Silent Arrow to develop heavy-lift cargo drone in US Air Force deal

Cargo drone transport specialist Silent Arrow is looking to extend the dramatic innovations behind its 2019 heavy-lift GD-2000 transport glider through its new project developing a UAV capable of carrying similarly massive payloads up to 345 miles for the US Air Force.

Silent Arrow says it has been contracted by the Department of the Air Force to create a new CLS-300 variation of its existing heavy-lift glider cargo transporter. The objective is to deliver a motorized UAV capable of hauling 1,000 pounds of freight nearly 10 times the distance of the GD-2000’s 35 nautical mile maximum flight capacity.

The contract has been signed with the Air Force’s AFWERX division, which works with creators of emerging and non-traditional technology to examine their potential military applications, and accelerate their development and deployment. In this case, the assignment for Silent Arrow is to produce the planned “Contested Logistics System, 300 Nautical Miles” drone – CLS-300 for short – as an effective, heavy-lift capacity asset capable of flying up to 300 nautical miles. 

To make the challenge a tad more fun, the brief also calls for the California-based startup to conceive the UAV as sufficiently inexpensive in both design and production for “attributable use” –  that is, affordable enough for hostile situations in which the odds are high it won’t return in one piece, if at all.

To do so, Silent Arrow will build on the chops that have made its GD-2000 heavy-lift drone a success with military, commercial, and humanitarian clients since its 2019 release. 

That glider is launched by airborne legacy cargo aircraft, and relies on its own momentum and aerodynamics to carry up to carry up to 1,500 lbs. of freight a maximum 35 nautical miles. 

The revamped version of that, Silent Arrow says, will extend that range to 350 nautical miles with the addition of what’s only described as an inexpensive yet “innovative propulsion unit and propeller system.” That, the company adds, will permit Air Force operators to either drop the heavy-lift UAV from other cargo craft, or use normal ground takeoff methods from runways and “unimproved surfaces, naval vessels,” and other launch points.

Silent Arrow CEO Chip Yates calls its agreement with the Air Force a new opportunity for the company to build on the innovations that made the GD-2000 drone a heavy-lift bolt from the blue – and one that will eventually benefit non-military enterprise, government disaster response, and humanitarian aid cargo clients as well.

“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,” Yates said. “We’d like to thank the US Air Force, AFWERX, AFRL and our Air Force Customer and end-user organizations for their confidence in awarding this disruptive program.”