26 Across land and sea, industry is crying out for ever-safer and more efficient heavy-lifting capabilities. UAVs represent the promise of highly flexible and cost-effective logistics: an uncrewed heavy lifter for picking up anything and placing it anywhere. However, the most prolific UAVs are still too costly to convince many parties to make the switch away from crewed helicopters. The ambition to create something as capable as crewed helicopters, but safer and less costly, was what drove the founding of ACC Innovation. The company is a direct subsidiary of ACC Group, headquartered in Åtvidaberg in Sweden, roughly 2.5 hours from Stockholm, and close to the Swedish aeronautical capital of Linköping. The group was founded in the early 21st century by Claes Drougge and his wife, and it includes Ocean Modules Sweden AB, Drougge’s ROV development and manufacturing company, which has operated for 24 years and continues to sell ROVs – currently more than 300 around the world. Today, Claes has leveraged his previous experience as chairman of UAV helicopter company CybAero to enable ACC Innovation to fulfil the market gap for cost-effective, certifiable, autonomous heavy-lifting aircraft. With him as CEO (and son Max as CTO) of ACC Innovation, the Swedish company is poised for series production of its flagship product, the Thunder Wasp GT (Gas Turbine). The Thunder Wasp GT is a quadrotor with an 800 kg MTOW, or an empty weight of 375 kg. Across the spare 425 kg, up to 248 kg of fuel may be stored, which gives just under four hours of flight time when the remaining 177 kg is taken by payload weight. Alternatively, if looking to maximise payload weight in a single trip, one may place up to 400 kg of payload onboard and get roughly 20 minutes of flight time. Most unusually, the quadrotor does not fly on electric lift motors. Its gas turboshaft engine drives its four rotors via a transmission, with each rotor also One Swedish company is poised for series production of its flagship quadrotor, which uses a gas turbine to lift weighty payloads, as Rory Jackson reports Frost giant December/January 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The Thunder Wasp GT is an 800 kg MTOW quadcopter, designed and tested to lift payloads up to 400 kg (Images courtesy of ACC Innovation except where stated otherwise)
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