REGENT Opens Rhode Island Seaglider Manufacturing Facility

REGENT Craft has opened a 255,000-square-foot man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, mark­ing the start of pro­duc­tion prepa­ra­tions for its Viceroy com­mer­cial Seaglid­er and Squire autonomous plat­form.

The facil­i­ty, locat­ed at Quon­set Busi­ness Park, was for­mal­ly opened on Sep­tem­ber 30 with a rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny and flight demon­stra­tions attend­ed by more than 500 cus­tomers, investors, defence rep­re­sen­ta­tives and indus­try part­ners. The event includ­ed the first pub­lic live flight demon­stra­tion of the Squire drone, along­side the fifth flight of REGENT’s full-scale Viceroy pro­to­type.

REGENT’s Seaglid­ers are high-speed hydro­foil­ing wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) craft designed to oper­ate over water. The ves­sels can tran­si­tion between float­ing, hydro­foil­ing and fly­ing modes, with the Viceroy intend­ed for com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger and car­go appli­ca­tions and the autonomous Squire being devel­oped for oth­er mis­sions.

The com­pa­ny said the new facil­i­ty is intend­ed to sup­port pro­duc­tion of both plat­forms, with first cus­tomer Viceroy ves­sels expect­ed as ear­ly as late 2027. Once ful­ly scaled, the site is designed to pro­duce up to 75 Viceroy Seaglid­ers and 300 Squire drones annu­al­ly.

The open­ing comes along­side REGENT’s expand­ing defence activ­i­ties. The com­pa­ny recent­ly announced a fur­ther $5 mil­lion exten­sion to its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the U.S. Marine Corps Warfight­ing Lab­o­ra­to­ry, bring­ing the val­ue of that part­ner­ship to $19.25 mil­lion. The com­pa­ny has also cit­ed grow­ing com­mer­cial demand for the Viceroy and inter­est in its autonomous Squire plat­form.

The facil­i­ty includes ded­i­cat­ed areas for struc­tur­al assem­bly, wing and hydro­foil inte­gra­tion, bat­tery and sys­tems instal­la­tion, as well as water-based test­ing and accep­tance oper­a­tions. Its water­front loca­tion will allow REGENT to con­tin­ue con­duct­ing sea tri­als from the site.

REGENT also plans to expand its man­u­fac­tur­ing work­force in Rhode Island, with up to 750 jobs expect­ed to be cre­at­ed over the next decade. REGENT said the new facil­i­ty is designed to sup­port phased increas­es in pro­duc­tion while main­tain­ing safe­ty and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments as the Seaglid­er pro­gramme moves from pro­to­type devel­op­ment towards cus­tomer deliv­er­ies.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

See Full Bio