WaveAerospace participated this month in Project Convergence at Fort Irwin, California, an annual two-month exhibition for the U.S.
Army to showcase emerging technologies and capabilities.
In the California desert, WaveAerospace demonstrated its Mule drone, a table-size quadcopter with angled surfaces reminiscent of a stealth fighter jet, which the company is promoting for surveillance and cargo missions.It doesnt look like anything theyve seen,said Mark Strauss of WaveAerospace, based in Stratford, Connecticut.Mark Strauss, co-founder of WaveAerospace, talks about the business in Stratford, Conn., Friday, March 28, 2025.
Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut MediaStrauss co-founded WaveAerospace 10 years ago with Steve Bofill, who worked on the MQ-1 Predator drone at General Atomics before doing a stint at Sikorsky based in Stratford.
Bofill is a co-founder of Vengo Labs, which won funding in a pitch on ABCs Shark Tank to develop a digital vending machine.In a hangar at Igor I.
Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, WaveAerospace has a production line of smaller Falcon II LE drones under assembly, designed for overhead surveillance or to deliver light loads in winds up to 69 mph.
And slung into a test rig is a third drone under development Huntress, a large quadcopter with booms extending nearly 15 feet in diameter from a core, jet-turbine engine.
The drone is designed to fly 300 mph, hover, and turn on a dime.WaveAerospaces core premise is to build drones to fly in weather that others cannot.
That could be heavy winds, precipitation or even icing conditions by redistributing waste heat produced by onboard systems onto flight surfaces to counter freezing air flow.There are a ton of good, small-drone manufacturers out there but when I say good, I mean if its a sunny day and theres not that much wind, they work great, Strauss said.
But the best and most valuable times, in my opinion, to be using these small aircraft are when conditions are terrible.That was the case two years ago duringthe deadlycrash of an airplane losing oil pressure, whose pilot was attempting to make it to Westchester County Airport.
With bad weather keeping a search helicopter and other drones grounded, WaveAerospaces Falcon drone was deployed to perform aerial scans of the area around the airport to find the downed plane.While Strauss and Bofill hope to interest emergency responders in its drones, the start-up business sees the military as the best bet to generate early revenue.
The U.S.
House of Representatives approved funding last year to create a U.S.
Army drone corps, but the measure was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the U.S.
Senate.If the Department of Defense or NATO show any interest in purchasing WaveAerospace drones, Strauss estimated the company would require about 100,000 square feet of space to house a headquarters production plant.
Employing about 15 people today, WaveAerospace has built more than 50 drone prototypes on $4 million in initial funding, Strauss said.The larger Mule was one of several drones from a number of manufacturersexhibited in March at Project Convergence in California.Next up for WaveAerospace is Huntress, the muscle drone that is slated for flight tests this spring.Huntress is designed to get to places in a hurry, and can shut off the loud, jet-turbine engine while still out of earshot, then fly closer on its comparatively quiet, battery-power quadcopter rotors for surveillance or landing.
Strauss and Bofill derived the name from the 2016 documentary The Eagle Huntress, chronicling a Mongolian girl who won a falconry-style competition for handlers of trained golden eagles.Its capable of ultra-high-speed flight, and its capable of stopping and sitting dead still, Strauss said.Its designed so that when you see it on radar, you cant readily identify it.
That causes problems and it may only cause them for a minute or two, but thats all we need.
Escape or approach were already gone by the time [a combatant] knows to shoot at it.Velocity counts in the world of emergency response as well, Strauss said, not just in the context of pushing through high winds but also for search-and-rescue scenarios when the clock is ticking, and drone pilots need to cover large areas to locate anyone needing help.Steve Bofill, co-founder of WaveAerospace, talks about the business in Stratford, Conn., Friday, March 28, 2025.
Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut MediaDespite Connecticuts aviation heritage through Sikorsky, United Technologies and Kaman, the state has not seen many homegrown drone developers.
Bloomfield-based Kaman has a contract to produce a cargo rotor drone for the U.S.
Marine Corps, while Sikorsky is developing what it calls a blown-wing drone that it has test-flown this year.
In Groton, ThayerMahan is developing semiautonomous sea drones for underwater surveillance.Not lost on WaveAerospace employees, according to Bofill, is the companys location not far from where Igor Sikorsky built his namesake company and the possibility that one day a WaveAerospace drone might help save peoples lives, like so manySikorsky helicopter crews have done over the decades.Thats the hope, doing something we can be proud of, Bofill said.
They didnt believe in [Sikorsky] either, when he tried it.Top Photo: Mark Strauss, WaveAerospace co-founder, talks about the Falcon drone the company produces in Stratford, Conn., Friday, March 28, 2025.
Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut MediaSource: CT Insider