{"id":6131,"date":"2023-01-10T15:10:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T15:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/?p=6131"},"modified":"2023-01-10T16:51:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T16:51:03","slug":"worlds-first-cargo-drone-airliner-could-be-a-game-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/worlds-first-cargo-drone-airliner-could-be-a-game-changer\/","title":{"rendered":"World&#8217;s First Cargo Drone Airliner Could be a &#8220;Game-Changer&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/13l7MWvGHZQ\" width=\"740\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>U.S. retailers like Amazon and Walmart have received the lion\u2019s share of media attention when it comes to the topic of remote aerial package delivery via drone.\u00a0 Both companies have just launched new pilots of their drone delivery systems in various states and cities across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Drone providers like Drone Up and Wing are partnering in these initiatives, and a third company, Zipline, is expanding its own remote medical delivery services in selected locales in Utah and North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>But across the Atlantic a far bolder drone delivery concept is about to be tested in the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>First conceived by Konstantin and Svilen Rangelov, two Bulgarian brothers back in 2013, the new concept calls for the use of remotely piloted, single-wing\u00a0 propeller-driven cargo airplanes to transport shipments of heavy freight across hundreds of miles without the need for refueling.<\/p>\n<p>The brothers call it the \u201cBlack Swan.\u201d\u00a0 They say it\u2019s going to be a \u201cgame-changer\u201d in the future of drone delivery services.<\/p>\n<p>The contrast between the Black Swan and the smaller package delivery services currently being piloted by major US retailers and their affiliated drone companies couldn\u2019t be more stark.\u00a0 The main Black Swan prototype currently being tested has a fuselage 8-feet long with a wingspan of 52 feet.\u00a0\u00a0 It looks less like a drone than a small cargo plane \u2013 except that there\u2019s no pilot.\u00a0 The craft\u2019s storage is about half the size of a large U-Haul van, with a carrying capacity of 770 pounds, far exceeding the standard drone \u201cpayload\u201d of 5-10 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>And the plane can fly continuously for a whopping 1,550 miles.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 It relies on sustainable aviation fuel \u2013 not battery power.\u00a0 That\u2019s an impressive distance \u2013 enough to traverse the Caribbean or the South China Sea.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s service has 0ther competitive advantages.\u00a0 With 3,000 remote airstrips located throughout the EU, Black Swan can crisscross the entire continent to make deliveries from business storehouses to designated distribution centers, avoiding concentrated urban areas and residential neighborhoods.\u00a0 The company also promises to make same-day deliveries.<\/p>\n<p>The two brothers first struck upon their concept nearly a decade ago when Amazon was still developing its fledgling delivery service.\u00a0 Right away, they sensed that Amazon\u2019s concept was too narrowly focused on its own retail consumers and might face logistical and regulatory challenges, as well as pushback from local communities concerned about drone overflights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost small delivery drones are attempting to solve the last-mile problem,\u201d one of the brothers told <em>Drone News<\/em> back in 2018.\u00a0 \u201cThey are the bike messengers.\u00a0 We are the cross-country delivery truck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to its large cargo and long-distance travel capacity,\u00a0 two brothers expect there to be strong business-to-business demand for the Black Swan; companies like DHL and Hellmann Logistics have already expressed interest..\u00a0 They also note that its carbon fiber construction will result in reduced travel costs relative to more standard and less sustainable cargo planes.<\/p>\n<p>Flights of the Black Swan in the EU are expected to get underway this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff U.S. retailers like Amazon and Walmart have received the lion\u2019s share of media attention when it comes to the topic of remote aerial package delivery via drone.\u00a0 Both companies have just launched new pilots of their drone delivery systems in various states and cities across the country. Drone providers like Drone Up and Wing&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/worlds-first-cargo-drone-airliner-could-be-a-game-changer\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}