Arabian Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMC) and Sabrewing Aircraft Company have announced that ADMC has ordered 53 of the heavy-lift cargo uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) from Sabrewing.
This September, Sabrewing announced that it had flown its first flight “with a record-breaking 829 pound/374 kg payload – the most for any commercial cargo UAV,” said Ed De Reyes, CEO of Sebrewing. According to De Reyes, the Rhaegal-A has continued to fly and lift heavy payloads as part of its final development program.
ADMC currently has 128 orders for Sabrewing’s Rhaegal-B “Bravo” aircraft, that is capable of lifting 5,400 pounds/2,450 kg vertically and up to 10,000 pounds/4,535 kg conventionally. Both the “Alpha” and “Bravo” models are capable of taking off vertically. They are the only cargo UAV capable of taking off both vertically and conventionally (as a fixed-wing aircraft).
De Reyes continued, “Because we already have the molds, hardware, software and avionics from our first aircraft, we’ve completed the majority of the development work on the Alpha model aircraft. We were looking for a launch customer to start production. ADMC found customers who were interested in buying and leasing the cargo UAV. We had an overwhelming response to our first flight, and interest skyrocketed from day one of the announcement.”
Ayman Zeibak, General Manager of ADMC, noted, “We are the first launch customer for the Bravo aircraft, ordering 128 of Sabrewing’s Rhaegal-B “Bravo” aircraft valued at over EUR768 million. We now have a mix of highly versatile aircraft to lease to our African and Middle Eastern customers.”
Zeibak noted, “The Sabrewing Alpha is just the right size for some of the smaller air cargo companies who don’t have contracts with FedEx, DHL or another major carrier, but have the need to carry 1000 kilos of bulk cargo to remote locations on a regular basis.”
According to the press release, this launch order represents an additional EUR260 million in revenue for Sabrewing, as well as the launch of an additional product line. De Reyes also said that they expect to begin delivering the first Alpha models for type certification testing by the beginning of the third quarter of 2023.
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