A West Texas company says it's found a remarkably simple way to slash air cargo costs as much as 65% – by having planes tow autonomous, cargo-carrying gliders behind them, big enough to double, or potentially triple their payload capacity.
The company has raised about US$11.5 million in seed funding to get things started, and has set a target date of 2025 for "initial availability." It doesn't have any early customers signed up yet, but once it gets custom prototypes benchmarked, the idea of "the speed of air at the cost of ground" could well get freight operations interested, even if these tow-gliders are sure to drop jaws everywhere one takes off or lands.
A West Texas company says it's found a remarkably simple way to slash air cargo costs as much as 65% – by having planes tow autonomous, cargo-carrying gliders behind them, big enough to double, or potentially triple their payload capacity.