Malloy's Large Electric UAV Could Find New Civil Applications

Electric-powered UAV specialist Malloy Aeronautics has teamed with BAE Systems to offer a heavy-lift VTOL vehicle for military, security, and commercial use. A full-scale model of the T-650 Heavy-Lift Electric UAS was shown at September’s Defence and Security Equipment International show in London. It carried a torpedo, but the T-650 has a variety of applications, according to the partners. They include automated logistics and resupply, surveillance, maritime search and rescue, and casualty evacuation.

The four-rotor machine will weigh 650 kg (1,430 pounds), can carry a payload of 300 kg (600 pounds) for up to 30 km (19 miles), and has a maximum speed of 140 km/h. Malloy will deliver a testbed to BAE Systems in the second half of 2022 for flight trials at Warton airfield in the northwest of England.

Malloy already offers a family of vehicles with payloads of 30 to 180 kg, according to Oriol Banda, its CEO. “We are pushing the boundaries of all-electric vehicles,” he said, claiming that the T-650 will have the highest-energy-density batteries in its class of UAV.   

Company founder Peter Malloy started by producing a hoverbike in Australia in 2006. Malloy Aeronautics was launched there in 2009. A British company was created three years later and the UK is now the headquarters for the group.

Malloy has already sold electric VTOLs to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, which use them for ship-to-shore deliveries. In demonstration flights with the UK Royal Navy, a Malloy drone identified casualties in the water, dropped a raft to them, and hovered until they were rescued.