Cargo Business Techwire

Friday, January 15, 2016

AirMule drone lifts 1,000 pounds

Israeli company Urban Aeronautics, which specializes in vertical take-off and landing vehicles for "complex urban and natural environments," just tested its Humvee-sized AirMule drone.

The single-engine unmanned craft can haul as much as 1,100 pounds of stuff as far as 30 miles. The AirMule made its first autonomous, untethered flight of 130 feet at Megiddo airfield in northern Israel on December 30. The flight lasted 2.5 minutes — a modest beginning, but don’t be deceived. This thing is serious, with a claimed ceiling of 18,000 feet and the ability to cruise at more than 110 mph.

Like a lot of future-facing transport, the Mule looks like a giant bug. The vertical take-off and landing capability provides the utility of a helicopter, but UrbanAero’s hot-rodded ducted-fan system, a patented design it calls "Fancraft," offers many advantages over traditional rotors. The motors are quieter (half as loud as a conventional copter), and the enclosed rotors make it harder to pick up Doppler signals. The fuselage is designed to elude radar, and the machine emits less heat than a copter as well.

For more of the Wired story: www.wired.com