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This Pickup Truck of the Sky Is Half Helicopter, Half Bush Plane, and All Business

The world we live in is one of changes. They affect almost every aspect of our lives, but the most dramatic ones seem to be taking place in the transportation sector. The wider one, which includes shipment of goods.
Elroy Air Chaparral C1 16 photos
Photo: Elroy Air
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For a while now, a number of companies have been trying to come up with delivery solutions centered around drones. Some have succeeded, others less so, and an increasing number of them are trying to catch the bandwagon.

One newcomer to the autonomous, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) delivery game is called Elroy Air. Based in San Francisco, the startup is already in cahoots with the likes of Lockheed Martin, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force (USAF) for something it describes as the “first end-to-end autonomous vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aerial cargo system.”

The oversized drone of sorts is called Chaparral C1, and was first shown in pre-production form in January this year. If successful, like all other drones envisioned for delivery purposes, it should forever change the way deliveries are being made.

Now, the exact and full specs of the contraption are not entirely known, but here’s what we’ve got so far on this pickup truck of the sky, as company CEO David Merril calls it.

Elroy Air Chaparral C1
Photo: Elroy Air
The Chaparral is designed as a miniature transport aircraft, with a main fuselage and wings spreading to each side. Its entire airframe is made of carbon composite, and does not hold a cargo bay, but only the bits and pieces that make it stay in the air and conduct its business.

Those bits and pieces include the propulsion hardware. In this case, we’re talking about a hybrid electric powertrain, comprising battery packs and a gas turbine-based electric generator. They feed their power to no less than twelve motors, fitted six on each wing, both at the front and at the back. Eight of these motors, the ones whose blades are rotating horizontally, provide lift, while the other four, spinning vertically, are meant for forward motion.

Elroy Air says this design was chosen out of caution: such a big number of motors (but also fault-tolerant avionics) should ensure not only the Chaparral’s performance, but also its safety, as in if one of them fails for whatever reason, the others are more than capable of keeping the thing in the air.

We said earlier that the aircraft has no internal cargo bay. Instead, it will use a yet undisclosed system to latch on to purpose-made, modular cargo pods, holding whatever goods the customer needs transporting.

Elroy Air Chaparral C1
Photo: Elroy Air
The aircraft can carry up to 500 lbs (227 kg) of cargo for a distance of up to 300 miles (483 km). It doesn’t need special infrastructure to work, just a small landing pad (or, probably, any patch of clear terrain that can fit it) from where to pick up and deposit the pods.

Elroy Air says the machine can land, leave its pod, pick up another, and take off in just a few minutes, with zero intervention from a human operator. Sure, the Chaparral can accommodate one, at least until we get used to such machines and regulations change, as it can also be remotely piloted.

Because it “behaves like a hybrid between a rough-and-ready helicopter and a battle-hardened bush plane,” the Chaparral will be suitable for a wide variety of tasks, from delivering goods for commercial reasons to aiding with efforts being made for healthcare and humanitarian purposes, and could even be deployed in the service of the military.

In fact, the USAF is already backing the project financially. In addition to the military branch, we’re told a number of companies, including partners of American Airlines, United Airlines, and DHL, have expressed interest in the technology, and have committed to buying some 500 Chaparrals, worth a total of over $1 billion.

When exactly these commitments will be satisfied is unclear, as Elroy Air does not give us an estimate on when the aircraft will be ready for production.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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