Dronamics carries out first test flight of Black Swan cargo drone

Cargo drone firm Dronamics has carried out the first test flight of its full-scale cargo drone and hopes to launch flights later this year.

The Black Swan drone took off from Balchik airport in Bulgaria and flew for just over 10 minutes, covering a distance of 21.5 km.

The aircraft was remotely piloted by two commercial airline pilots from the Dronamics ground control station.

“This significant milestone is the culmination of months of ground testing and subscale flights,” the company said.

Dronamics said the flight validates the company’s licensed cargo drone technology for commercial flights in Europe, which it hopes to begin later this year.

The firm aims to serve industries such as e-commerce, pharma, spare parts and perishables.

The Black Swan has a payload of 350 kg and a capacity of 3.5 cu m, roughly the same size as a minivan. Its range is 2,500 km, which is far enough to cover the whole of Europe.

Konstantin Rangelov, co-founder and chief technology officer of Dronamics, said: “Since the day we first imagined what the Black Swan aircraft could look like, we’ve worked towards this flight. Today we’ve made history and are proud to have demonstrated the validity of our drone technology.”

Svilen Rangelov, co-founder and chief executive of Dronamics, added: “It’s taken an enormous amount of hard work, belief and drive to prove that what we envisioned works. We can now focus on the next step, the roll-out of our commercial operations, and we couldn’t be more excited.”