Canadian drone maker, Drone Delivery Canada’s largest drone yet, the Condor is ready to take to the skies after a second round of testing went smoothly in Quebec last week.

Another addition to the growing list of mid-range drones to the logistics industry – after the 2019 launch of the VoloDrone and the recent landing of the EHang – DDC’s big drone will have space in its belly to carry payloads worth about 180 kilogrammes, and like other mid-range drones, it can fly for up to 200km.

The good news for international logistics companies like Astral Aviation in Kenya – which recently signed a Letter of Intent with DDC to explore drone opportunities in the East African nation – is that the Condor will be available for export too, as a licenced managed service.

The company says it will conduct one further test before unleashing their product on the commercial market, where they hope it will land just in time to help with the fight against COVID-19.

“Commercialisation in support of COVID-19 related activities and also remote area deliveries would commence for 2021 projects once DDC has completed testing, expected in Q4 2020,” said DDC in a statement, adding that the launch will be subject to the necessary acquisition of operators licencing from aviation authorities. “The Company currently has three Condor aircraft, one of which is being prepared for future commercial customer operations.”

In the two tests carried out thus far, the Condor was being tested for triple-redundant communications system (satellite, cellular and Radio Frequency); triple-redundant navigational guidance system; triple-redundant autopilot system; monitoring of unmanned flights remotely from DDC’s Operations Control Centre in Vaughan, Ontario; general flight stability and performance; and fuel consumption characteristics.

All these tests were successful. But the company wants to do more tests before the end of this year; just because three is a charm.

The Company also successfully tested their new offering for multiple unique flying patterns, multiple velocity vectors and altitude profiles, sound pressure levels, engine tuning characteristics, maintenance procedures, logging of flight data, and extended endurance testing in varying environmental conditions.

“We are very pleased with the ongoing successful testing of our Condor delivery drone,” said Michael Zahra, CEO and President at DDC. “We continue to make favourable progress with the Robin XL as well.  The Sparrow, Robin XL and Condor all have unique use-case applications based on range and payload capabilities, and we are excited to have the two additional models coming to market. Robin XL and Condor pre-selling efforts are underway and market response has been very favourable in Canada and internationally, and we are working on a number of specific prospective opportunities for both.”