We have long been accustomed to seeing drones used as weapons of war, attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea or hitting some top Houthi targets in Yemen. However, remotely piloted aircraft are much more than that and can offer the perfect solution for saving lives.
It is with this in mind, that the Scovavento company just recently managed to successfully fly a drone 70km across the open sea from Livorno to the island of Capraia, bringing the island’s mayor Lorenzo Renzi a symbolic souvenir medal for the longest flight ever made in Italy by a VTOL drone weighing less than 7 kg.
The video shows the drone’s experimental crossing. It took place thanks operational support from the institutions in charge of controlling the territorial area, in particular, the Coast Guard, which monitored the drone leaving the port of Livorno and arriving in Capraia.
This project, known as Sentinel II, is part of a broader initiative designed to link up all the Tuscan islands with a network of permanently operational drones used for performing micro-monitoring operations and delivering important items, like medicines, capable of taking off and landing in a vertical, autonomous fashion.
The results of the successful flight were presented in Livorno last Friday. The event was attended, among others, by the North Tyrrhenian Port Network Authority’s top management, who had sponsored the initiative, aware of the development potential this new technology has to offer .
Translation by Giles Foster
