Delkia Completes First Phase of Flight Testing for Programme Dragonfly – for Uncrewed Aviation and Advanced Air Mobility Sectors

Delkia launched its Dragonfly and Nest technology programmes in early 2024 to develop safety and mission-critical systems for the uncrewed aviation and advanced air mobility sectors. The Dragonfly programme is focused on the air vehicle development, whilst Nest is advancing the technologies required for trusted operations and mission performance of the uncrewed system. The first experimental aircraft, dubbed Teneral, has now completed its first phase of flight testing in a tri-copter configuration and has exhibited exceptional handling. This marks the first milestone in the Dragonfly programme.

Teneral is Delkia’s experimental air platform. It was designed to be modular and configurable; the front end, tail and wings can all be swapped to create different air vehicle configurations with different properties. It will allow the exploration of different vehicle configurations and flight control solutions as well as trialing Delkia’s Nest technologies.

Pete Hudson, Delkia’s head of Research, Technology & Innovation said: “This is an exciting moment to get our first configuration on the shelf; it’s a great platform and gives us a baseline system that we can rapidly reengineer and evolve to address the needs of the end user. We have already begun to prove the tilt-rotor configuration and very soon we will be adding wings and a tail section to create a hybrid copter/plane. That will give us the foundation to develop and fly a range of VTOL aircraft capable of long range, autonomous operations.”

If you would like to learn more about Delkia’s Dragonfly or Nest programmes, contact innovation@delkia.co.uk