For quite some time now, the American public has been teased with the possibility of having small merchandise shipped directly to their homes by drones.  Many European, and some American cities have been running small scale trial operations for drone based deliveries from restaurants to pharmacies.  In North Carolina, UPS and Matternet have been successfully using drones to transport medical supplies across the WakeMed hospital campus.  It is only a matter of time before small quadrocopters like the ones built by Matternet are working full time to deliver light weight packages to consumers.  But for military and relief organizations the wait for drone delivered supplies is officially over.

Rather than a small drone with a payload capacity of around 5lbs, Yates Electrospace Corporation (YEC) has designed a disposable cargo drone with a 1 ton payload capacity called the Silent Arrow.  YEC was founded by Chip Yates in 2012.  Born in Portsmouth, VA Chip has gone on to become well known for engineering and inventing electrical vehicles, and going on to set world records with the pioneering vehicles he creates, including the world’s fastest manned electrical aircraft.  It comes as no surprise that YEC is the first to successfully design an autonomous drone with the capability to replace JPADS (Joint Precision Airdrop System).

JPADS is the system currently used by the US military and others to airdrop cargo and supplies to military personnel on the ground.  A large plane or helicopter drops a crate containing supplies with a deployable parachute.  While JPADS have been relatively successful, they have their draw backs.  The first being that they are easily intercepted by enemy forces.  The other main concern is that they are very expensive.  The Silent Arrow takes those two issues out of the picture.

According the YEC website the Silent Arrow “is a tandem-wing,  disposable, guided delivery vehicle developed for the US Special Forces to conduct military resupply and civilian disaster relief missions at less than half the cost of JPADS with  more than 2.5X the standoff capability.  The patented design allows the 28-foot (8.5m), spring-loaded wingspan to be stowed inside the 8-foot (2.4m) fuselage for compact transportation to the theater of operations.”  A sturdy aluminum frame with wood panels makes up the body of the drone.  The wings, tail, and nose come packed inside the body of the drone that then becomes the cargo crate that can carry up to 740kg.  The drone can then be quickly and easily assembled and the crate can be packed for safe delivery.

The Silent Arrow has a higher chance of meeting it’s target because it is a drone, not just a crate with a GPS tracker and parachute.  The drone can fly at lower levels and achieve precise landing in any environment.  As stated by YEC representatives, the Silent Arrow “dramatically improved landing accuracy, zero vertical impact force and with far greater stealth.”

At $15,000-$30,000 a unit the Silent Arrow is a far more financially sound program than JPADS which can run over a million each.  While the silent Arrow is meant for a single use mission, Chip Yates did say, “We have others in the pipeline, including a reusable glider and a reusable electric take-off and landing version.”  After running flight tests since 2017, the Silent Arrow is fully ready to hit the market and already has contracts with the US military, the European Union, Australia, Israel, Brazil, Singapore, South Korea, and India.