Royal Navy embarks heavy lift drones for ship-to-ship resupply logistics

The nine all-electric uncrewed quadcopters produced by BAE Systems entity Malloy Aeronautics will, when appropriate, take on the role of transporting supplies in place of helicopters.

With a top speed of 60mph and capable of lifting up to 68kg, the Malloy T-150 uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) need a team of two, one remote pilot and a second to monitor the drone’s command unit, and can be flown manually or autonomously to designated waypoints with an underslung cargo.

In a statement, Neil Appleton, CEO of 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 one model in a suite of UAS that Malloy Aeronautics has designed and built for 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.