U.S. Army Rangers evaluate drone-launching mothership

Petrel Technologies says the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment is evaluating its AERO Sky drone in a live-fire mothership role, with the aircraft shown carrying externally mounted strike drones during the exercise.

The company described the work in a post captioned “Golden hour. Live fire. Mothership operations with 75th Ranger Regiment, U.S. Army.” Petrel said the AERO Sky also functioned as an airborne relay node during the exercise, keeping command-and-control links active for units operating beyond direct line of sight.

According to the company, the system requires a single operator, can launch within minutes, integrates with the Android Team Awareness Kit mapping software used across the military, and can route communications across mesh networks, satellite links and LTE cellular connections depending on what’s available in the field. Petrel’s post did not specify how many strike drones the aircraft carried during this exercise or confirm whether any were released against a target.

This is the second publicly disclosed Army evaluation of the AERO Sky this year. The Defence Blog reported in April that Petrel had validated the aircraft alongside the 101st Airborne Division during a live-fire exercise at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, where the drone deployed armed first-person-view attack drones directly from the air. The newly disclosed work with the 75th Ranger Regiment appears to combine that same strike-mothership configuration, carrying FPV drones as payload, with the aircraft’s communications relay function, two of three mission sets, alongside logistics, that Petrel has said the aircraft is designed to handle.

The AERO Sky is a Group 3 unmanned aircraft, a category covering drones larger than small quadcopters but still light enough to be moved and operated without heavy support equipment. The aircraft has an 11-foot wingspan, a maximum takeoff weight of roughly 100 pounds, and a payload capacity between 30 and 50 pounds, depending on configuration, with six to eight hours of endurance. It combines vertical takeoff and landing with fixed-wing flight, letting it launch without a runway while still flying efficiently enough for extended missions. Petrel builds the airframe from a blend of carbon fiber and balsa wood, materials the company has said keep the unit cost around $90,000 and allow the aircraft to be assembled in about four minutes.

Petrel Technologies was founded by CEO Jacob Stonecipher and Chief Operating Officer Chris Rothe, a former Green Beret. The company originally operated under the name Sustainable Skylines, building drones to tow advertising banners over Miami Beach, before the founders pivoted the business toward military applications and emerged from stealth in February.