The Spirit UAV, which can carry 6.5 pounds of payload, is designed to fly in rain, snow and winds that ground other drones, according to its maker, Ascent AeroSystems.The country's largest non-military chopper maker by numbers sold is branching into smaller fare.
“We will have a unique value proposition that goes right at what the Replicator program is trying to solve,” said Smith. Ascent makes slim, cylindrical drones propelled by coaxial counter-rotating rotors, a means of propulsion first widely used in Soviet military helicopters. Ascent claims this design results in aircraft that are 75% smaller and 50% lighter than a comparable quadcopter. And because of their smaller size they can fly twice as fast and four times as far, with twice the payload, the company says.
Fuchs claims Ascent has more business that it can’t disclose, but he acknowledged that the company needed a “reset” that forced him to lay off half of his staff in 2023. While Robinson’s deliveries have risen steadily since the pandemic nadir of 177 in 2020, the helicopter market overall has been soft for 15 years. Robinson’s deliveries peaked in 2008 at 806.