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Aerospace Defence Security

SnapShot achieves test flight milestone

UK start-up, FlareBright Ltd, has achieved the significant milestone of 500 Test Flights of its new image capture drone, SnapShot.


SnapShot can take high‐quality aerial images in most weather and atmospheric conditions, with its hand‐portable and extremely robust equipment. It has a unique method of launch and flight. It is ballistically launched to a height of 100 metres then uses sophisticated and patent pending software to control a glide path and home to the user. The advantages of this are that it can fly in almost any weather or atmospheric conditions, and it isn’t affected by other electromagnetic signals.

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Customer interest has been shown from law enforcement, the emergency services, industrial inspection companies, urban mapping and the defence sector.

Its development pathway involves numerous additional flights and grant funding for further wind tunnel, propulsion and manufacturing development with a first customer‐ready aircraft scheduled for delivery in late 2020.

The 500 test flights have taken 18 months. During the test flight programme there has been extensive learning of SnapShot’s performance and flight characteristics culminating in a highly predictable flight path in most weather conditions.

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“The long and challenging journey from our first flight to regular and successful test flights has been exciting to watch. We’re looking forward to showing off SnapShot to our potential customers in the  very near future. We’re looking forward to Customer‐led prototype demonstrations by the end of this year.” says FlareBright’s CEO, Kelvin Hamilton.

The test flight programme continues.

FlareBright is a UK OEM of micro‐drones with specialist expertise in their software, control systems and electronics. It is a UK company founded by a team of successful entrepreneurs and engineers. Its key product, SnapShot, is an all‐weather instant image capture drone used by defence, the emergency services and for industrial uses. Chris Daniels, Chief Commercial Officer, FlareBright Ltd, will be highlighting the capabilities of the company's drone capabilities
at the Paris Air Show (18th-19th June).

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