Leading Lytes: Kookiejar and Lyte Aviation to explore launch of cargo delivery service
Lyte Aviation is partnering with Swedish drone and vertiport infrastructure specialist Kookiejar to explore development of a heavy payload cargo delivery service.
Initially targeting regions of Scandinavia where Kookiejar is already active, Lyte will make use of its SkyTruck — the 4.5ton payload carrying cargo variant of its 40-seater eVTOL LA-44 SkyBus. Kookiejar employs a modular approach to building vertiports, inspired by the Swedish IKEA concept, which enables the use of existing infrastructure in combination with new construction making for a relatively inexpensive and flexible solution.
Freshta Farzam, Lyte Aviation founder and CEO, told Revolution.Aero: “KookieJar has an interesting approach that aligns with our and our customer’s vision: scalable and modular vertiport networks, whereas KookieJar provides 20 vertiports at the cost of one conventional vertiport. And these criteria are extremely interesting, especially for cargo and the logistics sector.
“Imagine reducing cargo delivery times from nine hours on the road via truck to three hours via SkyTruck in the air. For door to door cargo deliveries, KookieJar is the ideal solution for our SkyTruck. As we are the frontrunners now in heavy payload, point-to-point, delivery of passengers and goods, we are partnering up only with the prime infrastructure solutions on the market,” added Farzam.
The LA-44 SkyBus and complementary LA-44C SkyTruck are the accumulation of three years’ research and development. The SkyBus offers a range of 620 miles (1,000 km) with a max speed of 190 mph (300kph). The aircraft features a tandem tilt-wing design, with a full-scale prototype due to be ready for flight testing within 24 months, and serial production within 5-6 years.
Michael Pettersson, CEO Kookiejar, added: “With Lyte Aviation, we get a partner to develop our infrastructure for heavy-weight drone freight transport with long range. There is a growing demand for delivery of larger items and goods, and through this cooperation we can improve efficiency and reduce delivery costs.”
Followers of Lyte’s growth will know that much of the attention thus far has focused on the SkyBus. It is the only 40-seater eVTOL concept in the sector.
Farzam explained: “True, it hasn’t been the centre of attention in previous announcements but backstage, we have been also laying the groundworks this year with logistics companies and drones for our SkyTruck. This announcement is indeed the first one focusing on the game-changing power of our SkyTruck in close collaboration with KookieJar’s quickly implementable vertiports and vertistops in order to disrupt cargo deliveries.”
After a non-stop year things are due to get busier as 2024 rolls on, according to Lyte’s founder. “It feels unbelievable that we have spread our 40seater eVTOL in over 19 cities worldwide on four continents, Europe, Africa, Asia and the US within only nine months this year since our first announcement in March,” said Farzam. “Most of it, we haven’t even announced as they are at early stages.” But next year, in 2024, expanding our team with new great minds, working on our prototype, establishing more partnerships and closing further pre-orders is on our agenda.”
