VELARY, an American aviation technology company, will unveil its 4-hour + flight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology during the Commercial UAV Expo Americas. Among other use cases, the aircraft are designed to protect first responders and flight crews confronting increasingly severe wildfires; VELARY's set of fully autonomous, versatile, and scalable solutions are designed to save lives and help Western states more effectively address the now annual 'wildfire season' by assessing and modeling wildfire risk, detecting ignitions early, conducting aerial surveillance for command, and providing logistical support to the fire line.

"Sadly, the ferocity and scale of recent wildfires have become our new normal," said Mihai Rozsa, CEO of VELARY. "To address this challenge, we have been working tirelessly over the past several years at VELARY to develop and bring to market leading edge technologies and applications to protect those on the front line and preserve our environment." He added, "Sustainable, effective, and cost efficient solutions are critically needed in the immediate and near term, which is why VELARY has decided the time is now to present our next-generation aviation solutions to the world during the 2021 Commercial UAV Expo Americas."

By safely integrating into existing airspace, VELARY's scalable, versatile, environmentally conscious UAV solutions will complement and, in some cases, replace costlier helicopters and airplanes. VELARY's hybrid power train design is a sustainable alternative to the aircraft currently used by many municipalities, better protecting marine and terrestrial environments. The UAVs can rapidly adapt to wildfire response scenarios and other use cases, allowing for extended range, autonomy and heavier payloads.

Capabilities of the VELARY platforms include:

- Wildfire surveillance, fuel analysis, prevention, and prescribed burns

- Early detection of ignition, aerial surveillance of fire behavior

- Critical logistical support to the fire line for equipment, hose pulls, supplies

- Eye-in-the-sky, transmitting streaming video and IR imagery to wildfire command

- Dramatically lower fuel consumption as compared to a helicopter

- Reduced noise profile as compared to a helicopter

- All-weather, day or night, urban and rural flight capability

- Extended range and autonomy

- Vertical Take Off and Landing, eliminating the need for runway infrastructure

The two UAV solutions to be presented at the Expo by VELARY, the LIFT 10 and LIFT 25, bring a new standard of sustainability to the market with unsurpassed flight times and payload capacities that are uniquely situated to perform in the public safety UAV space. LIFT 10 is ideally suited to carry out medium-range wildlands and wildfire fuel load analyses. It operates on a flight time of more than four hours and can carry a payload of 10kg (22 lbs.), with the ability to travel up to 150 nautical miles. LIFT 25 can operate for more than five hours, carries a payload of more than 25kg (55 lbs.), and can travel more than 300 nautical miles at a time. In addition, it can search, locate, and rescue and carry out regulated wildland control burn missions by dispensing incendiary capsules in preset patterns from the air.

VELARY is also in discussions with international, federal, state and local authorities, as well as companies who are interested in utilising the LIFT 10 and LIFT 25 platforms with tailored sensor arrays for:

- Detection of nuclear, chemical and biological threats

- Monitoring pipelines and power lines for leaks and faults, respectively

- Aerial geological surveys for the mining industry

- Aerial surveys of high seas and territorial waters to assess dolphin population abundance

- Aerial monitoring of critical infrastructure and border security.