French start-up Vaylon hopes to sign up a business partner soon to help fund development and production of a flying dune buggy, an innovative vehicle going through flight trials with the French special operations forces, Chairman Jérôme Dauffy said.
“We are in negotiations, we hope there will be a result in June,” he said.
The need for a stealthy air transport was apparent in an attempted night rescue of a French secret service agent held hostage in Somalia in January 2013. Insurgents heard the French helicopters flying in and were armed and ready to thwart the mission.
France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) procurement office placed a December 2012 order worth €200,000 (US $276,000) to build the prototype, which was delivered in early December 2013.
Vaylon designers see the vehicle filling missions such as reconnaissance, hostage rescue, transport of equipment and air drop.
The company would supply the vehicle, leaving the special forces to decide what equipment to install, Dauffy said.
“One of the options would be to arm later versions of the vehicle with a bigger payload with weapons such as machine guns, 2.75mm rocket, or the light multi-role missile from Thales UK,” said Francis Rodriguez, business development director for Vaylon. That larger payload would be 200 to 300 kilograms.
The prototype carries two seats. The design allows taking out the passenger seat out to allow arms and equipment to be stored for the mission, Dauffy said.
Vaylon pitched the Pegasus concept to the DGA in 2010, he said. As the special forces had a requirement for an all-terrain vehicle, the procurement office agreed to back the project and inject €60,000 to partially fund two years’ development.
The company also raised finance from state-owned Banque Publique d’Investissement and its own funds. Total development cost is undisclosed.
Vaylon hopes to receive further funding for a second phase comprising pre-production and full-scale production in 2015.
Once on the market, the unit price is expected to be €100,000. The company is looking to bring in a partner to help raise funds for work on a second prototype and launch production next year.
Video footage of the special forces flying the combination hang glider-dune buggy, dubbed Pegase, will go on display at the Eurosatory land systems trade show, Dauffy said. The prototype will appear on static display, located between the Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office and the VIP stand at the exhibition.
Pegase enters a key phase at the show as the company opens the order book for military and civilian clients, said Francis Rodriguez, business development director.
This is an early sales exercise and Vaylon hopes to enter the formal sales phase in the second half of 2015, Dauffy said. After the exhibition, the prototype will go back to the air base for a further six months of tests.
Photo: Vaylon
Sources: iHLS; Defense News