DHL Parcelcopter Delivers the (Medical) Goods

Dean Sigler Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Vertical Daily News this morning reports on the DHL Parcelcopter 4.0 as it delivers medicines to an island in Lake Victoria on the northern tip of Tanzania.  The Parcelcopter is a fourth generation design from Wingcopter, a German drone manufacturer.  It’s found delivering packages autonomously in German mountain demonstrations and now in differently rugged terrain, flying life-saving packages to a remote island. With financial help from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ – The German Society for International Cooperation ) GmbH ( on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), DHL and Wingcopter have flown a total of 1,367 miles (2,200 kilometers) and about 2,000 flight minutes in a six-month trial.  The 37-mile (60-kilometer) flights averaged about 40 minutes. Compare such speedy deliveries to the time, personnel, and energy required on the six-hour overland route of 150 miles (240 kilometers).  ).  As Vertical Daily News notes, “That makes it nearly impossible to provide emergency medication …

Flying Donkeys – A New Cargo Paradigm

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Richard Glassock, of eight-seat, self-launching, sight-seeing sailplane fame, alerted your editor to a different kind of challenge in Africa that could expand the use of drones for positive outcomes. An earlier and ongoing effort to provide “last mile” delivery of small, high-value items such as medicines and electronics to remote villages came from Matternet, a Palo Alto, California based group whose slogan, “Lifting the Rising Billion,” refers to its aspirations to deliver necessities in Africa, but was first demonstrated in Haiti in August and September of 2012. Here they fulfill a mission to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, at a camp that was set up after the 2010 earthquake. The crowding, seen from overhead, would make expeditious travel through this camp almost impossible in any way other than air. A new group, Flying Donkeys, hopes to raise the weight-carrying capabilities of Matternet’s small packages to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) and has established an “escalating series of sub-challenges” that will lead to a race …