The British company’s existing ULTRA aircraft has been tested by a number of government and private services, alongside performing frontline ISR operations for Ukraine.
Windracers have made a growing name for themselves in the field of autonomous logistics aircraft in recent years. Operational testing of the ULTRA has seen the aircraft operate in a variety of roles across multiple climates, including Antarctica.
In 2020 an ULTRA MK1 was used to transport 50 kg of medical supplies from Land’s End Airport, Cornwall, to the Isles of Scilly – an archipelago 45 km off the British coastline – in just 30 minutes. At the other end of the country, on the Orkney Islands, the Royal Mail conducted a two-week trial using the UAV for a scheduled inter-island mail delivery service between Kirkwall and North Ronaldsay – a journey of approximately 52 km. A further 90-day cargo delivery trial commenced in the summer of 2024.
The MK1 was entered into the Royal Navy Heavy Lift Challenge in 2022, and the following year a Royal Navy-liveried example operating from Predannack Airfield conducted several landings and take-offs from Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.
Reminder of an aviation first: Windracers became the first fixed-wing uncrewed self-flying aircraft to successfully take-off and land on the HMS Prince of Wales Carrier in 2023.@RoyalNavy#carrierlanding #aviationfirst #windracers #aviationinnovation #innovation #royalnavy pic.twitter.com/jOU6wcJN7R
— Windracers (@Windracers) June 14, 2024
Bringing double the power output of Windracers’ ULTRA MK1 design, the MK2 offers a payload of 150 kg – a 50% increase – while also managing to improve fuel economy through aerodynamic upgrades. The basic configuration and size of the aircraft, a twin-engine, twin-boom design with a central payload compartment, remains the same, though the MK1’s more traditional tail has been swapped for an inverted V tail. CEO of Windracers Simon Thompson claims “In ULTRA MK2, we have halved our operational fuel cost per kilogram and we will find even more efficiency in the future for our customers.”.
Keeping to the fundamentals of the MK1 was a key recommendation from existing users, according to Thompson, who spoke at the aircraft’s launch event on Jan. 17, 2025, suggesting a high level of satisfaction with the airframe’s performance and operability. Along with performance upgrades, the MK2 incorporates ease-of-use features including a USB interface for software communication, and an improved two-person field-assembly process.
The MK2 retains the MK1’s impressive short take-off and landing (STOL) and unprepared airstrip capabilities, able to operate from grass, dirt, and gravel, as well as traditional paved surfaces. An endurance of seven hours can be increased to nine hours with an optional extra fuel tank, boosting the aircraft’s range to around 1000 km. The aircraft can cruise at 77 knots and operate to a service ceiling of 13,000 feet.
As standard, the aircraft is equipped with a single high-definition streaming camera, connected to a low-latency satellite communications (SATCOM) system. According to customer specifications additional cameras and communications equipment can be fitted.
A cargo airdrop capability can be added via three drop doors, allowing a payload to be parachuted to the ground in locations where even a STOL landing is not possible. The payload bay can also be fitted with survey and sensor equipment for scientific applications, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) use.
Initial customer Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE) will take delivery of the first production MK2 aircraft in March 2025 after placing orders for ULTRA in September 2024. The aircraft will be used in a scientific survey role supporting Norwegian research operations in Antarctica.
Launch customers for ULTRA Mk2 drone will be Norway’s NORCE who will use for Antarctic research – and Aviation Sans Frontiers who will use it for humanitarian aid. First delivery of Mk2 to NORCE in March. #avgeek https://t.co/XxGsZpoGyk pic.twitter.com/XAkHyJxp86
— Tim Robinson (@RAeSTimR) January 17, 2025
More from The Aviationist
Follow-up customer Aviation Sans Frontières, also known as Aviation Without Borders, will use ULTRA MK2 to deliver aid and medical supplies in Africa under a new ‘ULTRA as a service’ offering from Windracers. This option, over simply buying the airframes and associated support services, instead sees Windracers themselves commissioned to perform the required mission on behalf of the customer.
Windracers’ goal is to increase production capacity to a point where one ULTRA airframe is able to be produced every day at their facility in Fareham, near Southampton, UK. Simon Thompson believes that Windracers’ “obsession” with providing low-cost solutions will be key to their hopeful market success. He says that the principle development of the MK2 took only six months to complete.
Ukraine
Procured as part of military aid supplied by the UK, Ukraine has been operating the ULTRA MK1 in both the resupply and ISR roles since 2023. The total number of aircraft supplied to Ukraine is unknown.
Aviation Week reports that the ULTRA’s role in Ukraine was discussed by Windracers executives at the MK2 launch event. Windracers founder Stephen Wright compared the ULTRA’s intelligence gathering role to being like a mini RC-135 Rivet Joint. Although the capability of a small, uncrewed platform operating at low to medium altitude could not match the ISR prowess of an RC-135 operating at height with an RF horizon of several hundred miles, it nonetheless provides Ukraine with an otherwise inaccessible airborne intelligence capability without direct risk to human operators.
Technological developments in recent years have allowed many aspects of signals-gathering hardware to be made much, much smaller, using even commercially available components. This has, in part, been one of the catalysts for the rapid development and proliferation of homebrew aircraft tracking equipment. ULTRA MK1’s 100 kg maximum payload can easily accommodate a not-insignificant amount of electronic intelligence (ELINT) sensors which can gather important intelligence about Russian radar and electronic warfare equipment and tactics on the frontlines.
Reportedly, the ULTRA aircraft provided to Ukraine have some degree of capability operating in areas affected by GPS jamming.
Firefighting
With the recent fires in southern California, the topic of aerial firefighting has become the subject of headline news. Current techniques use a variety of fixed wing and rotary wing types, often requiring intense and dangerous low-level maneuvers that place crews at high risk. Crashes of firefighting aircraft are not uncommon due to the lack of room for error in these operations and the high stresses both on airframes and their operators.
In 2024, Lancashire Fire and Rescue service became the first known organisation to evaluate the ULTRA MK1 for firefighting purposes. The capability to use the aircraft for fire detection, monitoring, and suppression, has been envisioned by Windracers for a number of years. The company believes swarms of ULTRA drones would be able to effectively monitor areas spanning across areas as large as California or Greece allowing earlier detection and suppression of wildfires.
Artificial intelligence experts from the University of Bristol and University of Sheffield joined the trial and provided sophisticated swarm and optical recognition software which allowed one ULTRA to operate with three smaller UAVs to use thermal and conventional imagery to detect a number of controlled fires. All of this can be accomplished entirely autonomously, even as far as deploying retardant on a detected fire and then returning to base to resupply.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service developed an interest in the technology after facing several large wildfires, including one in 2018 which covered 18 square kilometres and burned for 41 days. Moorland close to Predannack Airfield, where the trial was carried out, is coincidentally also notable for wildfires. 2022 saw the number of wildfires in the UK rise by 72% compared to the previous year, with over 44,000 recorded.
Out of the five ULTRA aircraft that have been registered to Windracers Ltd according to the Civilian Aviation Authority (CAA), four remain registered to the company. A fifth aircraft, G-WNDA, was de-registered in April 2024 to be transferred to the United States aircraft register. However, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records show that this airframe, notionally assigned the registration N269QP, was removed from the register in May 2024 and the registration placed on hold.
Many of the trials undertaken by ULTRA aircraft have utilised these Windracers Ltd airframes, but due to the unclear number of airframes supplied to Ukraine it is difficult to ascertain how many ULTRA airframes have been produced.
