Skylift in the UK: Zipline in the USA

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Skylift Skylift is an all-British drone system supplier being used by the National Health Service (NHS) to deliver prescription medications in the UK in partnership with Apian.  Jessica Reed, reporting in Aviation Today, explains one of Skylift’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities demonstrated its ability to fly medical supplies between Portsmouth on England’s southern coast and the Isle of Wight. According to Distansias.com, “The straight line flying distance from Ryde [on the] Isle of Wight [is] 6.62 miles or 10.66 kilometers.”  This can take an hour or so by boat, but only minutes by drone, especially a fast one like those used by Skylift, which apparently designs and builds the machines with specific missions …

Hydrogen-powered Drone Makes Ocean Flight

Dean Sigler Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

A one-hour, 43-minute flight between a hospital on the Caribbean island of St. Croix and a testing facility on the neighboring island of St. Thomas probably set a record for hydrogen-powered multi-rotor, over-water drone flight.  The flight delivered live bacteria samples from a hospital on the Caribbean island of St. Croix to a testing facility on the neighboring island of St. Thomas.  The demonstration was carried out by Guinn Partners and associated organizations. Most such medical deliveries are usually over land and within urban areas. Fixed-wing drones flying with Zipline in Rwanda deliver clinical samples and blood 80 kilometers (49.6 miles) each way out and return. The Doosan Mobility Innovations (DMI) DS-30 drone is a large machine able to carry …

Zipline Drones Use Modularity, Simplicity to Deliver Healthcare

Dean Sigler Electric Aircraft Components, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Fortune magazine headlined its article about Zipline drones with this teaser: “The Trick to Achieving Universal Health Care? Drones.”  The article quotes Zipline International CEO Keller Rinaudo concerning the logistics of today’s health care systems, which “really only serve the ‘golden billion’ people on the planet.”  Fortune adds, “Millions more die from lack of care.” Rinaudo spoke to Fortune’s Brainstorm Health Conference in San Diego, and explained how his Silicon Valley technology delivers 60-percent of Rwanda’s national blood supply – by drone.  About half of the blood goes to mothers suffering from postpartum hemorrhaging. With excellent results in Rwanda, Zipline will set up four distribution centers in Ghana, starting on April 24.  These centers will serve about 20 million people.  …

Autonomous Drones Air-Drop Medical Supplies

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Zipline, a San Francisco-based startup, has partnered with the government of Rwanda to air-drop medical supplies to remote villages, truly a potential life-saver for many without immediate access to medicine or blood for transfusions. Several firms in America have promised delivery of consumer items using drones, with Flirtey’s quadrotor drone delivering “a package that included bottled water, emergency food and a first aid kit” to an uninhabited residential setting in Hawthorne, Nevada on April 7. Flirtey calls the flight “the first fully autonomous, FAA-approved urban drone delivery in the United States.” Another firm, Matternet, displayed its quadrotor delivery systems five years ago at the Green Flight Challenge Expo held at NASA Ames Research Center following the completion of the flying …