[150518.EN.BIZ] Big Cargo Carrying Drones to be Tested by Wyoming Company

BARCELONA's Singular Aircraft's Flyox I, the world's biggest amphibious drone that can carry a 1,850-kilo payload. is about to be tested in one of America's least populous states.

Wyoming's Unmanned Aircraft International recently received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to start testing the large twin engine drone, which can carry 4,000 pounds of water to drop on forest fires.

Wyoming Is The least populous state in the Lower Forty-Eight the US.

The 8,800-lbs aerial vehicle (UAV) with a 35-foot wingspan, can perform agricultural work, fly air cargo, assist firefighting, conduct surveillance and search and rescue.

While there is no reference to Catalan, the Spanish province to which Barcelona is the capital, the aircraft looks much like World War II Catalina naval patrol aircraft, doing much postwar service as a Canadian Canso Water Bomber, used to fight forest fires.

"We have to deal with any type of landing surfaces, that's why it's amphibious and we can land on skis on the ice and snow," Singular Aircraft owner Luis Carillo told CNBC.

The aircraft can be broken down to fit into a normal large truck. The Mark II can stay aloft 28 hours, the company claims and hads a range of 2,515 nautical miles.

"We can land on unprepared surfaces and the plane is able to cope with that type of operation," he said

It's within this context that drones offer something different. "We've brought the technology to a point where it opens up some really new possibilities that are exciting," said University of Washington engineering professor Anne Goodchild.

"Drones are so lightweight and so energy efficient that they really can compete in terms of the cost of delivering with other modes," she said.

But Prof Goodchild also said there were "implementation challenges and airspace management problems, so I see them being implemented first in areas where overland travel is either really dangerous or impossible or really expensive - very remote areas, areas with very poor existing land infrastructure."

Source : HKSG.