Wingcopter is a German manufacturer of eVTOL, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and provider of drone delivery services. The urban air mobility startup focuses on optimising medical supply chains, as well as last-mile logistics of packages, tools, spare parts, food, and groceries. The 120-strong team is dedicated to improving and saving lives worldwide through meaningful commercial and humanitarian applications. Thanks to its patented tilt-rotor mechanism and software algorithms, the fully electric Wingcopter 198 can take off and land vertically like a multicopter, while flying long distances as efficiently and quickly as a fixed-wing aircraft, even in heavy rain and wind.

Urban Air Transport meets Cargobike for rural deliveries

As part of the pilot project, everyday goods will be flown by Wingcopter from a medium-sized centre to surrounding smaller villages, where they will be delivered to end customers by cargobike. The goal is to deploy groceries and other consumer goods to rural areas and thus improve the local supply of their citizens. The use case is to be evaluated from an economic and environmental point of view and, if successful, a sustainable and easily scalable business model will be developed.
For economic reasons, regional retailers in rural areas in particular are often unable to offer their own delivery service. The service of Wingcopter delivery drones enables retailers to significantly expand their customer catchment area, as the range, speed and payload capabilities of the drones used also enable fast deliveries to more remote rural areas.

Using battery-powered Wingcopters and electric cargo bikes clearly enables emission-free delivery, bringing significant environmental benefits compared to road-based transport.

The planned start of the first flights in the south of Hesse in Germany is in spring 2023. The DroLEx project is the first of its kind in Germany and is funded as part of the "Innovative Air Mobility" funding program. It is scheduled to run for 12 months.