Silent Arrow to develop long-range cargo drone for US military

Autonomous cargo delivery system Silent Arrow has been awarded a small business innovation research (SBIR) contract by the US Air Force’s AFWERX technology incubator.  

The Silent Arrow CLS-300 (Contested Logistics System, 300NM) is based on the Silent Arrow GD-2000, described as ‘the world’s first heavy payload, autonomous and attritable cargo delivery aircraft’. Operating as a glider, the GD-2000 was designed to carry 1,500lb of cargo over 35NM when deployed from cargo aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin C-130, Boeing C-17 and Airbus A400M.

The new CLS-300, however, can travel nearly 10 times as far thanks to an innovative propulsion unit and propeller system that are inexpensive enough to allow the entire drone to be attritable, or affordably replaced if damaged. In addition to being air droppable, it will be capable of taking off from the ground, including from unimproved surfaces, naval vessels and other launch points.

“We’d like to thank the US Air Force, AFWERX, AFRL [the Air Force Research Laboratory] and our Air Force customer and end user organizations for their confidence in awarding this disruptive program,” said Chip Yates, Silent Arrow’s Founder and CEO. “We are looking forward to a compressed schedule with propulsion tests in the first half of 2024 followed by flight tests in the second half of 2024 so that we may rapidly deliver this critical capability to warfighters operating in harm’s way as well as to humanitarian and disaster relief organizations serving those in need.”

A trade name of California-based Yates Electrospace Corporation, the Silent Arrow product line is capable of carrying up to 2,000 pounds of emergency, disaster relief and humanitarian response supplies, with military and civilian applications including medical supply, firefighting resupply, and use in land and sea rescue operations.