Alpine 4 Technologies Ltd (OTCQB:ALPP) announced today that Vayu, one of its drone subsidiaries, is making a run at the world record for drone flight distance using its autonomous delivery G1 vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
The Vayu team will be heading to Equatorial Guinea in the coming weeks to achieve this accomplishment, the company said. The plan is to fly the G1 aircraft from the port city of Bata to the island of Bioko approximately 128 miles away. For good measure, Vayu then plans to fly the G1 from Bioko Island to Annobon Island, a roughly 364 mile-journey.
The previous longest known drone flight was recorded in 2017 with a fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by a Nevada UAS Consortium and spanned 97 miles.
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"Who doesn't love a world record,” Ian Kantrowitz, a member of Alpine 4's executive leadership team, said in a statement. “Since the Vayu team is already going to be in Equatorial Guinea meeting with the Ministry of Health anyway, we figured we may as well go for a world record."
An application has been filed with the Guinness Book of World Records, the company said, and the Vayu team, lead by CEO Daniel Pepper, is working through the logistics of moving the G1 aircraft internationally.
This isn’t Pepper’s first time in Africa. The CEO and his team previously partnered with USAID in Malawi to help combat Zika by testing payload capacity deliveries to remote areas. The team also partnered with the Stony Brook University Global Health Institute to deliver blood samples and vaccines in Madagascar.
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