New Company Mass-Producing Attack Drones for Ukraine

A new company manufacturing kamikaze racing drones for Ukraine has emerged from stealth mode. One Way Aerospace – the name comes from the Pentagon term ‘one way attack drones’ – has founders including an undisclosed British Royal Air Force veteran James Earl, former Australian combat engineer and investor listed on Forbes 30 under 30 Francisco Serra-Martins, and Roman Antonov, former CTO of Dorini and engineer from Ukraine’s Antonov Design Bureau.

The company’s Scalpel attack drones have proved themselves in action and now production is being ramped up.

Small FPV (first person view) racing drones are highly effective weapons. Ukraine used the first improvised version last July, and since then hundreds more have been deployed, small, agile craft powerful enough to carry an anti-tank warhead. Russian sources have previously warned that Ukraine is stockpiling numbers of home-made drones for a major assault. One Way Aerospace are expanding their facilities to accelerate the buildup.

“We are establishing a larger factory to scale to several thousand units monthly in Ukraine with the assistance of local authorities,”

Francisco Serra-Martins told Forbes.

While the US-supplied Javelin guided anti-tank missiles cost almost $200,000 a shot, the basic Scalpel costs around $1,000. And unlike the Javelin, they can be launched from out of sight of the enemy and can circle around to locate targets and attack their weakest spot. Also unlike other weapons, the Scalpel gives the operator a good view of the target as it approaches, so they can wave off and abort the mission, or engage a secondary target. This type of weapon has much less chance of causing ‘friendly fire’ casualties or ‘collateral damage.’

Serra-Martins says the Scalpel is built around an advanced targeting system with cutting-edge sensors and optics, enabling operators to identify and track targets with high accuracy. This includes terminal homing, so the operator does not need to manually track the target all the way, which is especially useful when jamming is encountered. Scalpel is highly maneuverable, so it can engage targets in hard-to-reach places like urban environments.