Natilus is a Californian

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...

developing

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

s to ship air cargo.

Market

Natilus targets an existing $100 billion per year Trans-Pacific airfreight market, growing due to

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managem ...

and as 30% of US companies sales are international. In 2015 it planned to initially operate a fleet of up to five cargo planes with one partner per route and offering the cargo

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

for the first year, saving

operational costs Operating costs or operational costs, are the expenses which are related to the operation of a business, or to the operation of a device, component, piece of equipment or facility. They are the cost of resources used by an organization just to main ...

for

freight forwarder A freight forwarder, or forwarding agent, is a person or company who, for a fee organizes shipments for individuals or corporations to get goods from the manufacturer or producer to a market, customer or final point of distribution.

s and increasing the

profit margin Profit margin is a measure of profitability. It is calculated by finding the profit as a percentage of the revenue. \text = = There are 3 types of profit margins: gross profit margin, operating profit margin and net profit margin. * Gross Pro ...

by 20%. Natilus hopes to build hundreds of the drones, to operate itself under its customer brands or to sell them directly to customers like UPS and FedEx or “medium freight forwarders” like

Whole Foods Whole Foods Market IP, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an upscale American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A US ...

and

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation (Trade name, doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only Big-box store, big-box retail stores (warehouse c ...

. It would cost about one-tenth of a crewed freight aircraft, and transoceanic trips would cost about half as much as standard air freight. Natilus hopes to balance speed with cost, shipping time-sensitive freight that isn’t valuable enough to fly, but is more valuable than much of what sails, like perishable food, basic

electronic components An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial products, available in a singular form and are no ...

vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), ...

s, pharmaceuticals. Bulkier and cheaper goods like crude oil or

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

would still travel slowly but cheaply by sea and

high-end In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast t ...

goods like

sushi is a Japanese dish of prepared , usually with some sugar and salt, accompanied by a variety of , such as seafood, often raw, and vegetables. Styles of sushi and its presentation vary widely, but the one key ingredient is "sushi rice," also ...

-grade fish or

luxury cars A luxury car is a car that provides increased levels of comfort, equipment, amenities, quality, performance, and associated status compared to moderately priced cars. The term is subjective and reflects both the qualities of the car and the ...

would still fly faster for more money.

Freight Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...

is a $15.5 trillion market worldwide.

Aircraft

The craft would carry in

freight container An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...

s and

unit load device A unit load device (ULD) is a container used to load luggage, freight, and mail on wide-body aircraft and specific narrow-body aircraft. It allows preloading of cargo, confidence the containerised load will fit in the aircraft and efficient plann ...

s. It would be towed from a

sea port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

s outside of

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

, mostly at from shorelines, to

takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a ...

within in a

sea state In oceanography, sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the wave height, ...

swell up to . It would fly across the

Pacific ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

in 30 hours at , well below passenger air traffic and would be towed to a sea port after

landing Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...

. Made of

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

and fibreglass composites, its production cost is estimated at $25 million, much lower than

jetliners A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines (passenger jet aircraft). Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly clas ...

due to fewer onboard systems and no pilots, it would be powered by jet engines developed by Pratt & Whitney. The 2020 carbon-fiber full-scale long

turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. ...

drone design is simple without a cockpit,

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

, or

pressurization {{Wiktionary Pressurization or pressurisation is the application of pressure in a given situation or environment. Industrial Industrial equipment is often maintained at pressures above or below atmospheric. Atmospheric This is the process by ...

and would taxi into port remotely controlled at about . Landing gear room is leaved for future use in the wide large drone. Natilus aims to ship from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

in 30h for $130,000 at $3 per gallon of jet fuel, while a Boeing 747 takes 11h for $260,000 and a cargo ship takes 504 hours for $61,000

Development

A wingspan scale model will test the

autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator' ...

and water take-off and landing. In July 2015, it was targeted to fly within 18 months before a full scale aircraft three years later. Natilus raised $750,000 of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

from

Tim Draper Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),

and was incubated at the aviation-oriented Starburst Accelerator in Los Angeles. Natilus hopes to fly its prototype, comparable in size and weight with a

Predator drone The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator (often referred to as the predator drone) is an American remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) built by General Atomics that was used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency ( ...

, between Los Angeles and Hawaii on 30-hour test runs, carrying up to of cargo. The over full-scale drone would be finished by 2020 to be

flight test Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...

ed and certified before commercial flights. A launch customer wants an long cargo with a capacity for 2019, to fly the Los Angeles to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

route, before a long craft with a capacity would fly between the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and China by 2020. About 70% complete in May 2017, the prototype seaplane will lack a landing gear, its maximum gross weight is , its wingspan is and it will cruise at . In August 2017, smaller cargo-drones were envisioned, with large cargo doors and designed for a

dimensional weight Dimensional weight, also known as volumetric weight, is a pricing technique for commercial freight transport (including courier and postal services), which uses an estimated weight that is calculated from the length, width and height of a packag ...

. In November 2017, Natilus closed a second round of

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

from Starburst Ventures, Seraph Group, Gelt VC, Outpost Capital and Draper Associates. Using existing turbofan and turboprop engines, a drone with a retractable landing gear would carry over between local regional

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

s; the payload craft would weight for trans-Pacific routes. The 2-tonne payload freighter would have a

blended wing body A blended wing body (BWB), also known as blended body or hybrid wing body (HWB), is a fixed-wing aircraft having no clear dividing line between the wings and the main body of the craft. The aircraft has distinct wing and body structures, which ar ...

configuration. In December 2017, water-

taxiing Taxiing (rarely spelled taxying) is the movement of an aircraft on the ground, under its own power, in contrast to towing or pushback where the aircraft is moved by a tug. The aircraft usually moves on wheels, but the term also includes aircr ...

of the wide prototype was going to be tested in San Francisco Bay, before flight testing in 2018 and the capable freighter by 2020. In February 2018, the , -span prototype was being prepared for flight from

San Pablo Bay San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water c ...

, north of San Francisco, powered by a single Rotax 912 piston. The next aircraft will be a

(BWB) landplane, providing 30% more volume. The first product will be a small regional freighter powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A with a cargo capacity and a MTOW, to fly in 2020 and to be certified under the FAR Part 23 within 3.5 years from February 2018.

References

External links

* Aircraft manufacturers of the United States American companies established in 2014 2014 establishments in California Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 2014 Aerospace companies of the United States

Market

Aircraft

Development

See also

References

External links