An ambitious partnership aimed at establishing an autonomous flying network across Africa with express delivery as its main aim could see 12 000 fixed-wing drones deployed to 49 countries over the next five years.
The joint venture (JV) was confirmed after a recent partnership agreement by Continental Drones, a subsidiary of Atlantic Trust Holdings (ATH), a Dubai-funded investor based in Accra, and German drone developer Wingcopter.
The project involves the Wingcopter 198, “the world’s most advanced delivery drone”, according to its developers, and its use will make for “the largest commercial deployment in the global delivery drone industry to date”, a statement announcing the JV said.
Part aeroplane part helicopter, the winged drone, with its rotatable rotors, doesn’t need infrastructure for take-off or landing and is ideal for bridging fixed on-the-ground facilitation required by other systems, the JV statement said.
“The deployment of large fleets of Wingcopter drones, even in the most remote places, will allow governments and the private sector to leapfrog inefficient infrastructure to climate-neutral, reliable, and fast logistic capabilities,” it added.
“Wingcopter’s technology will be deployed to improve the livelihoods of millions of African people, for example through the on-demand delivery of medicines, vaccines, or laboratory samples, but also essential goods for daily use.
Issues though remain around drone delivery.
In the US, multinational retail corporation Walmart is proceeding with drone delivery rollout to five more states: Arizona, Florida, Utah, Texas, and Virginia.
This after successfully launching a pilot phase in Arkansas.
E-commerce distributor Amazon has unfortunately been less successful, and has become bogged down in staffing issues required to ‘man’ its drone dreams.
Supply chain giant United Parcel Service (UPS) has also, for now, pulled back from any headway it was making under the drone aspirations of its former CEO, David Abney.
Citing the reasons for this pullback, his successor, Carol Tomé, told the American Chamber of Commerce in January that there were lots of issues with drone tech, especially not being able to fly them when it’s windy or wet.
The Wingcopter JV believes its design is resistant to such challenges, equipped as it is with what is believed to be superior handling technology and an adaptable flight system to sustain weather challenges.
With a payload of five kilograms and capable of carrying three deliveries in one flight, the JV partners said their endeavour “has the potential to turbocharge the economic development of the countries in which the Wingcopter networks will be established by connecting communities more effectively and by creating thousands of new job opportunities to operate these delivery networks”.
* Wingcopter has since this story was posted last year, informed Freight News of the following:
Technically, we have not formed a joint venture with Continental Drones. It's a partnership through which Continental Drones becomes a Wingcopter Authorized Partner (we are currently setting up this partner network all over the world) and the exclusive distributor of our technology for all 49 sub-Saharan countries.
