Wayfarer Aircraft

Military logistics depends on runways, and runways are exactly what an adversary attacks first. Wayfarer builds Waylift, a patented, stowable electric blown-wing system that retrofits in-service aircraft to take off and land in up to 80 percent less distance without giving up payload, speed or range.

Troops need supplies where they are, not where the runway is, and the aircraft that can reach a short strip today are either slow, short-ranged, one-way or very expensive. The alternative of designing a clean-sheet aircraft takes a decade. Thousands of proven airframes are already flying; what they lack is a way to use a field the length of a football pitch.

Waylift is a distributed electric propulsion blown-wing system that deploys for takeoff and landing and then stows into the wing for efficient cruise, so the aircraft keeps its speed, range and payload. Wayfarer has taken it from wind-tunnel work to a flight-proven demonstrator on NASA and NSF funding, holds the patent, and sells the modification kit to defence primes for integration into aircraft the government already buys. The founder has developed five clean-sheet aircraft and is a commercial pilot.