At the Special Operations Forces Innovation Network Seminar (SOFINS) in Bordeaux (France), Survey Copter, an Airbus Defence and Space subsidiary pioneering the light tactical drone systems, presents a new version of its Aliaca drone in VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Landing) configuration.
Survey Copter press release
Several demonstration flights have already been successfully carried out in land and sea environments between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025. This new version completes the Aliaca range and is already available for sale to potential customers.
“Aimed at also meeting the requirements of land operations, this new configuration will benefit from the experience gained on the Aliaca and in particular from its reliability and robustness, which have been successfully proven at sea during numerous exercises and operations of the French Navy.”
Christophe Canguilhem, CEO of Survey Copter
In VTOL configuration, the drone is equipped with four propellers enabling vertical take-off and landing while maintaining its fixed-wing propulsion mode during the mission. It has a maximum take-off weight of 27 kg and a wingspan of 3.5 m and length of 2.1 m.
The VTOL configuration is suitable for missions that require manoeuvrability in order to operate in confined spaces with no ground infrastructure. It also meets the need for flexibility for rapid interventions. The drone system is robust and easy to maintain, can be dismantled and transported in light vehicles such as pick-ups, and is quick and easy to deploy day or night with a low acoustic and visual footprint.
Building on its success with the French Navy, the Aliaca VTOL will be able to carry out various types of demanding missions. On land, the aircraft can support special operations, tactical situation management through surveillance and reconnaissance, but also the transport of loads, without the need for launch-recovery equipment or infrastructure.
Like the Aliaca in fixed wing configuration, this new VTOL configuration comes in 2 versions: one with an electric motor (Aliaca VTOL Evo) with a 3-hour autonomy for a range of 50km and a payload capacity of 2kg; and a thermal version (Aliaca VTOL ER) with a hybrid engine for 6 hours of endurance, a range of 80km and a payload capacity of 3kg.
The VTOL configuration retains the strengths of the Aliaca range: its avionics, its proven and robust data link, its control segment, its energy kit, its flight termination system and its GX5 camera designed and produced at Survey Copter.
This GX5 camera is a high-performance gyrostabilised electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera. For naval applications, the drone also carries an AIS (Automatic Identification System) for detecting ships within a range of several hundred kilometres. This dual-sensor configuration enables it to carry out intelligence and target tracking missions. But the Aliaca is also capable of carrying other payloads.
Identical for all products in the Aliaca range, the ground station has also been developed by Survey Copter. Easy to use and equipped with an automatic pilot mode, it allows the operator to monitor the automatic flight of the drone at all times, while receiving images and AIS data collected by the on-board sensors in real time, day or night.
After being certified and qualified by the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA) as part of the SMDM (Marine Mini Airborne Drone Systems) contract, the fixed-wing version of Aliaca was deployed on around twenty French Navy ships from 2022 onwards.
-End-
Naval News comments:
In a recent interview, Captain Johann Eidesheim – head of the Naval Air Office in the Naval Staff’s Plans and Programmes team, told Nava News:
“What we are doing is looking at the new VTOL Aliaca, [which is] more or less the same platform. However, the employment of the VTOL [variant] is easier because we do not need a catapult and we do not need a net to recover the UAV. We just need a ship …. That’s the main difference.”
The new VTOL Aliaca would allow smaller French Navy ships (such as the Flamant-class patrol vessels or the Confiance-class OPVs) to operate UAVs.
The SMDM calls for the delivery of 34 Aliaca systems to the French Navy. To date, Survey Copter has delivered 24 of them. Naval News understands some of the UAVs yet to be delivered may be in the new VTOL variant, pending discussions with the Navy. A Survey Copter representative talking to Naval News at SOFINS 2025 said that a retrofit of in-service Aliacas to the VTOL variant is technically possible.
The VTOL Aliaca comes in two versions: Full electric or hybrid (electric and piston engine). The hybrid version features a MTOW of 25 Kg, a payload capacity of 3 Kg, an endurance of 6 hours and datalink capability of 80 Km (43 nautical miles).
