埃尔罗伊航空在FAA eVTOL计划下完成首次自主货运飞行

Elroy Air has com­plet­ed a series of autonomous, uncrewed flights under the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP), mark­ing a step toward the wider use of autonomous air­craft for car­go oper­a­tions. The flights were con­duct­ed in late August at Houma-Ter­re­bonne Air­port in Louisiana using Elroy Air’s Chap­ar­ral, a hybrid-elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing air­craft designed to car­ry more than 500 pounds of car­go. The air­craft flew with­out a pilot onboard while oper­at­ing under air traf­fic con­trol over­sight. Dur­ing the week-long test pro­gram, Chap­ar­ral trans­port­ed dif­fer­ent types of car­go, includ­ing pack­ages, med­ical sup­plies, spare parts, food and water. The flights were con­duct­ed in part­ner­ship with LIFTOFF Louisiana and avi­a­tion ser­vices com­pa­ny Bris­tow Group. Elroy Air was select­ed in March 2026 as part of Louisiana’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the eIPP. The fed­er­al pro­gram is intend­ed to pro­vide oper­a­tional data that can help reg­u­la­tors and gov­ern­ment agen­cies deter­mine how advanced air mobil­i­ty air­craft can be inte­grat­ed into the U.S. Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem. The Louisiana flights are par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant because they involved autonomous oper­a­tions from an air­port with sig­nif­i­cant rotor­craft activ­i­ty. Elroy Air said the test­ing is intend­ed to help estab­lish how uncrewed car­go air­craft can oper­ate along­side con­ven­tion­al avi­a­tion. Chap­ar­ral is designed for logis­tics oper­a­tions with­out requir­ing run­ways or oth­er fixed infra­struc­ture. Its hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­train gives the air­craft a stat­ed max­i­mum range of up to 450 miles, mak­ing it intend­ed for longer-dis­tance car­go mis­sions than many small­er elec­tric drones. While the eIPP demon­stra­tions are focused on com­mer­cial logis­tics, the air­craft is also being devel­oped for defense resup­ply and human­i­tar­i­an oper­a­tions. Elroy Air said its com­mer­cial demand pipeline exceeds 1,400 air­craft, although those com­mit­ments remain sub­ject to future pro­duc­tion and oper­a­tional require­ments. The com­pa­ny expects its first pro­duc­tion air­craft to be built in late 2026, with man­u­fac­tur­ing planned at Kratos Defense & Secu­ri­ty Solu­tions’ facil­i­ty in Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia. Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com