These days, the mention of a “drone” might bring to mind the small, buzzy cameras that hover high in the air, capturing images and footage of the world below.
Manal Habib, the San Leandro-based founder of aviation startup MightyFly, thinks about autonomous aircrafts with a broader imagination. And she hopes her eventual customers do, too.
The company is working to patent its latest generation of drones that are “three cars wide, one car long,” with the capacity to transport bulk cargo up to 600 miles — roughly 12 times further than their tiny counterparts.
In January, MightyFly received the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval to test flights in a roughly 20-mile corridor between the New Jerusalem Airport in Tracy and Byron Airport in east Contra Costa County.
The latest product, a third-generation drone named the 2024 Cento, is the one MightyFly plan to take to market, providing delivery services to manufacturers, retailers, health care providers and the U.S. Air Force. The company says its hybrid-powered drones produce far fewer carbon emissions than traditional shipping trucks.
Habib, whose curiosity was sparked as a three-year-old birdwatching in Morocco, always had sky-high ambitions that have taken her to great distances.
They first led her to the U.S. on a scholarship for Middle Eastern and North African students, before moving here for good to study at MIT and then Stanford. A former NASA intern, Habib worked for a series of aviation companies ahead of founding MightyFly.
“Once you think in 3-D, there are so many ways you can improve life,” she said.
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did you arrive at the idea of drones that were so large? How come no one had figured out how to increase their size so dramatically before?
A: Well, there are way too many use cases for (existing) drones. There’s firefighting, moving goods, surveillance. I worked for a company that shipped blood to Rwanda — it was great to see the drones perform and have impact saving people’s lives. I loved seeing the impact this technology, even at a small size, can create.
However, I also saw some of the limitations: Drones can carry a couple pounds, and their range is usually 50 miles. We needed something that offered 10X improvements. When you go from 50 miles to 600 miles, your limits are everywhere.
In the beginning, when this technology was so new, there were so many aspects of drones to explore — regulatory, hardware; it’s not smart to take all the challenges at once. You want to take one at a time, so it made sense to start small.
Once we figured out the autonomy at the small scale and figured out the regulatory end as well, then it’s time to scale up and take these niche operations into a gigantic impact. We’ve made amazing regulatory progress in the last year. Right now, it’s an epic time to push these large autonomous aircrafts ahead.
Q: It seems like a major innovation to avoid burning as many fossil fuels to transport bulk goods. Could you tell me more about how your drones are powered?
A: These are hybrid-powered drones. With electric, you’re relying on batteries, similar to an EV car. You need to recharge your batteries at intervals.
At MightyFly, our goal is to be hybrid because you can’t recharge your whole (flying) range using just electric, and if you stick with electric, what is going to happen is you’re going to drive (demand for) these very inefficient vans for cargo.
Instead, we can start making emissions reductions right now. Any reductions you can start making now are huge. And we don’t need any infrastructure to recharge on the ground. Our generators inside the aircraft — the same concept as the hybrid car — can recharge our batteries in the air.
With a combination of our hybrid system and smaller aircraft than standard size, you’ll see a massive reduction in carbon emissions for cargo transport.
Q: The criticism from, say, a truck drivers’ union might be that these unmanned aircrafts could end up reducing available transportation jobs. How do you respond to that?
A: Well, these are better jobs. With autonomous airplanes, you’re creating a lot of jobs on the back end. There are a lot of jobs that are going to be created by this technology, and folks will find it more interesting than their current jobs.
Q: To what extent could marketing drones, of all products, earn you the reputation of being a defense company, similar to a Raytheon or a Palantir? How would you feel about that association?
A: We are not planning to be a defense company; we are targeting the commercial market. You can think of us as a logistics company.
With our plan and business model, we are looking to focus on an expedited delivery structure — a logistics service company with lots of different customers. That is our main business model and public image.
Q: You are a woman of color who moved from Morocco to start a tech company in the East Bay — what do you take away from your experience and career path? Also, why San Leandro? You don’t find as many tech startups based there.
Personally, I don’t put gender in any kind of process when starting a company. You need expertise: you need autonomy expertise and regulatory expertise.
What I’m looking for is the best people on the job; once we look at that in the hiring process, you remove the stereotypes. If we focus on those (merits), we’re going to address a lot of issues with diversity.
We find the San Leandro area to be a pretty good location. There are jobs across the Bay Area, not just the South Bay and SF. A lot of folks tend to have families and they actually have families in the East Bay.
And then, in terms of having a facility for manufacturing aircrafts… there are a lot of software startups in the South Bay, but hardware is actually a pretty big percentage in the East Bay. There’s more space to build out a facility.
WHO IS MANAL HABIB?
Title: Founder and CEO of MightyFly Inc.
Birthplace: Tangier, Morocco
Residence: Bay Area
Education: BS in aerospace engineering from MIT. Graduate program in aerospace engineering from Stanford.
FIVE THINGS ABOUT MANAL HABIB:
- An aviation enthusiast whose passion extends to her childhood. As a child, she loved gazing at the birds and the sky. While she couldn’t go airborne herself, there were aircrafts that could, and the idea of building and flying one became her obsession.
- A CEO, an aerospace engineer, pilot, and an experimental aircraft developer.
- Loves MIT and the various labs so much that she decided to stop sleeping to save time and once pulled off five days without sleep. (Don’t try this one!)
- Loves to compete and win so much, that she broke her foot 3 times in a row, while competing in Karate in 2014.
- An outdoors avid who loves running, biking, hiking, swimming, kayaking, and skiing, among other activities. She once biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles!
Source: www.mercurynews.com