Airbus Flexrotor drone supports U.S. Coast Guard mission to seize drugs in successful maritime operation..

Airbus's Flexrotor drone supported U.S. Coast Guard efforts to seize narcotics during a maritime operation on Sept. 19, 2025. The mission highlights how uncrewed aircraft are reshaping drug interdiction and maritime security.

On September 19, 2025, Airbus Helicopters has highlighted new operational proof of concept for its Flexrotor uncrewed aircraft, pointing to a recent maritime operation in which the system supplied the live intelligence that enabled a major narcotics seizure by the US Coast Guards. Flexrotor sits in the long-endurance VTOL intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance niche for users that need persistent coverage from small ships or austere shore sites. It is compact, designed for maritime airworthiness, and built around a simple idea that matters at sea: take off vertically, transition to efficient winged flight, stay on station for many hours, and get the pictures and metadata to the boarding team in time.
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The Airbus Flexrotor is a compact VTOL drone with up to 14 hours endurance, a 25 kg takeoff weight, and EO/IR sensors, designed to provide persistent maritime surveillance from small ship decks or austere sites (Picture source: Airbus Helicopters).

The aircraft belongs to the lightweight Group 2 class and is built for a minimal logistics footprint. Maximum takeoff weight is about 25 kilograms. Operators typically reserve around 8 kilograms for payload, which gives enough margin for a stabilized EO and IR turret, a compact maritime surveillance package, and a secure digital link. The footprint for launch and recovery is small, roughly a 3.7 meter square pad, which fits on the aft of a small cutter or a patrol craft that does not have the space or the crew to support a larger unmanned helicopter. The platform’s cruise speed is modest, around 48 knots with a higher dash figure near 77 knots, but endurance is the selling point. A properly configured Flexrotor can remain aloft for roughly half a day in favorable conditions, which is what maritime commanders keep asking for.

The airframe’s party trick is the clean transition from vertical lift to fixed wing. No catapult. No arresting gear. After lift off and climb, the nose comes over, the wing starts working, and fuel burn drops to a steady, predictable rate. Airbus has promoted heavy fuel engine options for maritime customers who prefer to keep shipboard fuels harmonized, which simplifies logistics and reduces the need to store specialized gasoline on deck. The company has also pointed to configurations that add satellite connectivity to push beyond line of sight. Users have asked for that because coastal patrols do not always stay within radio range. The architecture is modular enough to accommodate extras such as AIS receivers for identifying vessels, mid wave infrared sensors for night work, or even narrowband collection packages when allowed. The aim is to keep the aircraft simple, the payload flexible and the data flowing.

In the interdiction scenario Airbus chose to promote, Flexrotor provided persistent overwatch that guided surface units onto a suspect vessel and supported the timing of the final approach. Small patrol craft cannot be everywhere and crewed helicopters can sprint to a contact but cannot loiter for long without burning hours and money. A long endurance VTOL drone can sit at medium altitude, scan wide with an EO sensor, then tighten the field of view for identification and track management when something looks wrong. It can hand off the position and heading to a cutter, maintain the track during a turn, and adjust to sea state and wind without forcing the ship to change course too early. In practice this reduces blind legs, saves fuel, and lowers the chance of missing a handoff in the dark.

For expeditionary units, the logistics are as important as the flight profile. A system that can be assembled by a small team and launched from a tiny pad matters during surge operations. The typical payload fit, a stabilized turret switching between daylight and thermal modes, pushes geo referenced video with metadata into a maritime operations center or a shipboard console. If needed, the aircraft can act as an ad hoc radio relay, extending comms for boarding teams once they are behind steel walls or down in a swell. The datalink range is commonly cited in the 150 to 200 kilometer bracket, which is enough to knit together a picket line of small boats along a coastline. The value is in combining these features in a 25 kilogram VTOL package that can fly for hours and does not demand a bespoke launcher or a large detachment.

Earlier this year, Airbus referenced the largest single Flexrotor order to date for Asia Pacific users covering littoral surveillance and inland surveys. The configuration details matter because they show a move toward turnkey kits. Heavy fuel engines as standard, higher throughput data links out of the box and less integration burden pushed onto the buyer: that is where the small UAS market has been drifting for a while. Airbus’s integration of the Flexrotor line, following its acquisition of Aerovel last year, gives the program a wider industrial base and access to a broader support network alongside platforms such as Zephyr and VSR700.

European maritime agencies in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean face a constant mix of trafficking, illegal fishing and search and rescue calls that chew up flight hours. In the Red Sea and surrounding waters, security challenges and irregular threats have stretched patrol cycles and complicated air tasking for crewed helicopters. Across the Indo Pacific, vast patrol areas and grey zone pressure have pushed navies and coast guards to look for more endurance without adding crews. The equation is similar everywhere. More area to watch but not enough ships or helicopters to watch it. A small VTOL aircraft that can fly most of a day and land on the back of a modest patrol boat looks less like a gadget and more like a practical way to free crewed assets for the tasks only they can do.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.