{"id":23909,"date":"2022-11-07T15:48:28","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T15:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=23909"},"modified":"2022-11-07T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T15:48:30","slug":"pyka-receives-worlds-first-approval-to-fly-agricultural-spray-missions-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/international-news\/pyka-receives-worlds-first-approval-to-fly-agricultural-spray-missions-at-night\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Pyka Receives World’s First Approval to Fly Agricultural Spray Missions at Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pyka<\/a>, maker of the Pelican Spray, a fully autonomous and 100% electric agricultural aerial application aircraft, secured the first ever regulatory approval to fly unmanned aerial spray missions at night with a fixed wing aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pyka Pelican Spray Night Mission. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Authorized by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation\n(DGAC) in Costa Rica on July 20th, 2022, the Pelican Spray now has approval to\nbe used by Pyka’s local customers to spray large commercial banana plantations,\nboth day and night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This development comes as a major technological\nbreakthrough in the agricultural industry and a monumental step towards the\ncompany achieving widespread commercial certification across Central and South\nAmerica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DGAC issued their approval based on Pyka’s record of\nsuccessful missions in Costa Rica to date, as well as a detailed analysis of\nthe aircraft’s capacity for night operations given the specifications of its\nautonomous flight platform and lighting system. As a final step in the approval\nprocess, officials from Costa Rica’s flight regulator observed a live nighttime\ndemonstration of the Pelican Spray operating over a banana plantation in the\nnortheastern region of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For banana producers, the practical benefits of spraying\nchemicals at night are well documented \u2013 allowing for better spray distribution\nand reduced risk of unintended chemical drift due to typically lower winds\nafter sunset, while also increasing the viable spray window from roughly 5\nhours per day to roughly 10 hours per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pyka’s new technology eliminates the usage of fossil\nfuels, thus reducing operating costs for farmers and providing substantial\nenvironmental benefits, while enabling round the clock spray capabilities\nthrough automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approval for night spray missions is just the latest\naddition to the list of precedent-setting regulatory achievements made by the\nyoung California-based aerospace company. Having secured nearly US$ 48M in\nfunding to date, Pyka is scaling up manufacturing of its Pelican Spray while\npursuing additional commercial certifications in the U.S. and Latin America. In\nparallel, the company is translating its successes in the agricultural space to\nair cargo with the highly anticipated launch of the Pelican Cargo planned for\nFall 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pyka, maker of the Pelican Spray, a fully autonomous and 100% electric agricultural aerial application aircraft, secured the first ever regulatory approval to fly unmanned aerial spray missions at night with a fixed wing aircraft. Authorized by the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) in Costa Rica on July 20th, 2022, the Pelican Spray now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23911,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23909\/revisions\/23911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}