Elroy Air Chaparral Autonomous Cargo eVTOL  | 2023

Designers: Isaiah Jones, Elroy Air, Inc. South San Francisco, USA
Manufacturer: Elroy Air, Inc., South San Francisco, USA

The Elroy Air Chaparral is an autonomous vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft that can deliver 300lbs of cargo over a 300-mile range. The mission of Elroy Air is to improve the quality of life around the world by democratizing access to rapid logistics. The urgent global need for logistics demands a new transport solution that leapfrogs traditional infrastructure.

The Chaparral can autonomously deposit and retrieve cargo without human contact and without roads or airports. This air vehicle represents the adaptation and maturation of powertrain from hybrid automobiles, sensing from self-driving vehicles, autopilots from consumer multi-rotor control systems, and manufacturing techniques adapted from rapid prototyping and aerospace.

Autonomous air cargo can improve the quality of life globally by increasing access to time-sensitive critical supplies. Hospitals, clinics, businesses, stores, warehouses and communities that are not able to receive critical supplies as frequently as they need. Over 600 million people are negatively impacted by natural disasters each year. Autonomous air cargo technology has the ability to decrease the number of lives lost by providing access to urgent supplies at a moment’s notice to any flat patch of land on the globe.