ROBBRIEF
Avidrone's 29 pound single rotor hit 3.84:1 at the August 9 DARPA Lift Challenge in Dayton — just under the 4:1 bar the U.S. defense research agency called aviation's 'four minute mile.'
A 29-pound drone lifted about 111 pounds — roughly 3.84 times its own weight — over a five-mile course at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio on August 9. The drone nearly hit DARPA's 4:1 payload-to-weight goal because of a redesign: Avidrone Aerospace scrapped a tandem-rotor, Chinook-style heavy lifter and rebuilt a purpose-built 29-pound single-rotor aircraft.
DARPA's official statement said the 4:1 bar was not cleared. The agency described the result as showing the benchmark aviation had written off is now "within reach," and called 4:1 heavy-lift aviation's "four-minute mile."
Founder and CEO Scott Gray described the engineering grind behind the score: "We had to lighten everything, to take mass away from every part of the system." The drone had to weigh 55 pounds or less, lift four times its own weight, and fly DARPA's prescribed course accurately or be disqualified.
Avidrone, headquartered in Breslau, Ontario with a U.S. office in Columbia, Maryland, took first place and a $1.25 million prize. The 4:1 bar remains unclaimed, and DARPA's own statement now calls it within reach.