MightyFly has introduced the third generation of its Cento aircraft, an autonomous hybrid cargo eVTOL designed to carry 100-pounds of cargo for 600 miles.
MightyFly also revealed that the 2024 Cento received the FAA’s Special Airworthiness Certificate and Certificate of Authorization (COA) for an air corridor between Byron and New Jerusalem airports.
The new eVTOL incorporates several novel features, including a sleek design that enables operational efficiency, the ability to accommodate a wide range of payload center of gravity, autonomous center of gravity determination, and a larger cargo bay.
Several technical characteristics of MightyFly’s 2024 Cento include:
- A tandem wing design to enable a large trim of the aircraft center of lift
- The use of structural conductors to reduce weight
- A composite structure to reduce empty weight and increase payload capacity
- A modular design to optimize maintenance
- The use of the canard as landing gear to lower drag and drive efficiency
The new eVTOL will also present improved operational efficiency through MightyFly’s Autonomous Load Mastering System (ALMS), which will enable the aircraft to autonomously open and close its cargo bay door, receive and eject packages, move and secure packages, and sense and compute weight and balance.
“We are very excited to show everyone the tremendous work and ingenuity performed by the MightyFly team throughout the last year and to unveil the 2024 Cento that couples innovation with efficiency in design, maintenance, and operation, bringing to the world the key to transform the expedited logistics market,” said Manal Habib, founder and CEO of MightyFly.
The announcement of MightyFly’s latest FAA approval, which includes a new corridor between Byron and New Jerusalem airports of up to 5000ft in altitude, represents a large achievement for the company as it allows MightyFly to start testing A to B flights and to incorporate its autonomous eVTOL within general aviation. This approval also showcases the maturity of MightyFly’s autonomous aircraft and operations and signals a strong relationship between the company and the FAA.
“How exciting to see the 2024 Cento come to life. A few months ago I saw the team working on its design and starting to manufacture its first parts. The vehicle you see today is a testimony of MightyFly’s talent, creativity, innovation, and decades of industry expertise,” added Tim Draper, MightyFly’s investor and Founding Partner of Draper Associates.
In the fall of 2024, MightyFly will publicly debut its autonomous cargo aircraft delivery flights in Michigan, demonstrating point-to-point autonomous delivery use cases to partners and customers.
The company is also scheduled to demonstrate its autonomous loading, unloading, and balancing of packages to the U.S. Air Force in early 2025 and to perform additional Proof of Concept (POC) programs.
