A European planemaker built a pilotless aircraft to power the world’s first ‘cargo drone airline’ — meet Black Swan

European manufacturing company Dronamics will soon debut the Black Swan — a pilotless drone certified to carry freight in the European Union starting in 2023.

The concept is the brainchild of Bulgarian brothers Konstantin and Svilen Rangelov. Speaking with Insider, the latter said the pair started looking into the market in 2013 when Amazon began dabbling in drone deliveries.

However, the brothers saw logistical difficulties in sending small drones, like Amazon’s, to deliver directly to homes and believed there was a better way of getting personal packages to each customer.

In Bulgaria, Rangelov said cargo is flown into Sophia, offloaded onto a big truck, driven hundreds of miles, and then offloaded onto a smaller van that delivers the package to individual sites.

The brothers saw the big truck as a costly step: “We said let’s map the size of the vehicle to fit exactly what you can fit in a delivery van in the last mile,'” Rangelov said. “This way we get to cut a step from the process.”

The resulting product — which is about half the capacity of a U-Haul moving van — can offer customers fast and low-cost freight transport, enabling same-day delivery with the help of some 3,000 airstrips across Europe.

Source: U-Haul

Many of the said airstrips are closer to customers than the main distribution centers, making them even more convenient for same-day deliveries, according to Rangelov.

“Most small delivery drones are an attempt to solve the last-mile problem,” the company told news outlet Drone DJ in 2018. “They are the bike messenger, we are the cross-country truck.”

Source: Drone DJ

According to the company, the plane reduces costs by up to 50% compared to competing cargo aircraft, partially due to its carbon fiber materials, making it favorable for the middle-mile market.

The Black Swan can cruise up to 20,000 feet, fly across 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles), and carry a maximum of 350 kilograms (770 pounds).

“It can cover the continental US, the diagonal in the Caribbean, the South China Sea, and all of Europe,” Rangelov told Insider. “So the size fits neatly into the global geography.”

Powering the routes is a single-propeller Rotax engine built by Austrian company BRP-Rotax, which is owned by Bombardier Recreational Products.

Rangelov further explained that the plane will not only carry single pallets of one item, but also individual packages, allowing it to also enter the e-commerce, low-density market.

In addition to its carrying capabilities, the Black Swan can land on short runways — including unpaved — thanks to its fixed wing, so it can access small, isolated communities easier than other drones.

When Black Swan is ready for service, Dronamics plans to operate it as the world’s first cargo drone airline, starting with flights around the Mediterranean and over water, like in Greece or Cyprus.

“Initially, we want to start with lower-risk routes,” Rangelov said. “As we gain acceptance and confidence, we’ll fly over land as well.”

Piloted by remote operators, the unmanned aircraft will not deliver goods door-to-door, but rather use a system of droneports to offer same-day transport of cargo between main gateways or warehouses to distant cities.