Helicopter manufacturer unveils transport drone

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — The drone that delivers a package to your doorstep may someday be built by Bell Helicopter.

The Fort Worth-based aviation giant is moving aggressively into the autonomous vehicle business and this week introduced one called APT — short for Automatic Pod Transport — that could be employed by the military or retailers like Amazon.com.

“We think the opportunity for a vehicle like this is now,” said Scott Drennan, Bell’s director of innovation.

Bell’s drone is a “modular, scalable vehicle” that can be adapted to meet a customer’s needs, Drennan said. Depending on the model, it can be small enough to handle loads up to 15 pounds, or big enough to transport 1,000 pounds.

Bell says it can fly farther and faster than many of its competitors.

“Bell can engineer, build, certify, field and maintain these vehicles in ways that some of these newcomers cannot,” Drennan said. “That doesn’t mean we ignore them. Our messaging was around what our core business is.”

There have been plenty of stories about Amazon’s efforts to develop drone technology that can drop off a package at your house.

And while that makes for great conversation, Drennan said there are still plenty of challenges before a drone can safely do that. Clearing up numerous regulatory and safety issues will take time.

Such issues include limited flying time and coordination with other aircraft.

The first application for APT is likely to be military, which has fewer regulatory obstacles to sort out.

Bell officials described a scenario in which a larger autonomous vehicle could deliver up to 1,000 pounds of ammunition to soldiers in a combat situation without risking a flight crew to get it there.