This weekend, a consignment of medical supplies became the first cargo to be carried by drone across the Solent to the Isle of Wight.
The flight was part of an innovative trial to explore how the Windracers ULTRA drone, designed and built by the University of Southampton, can provide a way to transport medical supplies to St Mary’s Hospital from the mainland to support the local response to COVID-19. It will be a back up to the existing delivery routes which currently use the ferry service.
In an operation managed by staff in Engineering, the drone set off from Lee-On-Solent Airfield, landing at Binstead Airfield 13 minutes later where the consignment of specialist insulated cases for carrying pathology samples was unloaded and driven to the hospital. The drone then completed its return flight to the mainland just over an hour later.
The full story is available on the University’s news page and you can see Professor Jim Scanlan from Engineering talk about the project on BBC Breakfast this morning (starts 26:09).
