piasec­ki Air­craft Corps announced this week the unveil­ing of “the next evo­lu­tion in autonomous VTOL logis­tics: The KARGO II,” reports a press release. This is a new and larg­er-capac­i­ty ver­sion of the KARGO UAV medi­um-lift unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle (UAV) acquired from Kaman Air Vehi­cles in April. 

“Piasec­ki Air­craft Acquires Kaman Air Vehi­cles’ KARGO UAV Pro­gram”

Fea­tur­ing major pay­load, dri­ve­train and per­for­mance upgrades, KARGO II com­ple­ments KARGO UAV to meet the var­ied demands of both mil­i­tary and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions and rep­re­sents a grow­ing port­fo­lio of UAVs offered by Piasec­ki.

The release explains, “Designed to oper­ate in con­test­ed and remote envi­ron­ments, KARGO II retains the com­pact form fac­tor of KARGO UAV while deliv­er­ing 2 to 3x the pay­load capac­i­ty, from approx­i­mate­ly 500–800 lbs to over 1,500lbs, with improved range, air­speed, and mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty.”

It con­tin­ues, “The sys­tem fea­tures a new opti­mised shaft-dri­ven trans­mis­sion along with larg­er rotors to enable the increased per­for­mance. KARGO IIis the pre-planned pro­duc­tion-rep­re­sen­ta­tive con­fig­u­ra­tion which was a result of  the program’s spi­ral devel­op­ment approach.”

John Piasec­ki, CEO of Piasec­ki Air­craft, com­ment­ed, “KARGO II reflects our com­mit­ment to rapid­ly advanc­ing autonomous ver­ti­cal lift capa­bil­i­ties. With the launch of this first major devel­op­ment spi­ral, we’ve cre­at­ed a more capa­ble, scal­able solu­tion for autonomous logis­tics, designed to meet the evolv­ing require­ments of defence and com­mer­cial cus­tomers alike.”

The release adds, “KARGO II builds on suc­cess­ful flight test­ing and demon­stra­tion mile­stones com­plet­ed by KARGO UAV under ear­ly U.S Army and Marine Corps con­tracts, includ­ing autonomous lift oper­a­tions and inte­gra­tion with advanced flight con­trol sys­tems.”

Watch Video: Piasec­ki Achieves Break­through “With First Flight of Tilt-Duct VTOL Air­craft”

Romin Das­malchi, Direc­tor of Car­go UAS Pro­grams at Piasec­ki, remarked, “KARGO II is a direct response to oper­a­tor feed­back, val­i­dat­ed use cas­es, and real-world mis­sion needs. We’ve engi­neered a plat­form that offers the range, lift, and reli­a­bil­i­ty that com­mer­cial oper­a­tors and mil­i­tary plan­ners have been ask­ing for.”

The release con­tin­ues, “Com­mer­cial avail­abil­i­ty for KARGO II in both domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al mar­kets is planned for late 2027, sub­ject to pro­duc­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mile­stones. Ini­tial demand for KARGO UAV and KARGO IIex­ceeds 300 vehi­cles from sec­tors such as ener­gy, logis­tics, dis­as­ter response and remote infra­struc­ture sup­port, where lega­cy heli­copter oper­a­tions are often cost-pro­hib­i­tive or logis­ti­cal­ly con­strained.” 

It con­cludes, “The upgrad­ed UAV will be ini­tial­ly man­u­fac­tured at Piasecki’s state-of-the-art Heli­plex facil­i­ty in Coatesville, Penn­syl­va­nia, lever­ag­ing the company’s long-stand­ing exper­tise in VTOL sys­tem devel­op­ment and flight test­ing. Addi­tion­al pro­gram part­ners and sup­ply chain con­trib­u­tors will be announced in the com­ing months.”

For more infor­ma­tion

piasecki.com 

(Top image: KARGO II)

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