For years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has utilized expensive and limited-range helicopters for overseas special operations and rescue missions. The Trike Industries team has identified the need for a long range, high speed, hyper short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft to support the DoD End Users in intense and time-demanding missions abroad. Specifically, Trike will engineer DracoX, a superior alternative to the use of expensive helicopters as transportation in overseas special operations and rescue missions. The Trike Industries LLC objective is to modify a commercially available airframe with technology previously developed by Mike Patey for the world record-holding Draco and implement improvements to modify Draco into a militarized version known as DracoX, a HyperSTOL aircraft. Draco is the worlds first four-person jet turbine-powered aircraft to demonstrate hyper short take-off and landing (STOL) capabilities. DracoX will be capable of serving as a helicopter/transportation alternative supporting the Department of Defense (DoD) in overseas long-range (1,000 miles) special operations and rescue missions. Since helicopters have speed and range limitations, there is a need for an alternative to allow for missions that helicopters cannot get to. Since Patey has already developed the initial technology in 2017/2018, the End User will not have to spend millions in the research & development and proof of concept in engineering an aircraft that closely resembles the capabilities of Draco. In summary, the Phase II program will demonstrate that there is a need for an alternative to helicopters in support of a variety of special operations and rescue missions, which in turn will save 100s of millions to billions of dollars over the next 10-20 years for the fielding of a more traditional solution.
