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Ultra-high volume, field-repairable UAS platforms. Three minute Click-Fit™ assembly, 85 percent made in house, sovereign UK manufacture.
One common platform across five airframes, built in the United Kingdom on a secure supply chain, and repaired in the field rather than returned to a depot.
Design targets at maximum theoretical build-out, not current output. The operating plan is the line model, which reaches 1,500,000 units per year at five lines on three shifts. See both sets of figures.
There can be no compromise when it comes to public safety and the protection of critical infrastructure.
The decision to choose the right and lasting drone solution can be a high-risk leap into the unknown. How safe and reliable are they? How complex are they to fly and maintain in the field? What is the total cost of ownership?
In truth, there are so many variables it is easy to make the wrong decision. Our promise is to cut through complexity and expertly guide you to the right solution.
We do not just build drones. We engineer resilience. Organisations trust us because of our cutting-edge design, world-class scalable manufacturing, secure supply chain and unparalleled post sales support.
Demand resilience. Maximise saving. Get the job done.
Sustainable. Adaptable. Scalable.
Designed in the UK, ShadowVu is a global manufacturer of robust and reliable industrial Unmanned Aircraft System drones that are built to last, easy to use, and fast to repair.
Sustainable
Built to last, and built to be rebuilt.
Recycled and recyclable materials, no exotic inputs, and an airframe that is repaired rather than replaced. Sustainability and field-repairability turn out to be the same engineering problem, solved once.
Adaptable
One platform, shaped to the mission.
A common architecture across every airframe, with flexible payloads developed in house and with partners. Flexible tooling turns a new mission requirement into a production variant in about two weeks.
Scalable
Volume is a design decision, not an ambition.
By owning and controlling the means of production we provide a sovereign solution that is untouchable on high-volume manufacturing, deployment, fleet management and post sales service.
ShadowVu drones are not re-categorised consumer drones. They are built specifically for resilience and uninterrupted mission profiles, protecting assets and critical infrastructure by reducing service downtime.
Their stripped-down utilitarian design and simplified construction means you only pay for functions that you need and use, ensuring the essentials are always front of mind.
We serve clients the world over from our UK-based R&D labs and manufacturing facilities, along with our partners in the USA and Australia, delivering a lower cost of ownership and practical efficiencies for industrial, commercial and public sector applications.
One platform. Five airframes. No duplicate tooling.
Every aircraft shares a common architecture, a common parts bin and the same three-minute build. Scale the frame to the mission without leaving the platform.
Scout
The ultra-light end of the platform. Scout is the reconnaissance airframe, small enough to carry in a pack, cheap enough to deploy in numbers, and rebuilt in the field in three minutes. It carries a fixed camera rather than an external payload, which is what keeps it the most cost-effective aircraft in the family for routine field work.
- Frame class
- 6 inch prop
- Endurance
- 30 to 40 minutes
- Payload
- Fixed camera only, no external payload
- Camera
- Analog, digital or thermal FPV
- Navigation
- Standard GPS 1 to 3 m, or RTK to centimetre
- Control
- Manual & autonomous
- Ground station
- TAK / ATAK · QGroundControl
- Order code
- QC0-6-XXXX
These are real. And we are scaling.
Not a render and not a promise. ShadowVu aircraft are built in-house in the United Kingdom, flying today, with 50 units already delivered and production scaling now.
Four hundred and ninety five aircraft. One container.
Mobile swarm deployment packs the platform into a vehicle box or a standard twenty foot container. Eleven trays of QC2 eight inch Huey, moved by road, unloaded and flown.
Scale of that kind is only possible because the airframe was designed for it. A three minute build and a common parts bin are what make a container of aircraft a logistics problem rather than a manufacturing one.
495 units · 11 trays · one 20 ft container
Stowed
11 trays, one 20 ft container
Where these aircraft earn their place.
Utilities, security, search and rescue, oil and gas, defence, emergency services and agriculture all count among the growing number of sectors deploying UAS at scale.
Others retrofit legacy designs to a production line. We drew the line first.
Designing for ultra-high volume is a decision taken before the first airframe, and it cannot be made retroactively. It is the reason the unit economics work.
Designed for volume from day one
Every airframe was drawn for ultra-high volume assembly before it was drawn for flight. That decision cannot be made retroactively, and it is the reason the unit economics work.
Industry norm: Legacy designs retrofitted to fit a manufacturing line
Three-minute assembly
A complete unit reaches TAKT in three minutes on a Click-Fit™ airframe. One common platform across every model means no duplicate machinery and no separate line per variant.
Industry norm: Long assembly times, specialist labour
Repaired in the field, not returned
The aircraft is field-repairable after a thirty-foot drop. Inexpensive core components and a real spare parts supply mean a damaged airframe is back in the air the same day instead of leaving the fleet for a quarter.
Industry norm: Three-month average repair or replacement cycle
Sovereign supply chain
85% of the aircraft is made in house, on a defined pathway to remove China from the supply chain entirely. For defence and critical infrastructure buyers, provenance is not a preference, it is the procurement condition.
Industry norm: High reliance on Chinese products
Capital that is not written off
Modularity means damage costs a component, not an airframe. Flexible tooling turns a new mission requirement into a production variant in about two weeks.
Industry norm: Total asset replacement after damage or loss
Built to be recycled
Recycled and recyclable materials throughout, ESG-compliant by construction rather than by offset. Sustainability and field-repairability turn out to be the same engineering problem.
Industry norm: Lack of sustainability, disposable airframes
Jim Thomson
Chief Executive · Chief Technology Officer · Founder
“One of the most important questions people ask us is: where is our product made? Today our product is made in the UK and we have a secure supply chain.”
“Which means that we are sourcing our product, our many parts and even our partners from friendly nations. All our partners are selected carefully, and we require them to complete an explanation about where their technology is sourced, where it is manufactured and how it is manufactured.”
Demand is not the constraint. Supply is.
Independent research puts the addressable market in the hundreds of billions, with the sharpest growth in exactly the sectors that cannot accept a foreign-controlled supply chain.
Designed in Britain. Manufactured in Britain. Supported from Britain.
For defence and critical infrastructure, sovereignty is not a marketing line. It decides supply-chain resilience, export position, component availability, data control and long-term fleet continuity. ShadowVu is built so that none of those depend on a supply chain we do not control.
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Talk to the people who build the aircraft.
Whether you are specifying a fleet, developing a payload, distributing in your territory or evaluating the business, the conversation starts in the same place.