Windracers
Windracers, an Oxford company founded in 2017, builds ULTRA, an autonomous cargo aircraft for remote and difficult locations.
With 51 to 200 staff and a 15 million US dollar Series A, it designs ULTRA to carry large payloads without a crew. Its performance and AI claims have not been verified, and no customers are named.
No verified deployments yet
Windracers is profiled in the companies register, but no deployment has been verified against published evidence. Records are added as evidence is reviewed and graded.
Products & Solutions
1 productWindracers ULTRA Autonomous Aircraft
Windracers ULTRA is a twin-engine, fixed-wing, heavy-lift autonomous cargo drone designed for long-range middle-mile logistics, defence, humanitarian aid, and scientific research missions. It operates without a remote pilot, using a proprietary autopilot system and mission control software.
Eliminates the need for crewed aviation in remote, hostile, or infrastructure-poor environments where conventional air cargo is too expensive, unreliable, or operationally risky. Provides cost-effective, autonomous middle-mile cargo and aid delivery to islands, polar regions, conflict zones, and disaster areas where road and sea transport fail.
- Fully autonomous flight, takes off, flies, and lands without a remote pilot
- Day, night, and fog operation capability
- Short take-off and landing (STOL), runway requirement as short as 150-230 m
- Precision landings on uneven surfaces including ice and snow
8 more features
- Three-bay drop system for parachute aid delivery without landing
- 700 L cargo hold capacity
- Dual Hirth F23 50 hp engines providing twin-engine reliability (ULTRA MK2)
- Fully aluminium construction for field repair and maintenance
- Detect, drop, and deliver multi-mission capability
- Zero Single Point of Failure distributed architecture in autopilot
- Operational in segregated and non-segregated airspace (with appropriate approvals)
- ULTRA as a Service and ULTRA Direct service delivery models
Technical specifications (10)
- Range: 2,000 km (ULTRA MK2) / up to 1,000 km (original ULTRA)
- Payload (useful load): over 150 kg (ULTRA MK2 target: 200 kg)
- Maximum takeoff weight (MTOW): 670 kg (ULTRA MK2, per AIN Online January 2026)
- Max endurance: 15 hours
- Service ceiling: 5,000 m
- Take-off distance: 150-230 m
- Wingspan: approximately 10 m (over 9 m per ULTRA MK2 spec sheet)
- Cargo hold: 700 L
- Engines: Two Hirth F23 50 hp engines (ULTRA MK2); two-stroke, petrol/oil fuel mixture
- Design: Fixed-wing, twin-boom, twin-engine
- BARS Green status, Basic Aviation Risk Standard, Flight Safety Foundation (first heavy-lift drone operator in the world; registered through October 2026; announced March 9, 2026)
- UK CAA BVLOS approval, multiple authorisations for beyond visual line of sight operations in UK airspace including Orkney and Shetland
- UK CAA and Luftfartstilsynet (Civil Aviation Authority Norway) joint approval, UK's first civil UAS international BVLOS operation, Tingwall Airport (Shetland) to Haugesund Airport (Norway), approved September 26, 2025
- US FAA operational approval, flights approved in the United States (UAF Alaska, Purdue University Indiana)
- Malawi Civil Aviation Authority approval, operational base at Kasungu Airfield, Malawi (2025)
- UK CAA BVLOS Sandbox participation, selected as one of six projects (August 2024)
- UK CAA and Royal Navy authorisations for carrier landing trials, first unpiloted aircraft to land on HMS Prince of Wales at sea (September 2023)
Ultra MK2
Register notes
Notes held in the Aerostack register. Aerostack has not independently verified them.
Windracers holds a UK MoD contract for logistics UAV operations.
Profile data from the Aerostack companies register; deployment records from the verified register. Evidence grades: T1 first-party confirmation, T2 credible reporting. See Our approach for how records are graded.