A fleet of UK designed and built heavy lift drones will transport vital supplies between UK Carrier Strike Group ships for the first time during its deployment to the Indo-Pacific this year
Nine all-electric uncrewed quadcopters, produced by Malloy Aeronautics, a BAE Systems entity, will shift supplies such as defence equipment, food and packages from home around the task group throughout its mission.
With a top speed of 60mph and capable of lifting up to 68kg, the Malloy T-150 uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) will be tested as an alternative to the more expensive option of carrying out this work using helicopters, freeing them up to focus on their primary role of protecting the task force.
Neil Appleton, CEO of BAE Systems’ Malloy Aeronautics, said: “It’s an exciting moment to see the Royal Navy deploying with our T-150s as an efficient and cost-effective ship-to-ship resupply logistics solution. We are proud to contribute to this important deployment and look forward to watching these versatile drones prove their worth during operational duties.”
The Royal Navy’s drone specialist 700X Naval Air Squadron (NAS) will embark a team of 12 sailors to operate the nine UAS, initially from three ships in the group to test the capability.
Lieutenant Matt Parfitt, 700X Naval Air Squadron, said: “There is a statistic from previous carrier strike deployments that shows 95 per cent of stores transferred weigh less than 50kg. They could be anything from parcels from home to a vital engineering part. In the past we’d have used a helicopter if a part was urgently needed on another ship. This time we’re going to use a remotely-piloted, uncrewed system instead. This is exactly the sort of thing we joined the navy to do, and certainly why we joined this squadron.”
The T-150 is just one model in a suite of UAS that Malloy Aeronautics has designed and built for both civil and military customers to make ‘last mile’ logistics more cost-effective and efficient. Its range of uncrewed, heavy lift quadcopters are capable of lifting payloads from 68kg to 200kg over short to medium range missions and it is working to increase this to 300kg.
