Big tech companies are eyeing unmanned cargo drones.

This cargo plane could be in the air from next year.
Suylan Ringelof has an impressive beard. He says he has grown this beard for eight years.
He started growing a beard when he co-founded Dronamics with his younger brother, an aerospace engineer, Europe’s answer to the emerging market for cargo drones.
He and his brother Constantine vowed to shave off their beards after the first flight of a drone built in their native Bulgaria.
When he founded Dronamix, tech companies like Amazon were experimenting with drone delivery to home addresses. But Mr. Ringloff never dreamed of drones delivering personal items door-to-door.

The practical difficulties of delivering goods by drone to someone’s doorstep were clear to Mr. Ringloff. “We didn’t agree with the concept of small drones. And we took a different approach.
He believed that drone delivery could only be effective if its large prototypes, such as cargo or cargo planes, were implemented.
Mr. Ringelof says the prototype looks like a conventional light aircraft without a pilot’s cabin and using cheap electronics, the drones will be based on ‘cell phone economics’, with the ability to land on short runways.

Solan Russell had a beard for eight years
Name: ‘Black Swan or Black Swan
It will be known as ‘Black Swan’.
“Here in Bulgaria, air cargo means a large plane brings cargo, which is taken to a place where it is sorted and then transported to unique locations for the next stage,” he said. . It is shipped by truck.
They believe that if the goods are transported closer to the person by small air cargo on smaller airstrips, costs will be reduced and the work of the truck will be eliminated.
“There are 3,000 airstrips across Europe and that’s enough,” he says.
The Black Swan featured a combination of lightweight composite materials (a feature of its sibling) and a standard piston engine. It will use less petrol as the drone travels longer distances with its fuel-efficient wings.
The entire package will fly at an altitude of 20,000 feet, well below the flight path of most airplanes.
Agronomics is considering flying cargo planes at this altitude because it is not in use. It is also testing a new synthetic aviation fuel that it claims will be carbon neutral.
The Black Swan can carry 350 kg of cargo, which is equivalent to a small courier van. He says, ‘We are connecting not house to house, but city to city.’

German company Hellmann is also interested in Black Swan.
‘Europe’s First Drone Cargo Airline’
Agronomics plans to operate Black Swan like an airline. According to it, it will be ‘Europe’s first drone cargo airline’. It will charge freight by weight or by charter and through it essential equipment, spares and equipment can be transported cheaply and quickly from one place to another.
German logistics company Hellmann is ready to start using drones. Klein Lasthuis is in charge and has spent a long time in airfreight.
According to Mr. Kleinlasthuis, the new designs won’t compete with conventional air cargo planes but will make it easier for drone users to use the drones, which were previously delivered by road.
Mr. Kline Lathuis says Bellman wants to quickly connect the Greek islands with cargo drones.
He added: ‘These drones will make more rounds than boats and we will divide the goods into multiple packages to increase the delivery cycle.’ This will be a big change and they offer a fast and flexible option.
Dynamics claims a range of up to 2,500 km (1,500 mi) for its cargo planes, which would put all of Western Europe in range and any EU-based cargo hub.
While smaller versions of these drones are already flying in Bulgaria, a larger aircraft-sized version will fly as early as 2023.
Dronemix says the European aerospace regulator has been notified of its planned operations and has been granted a limited license to operate. The Hellman company is talking about launching them during the year 2023.
Mr. Kleinlathuis agrees that the door-to-door drone delivery model won’t work. So he said: ‘I’ve never believed in the idea of parcel drones. So we’re working with Dronmix, and it’s not Amazon’s delivery idea.

American companies have interests in this drone.
The idea of a cargo drone has caught the attention of Bristow, an American group that operates helicopters around the world. Bristow has announced plans to buy about 100 cargo drones from California-based company Elroy Air.
While the passenger-carrying Electric Vertical Take-Off (EVOTOL) design is fully electric, the Elroy Air Cargo drone will run on a hybrid electric engine. It will have a small turbine that will generate electrical energy and serve as aviation fuel.
The hybrid design means these drones can refuel at existing facilities instead of visiting docking stations for electrical charges. And it consumes less than a third of the fuel as a helicopter.
“Pure electric power means you’re constrained to where your charging base is and therefore you are,” said David Stepanek, a Bristow executive who studies cargo drone operations and a former U.S. Marine. A copter technician is called.
Bristow is considering using the Elroy drone as the backbone of its operations in places like West Africa, where it needs Bristow helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, as well as transporting cargo in the offshore oil industry. . Wants to reduce usage costs.
Alluri Air is working on a large multi-engine, vertical take-off drone that can carry a payload of up to 100 kg and travel 480 km.

Kofi Asante of Elroy Air has researched autonomous trucks in Uber’s freight sector. The idea of a cargo pod attached to the chassis of a self-driving truck also works for cargo drones, he says.
He described discussions with the US regulator the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) as ‘very positive’, adding that a full-size drone is planned for a test flight by the end of 2022.
At eight meters or 26 feet wide, the drone, called the Chaparral, is large by civilian unmanned drone standards. But Mr. Asante says size is the real point.
“It can carry a hundred times the weight of a small UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), the payload of a small plane, but run for less than the cost of a helicopter.”
You may not be able to order delivery via drone flight to your home address anytime soon, but it looks like the death of the drone dream has given way to a more practical concept to flourish.
And his success could usher in clean-shaven leadership at Dronmix.