BIG PLANE, SMALL PACKAGEI
It sounds like a riddle: How do you fit an entire airplane with a sevenfoot wingspan inside a backpack? If I were to answer that question for myself, it would be something like, “Make sure you don’t miss any pieces after the crash.” However, the enterprising folks at WingXpand (prounounced like “wingspanned”) have an entirely different answer—one that involves still being able to fly the aircraft after you take it out of the backpack.
“This is the world’s only expandable-wing drone,” says James Barbien, the CEO and founder of WingXpand, the start-up that introduced the new platform at the 2022 AUVSI Xponential conference earlier this year in Orlando, Florida.
That’s right: Each of the drone’s wings expand like a nautical telescope, with four individual segments that nest inside one another for transportation and storage but then slide out and lock into place when it is time to fly.
“It’s a powerful, easy to use
