A swan ready for takeoff
As early as 2022 goods consignments weighing up to 350 kg may be flown from one site to another 2,500 km away in Europe in just one day, and at prices that are up to 80% cheaper than today’s airfreight costs. At least that is what Svilen Rangelov hopes. The CEO of the London-registered and Sofia-based start-up Dronamics Global met ITJ correspondent Frank Stier.
Svilen Rangelov has been developing the Black Swan cargo drone for seven years, together with his brother Konstantin, an aeronautical engineer trained in the Netherlands. It differs from conventional drones not only in its considerably greater cargo capacity and range, but also in its concept and shape.
The Black Swan is shaped like a miniature propeller aircraft and is powered by E10 petrol. It doesn’t take off and land vertically, as many drones do, but requires a 400 m runway.
Partnerships with airports...
Dronamics was originally a two-man company; in the meantime it has grown to a firm with a workforce of around two dozen employees. Parallel to its work on developing the drone it has, over recent years, also established a European network of potential landing sites, which it has dubbed ‘droneports’.
In June Germany’s Friedrichshafen airport (FDH) became the latest partner to sign a letter of intent for cooperation. If everything goes according to plan, many an industrial company, also from Germany, Switzerland and Austria might ship their products on the Black Swan as early as 2023, thus receiving urgently needed parts in 24 hours.
The application process to acquire an operating licence from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has got underway, so the Dronamics CEO is confident that his firm will be able to start commercial flights next year.
He points out that the four landing fields in Germany – at FDH, Paderborn (PAD), Rostock (RLG) and Weeze (NRN) – put 14 million potential customers in Germany alone within one hour’s travel of a droneport.
...forwarders and end customers
In Europe, Dronamics says it has already signed agreements with 39 airport operators in 13 countries, which will allow 50 million Europeans to reach a droneport in one hour.
Participating airports enter into a commercial framework agreement with Dronamics and provide the runway on which the Black Swan can take off and land, as well as storage space for the handling of shipments. Dronamics, in return, installs the necessary operating technology as well as recruits and trains the ground staff.
The Rangelovs are also seeking to enter into partnerships with logistics enterprises. In June they announced an agreement with Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. The German logistics company wants to operate its first delivery routes for time-critical goods as early as next year.
Airfreight shifting to drones
Svilen Rangelov believes this will bring him closer to his declared goal of democratising international airfreight. He says industrial companies from almost every sector are his firm’s most important target group. In view of the dynamic growth in e-commerce activities of late, he also believes private consumers are a potential clientele for aviation 4.0.
“We can transport goods faster and cheaper than conventional aircraft, after all, and simultaneously deliver them to places where there weren’t any cargo airports at all so far,” he says. The Black Swan not only has economic and logistics advantages on its side, but ecological ones too. “An increasing shift of airfreight from large conventional aircraft to drones not only saves costs, but also reduces polluting emissions.”
Initially, the Black Swan will only fly over Europe, but agreements have already been reached with partners in America, Asia and Africa.
