It measures 4.5m from rotor tip to rotor tip and has a maximum takeoff weight of 160kg.
It will sell for about $150,000 when it’s released early next year.
Inside is an Nvidia GPU, which works with front and downward-facing stereoscopic cameras, and a lidar function (using laser beams to create a 3D map) to power an AI system and give it information to plan its next move.
The initial target of all this tech is forestry.
The BFD 70 will be used for “forestry release” spraying (or eliminating grass between newly planted trees).
But it will also be used for targeting wilding pines and other invasive species such as pampa grass, gorse and broom, continuing the work of a much smaller predecessor released in March, the semi-automated AC-16.
Spooner said the BFD 70 will be fully automated.
The drone could be set, for example, to clear wilding pines from a 5sq km area. Its AI system, cameras and sensors will allow it to identify a wilding pine, estimate its size, spray the appropriate dose to kill it, then go in search of its next victim.
BFD, or Big Friendly Drone, is a play on Roald Dahl’s children’s book The BFG, which stands for Big Friendly Giant.
Spooner said it might also be called The Big Forestry Giant when it’s released.
He also confirmed that, in-house, the initials stand for the earthier Big F***ing Drone.
Whatever its ultimate name, “big” is the operative word.
The BFD 70 can carry up to 50kg of spray (up from its predecessor’s 12kg), and its two-stroke, 350cc internal combustion engine allows it to fly for two hours with a full payload, or up to 12 hours with a lighter load.
A back-up battery allows about 10 to 15 minutes of flight (“As much as most battery-powered agricultural drones,” Spooner said) but it should not come to that. The BFD 70 should know when it’s low on fuel and automatically return to base or find a flat area to land.
In August, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard topped up funding to fight wilding pines, which now totals $110 million over the next three years.
“Wilding pines are a scourge on the productive heart of rural New Zealand, and there are plenty of people as passionate as I am about getting rid of them,” Hoggard said.
Wilding conifers, or wilding pines, are introduced conifers spreading across the landscape through natural regeneration.
Introduced to New Zealand in the 1880s, they threaten everything from productive farmland to tourist vistas to water supplies to sensitive catchments to native biodiversity. They also increase the risk of wildfires.
Unchecked, they could cause more than $5 billion in economic losses over the next 50 years, the Government says.
After graduating from the University of Canterbury with an honours degree in engineering, Spooner joined Timaru drone start-up Aeronavics, owned by brothers John and William Rolleston. The pair – members of a family that has diversified from farming into private equity, commercial property and life sciences – have a string of companies, but are perhaps best-known for South Pacific Sera, or SPS Group, which specialises in biotechnology including animal serum.
After six years, in 2019, Spooner was ready for his next challenge.
The Rollestons said they wanted to target wilding pines. Spooner was interested in developing drones that could do the job. He became chief executive and chief technology officer of the newly minted SPS Automation, bankrolled by the brothers.
SPS Automation started in the garage of Spooner’s Christchurch home. He hired an engineer to help, then another.
“I got up to seven before my wife kicked us out,” he said.
Staff now number 18.
The start-up is still 100% owned by the Rollestons, with no plans to raise outside capital.
The cost of developing agricultural drones is offset by contract research and development work for various New Zealand aerospace players and universities.
The privately held firm won’t comment on sales since the AC-16 was released in March, but said it generated local interest and sales to forestry companies across the Tasman – though Spooner reiterated the drones are designed in New Zealand for New Zealand conditions.
‘100% kill rate’
Spooner said the $85,000, AC-16, which packs a 120cc two-stroke motor and provides one hour of flying with 16kg of spray, proved its chops in a pre-release trial in partnership with the Central Otago District Council and Central Otago Wilding Conifer Control Group, which involved a swarm of the SBS drones spraying chemicals on more than 400 wilding pines across 500ha in Loganburn, between Roxburgh and Middlemarch.
It was an ideal testing ground, Spooner said, because the wilding pines were so sparse – with less than one per hectare – it would have taken a ground crew “several weeks”. The drones dispatched the pines in two and a half days. Some of the wilding pines were on cliff overhangs inaccessible to a helicopter, Spooner said.
Returning to the scene months later, Spooner said he found a “100% kill rate” despite gusts of up to 30km/h during the spraying (high winds have been a bugbear for spraying-by-drone).
Deregulation
In August, Regulation Minister David Seymour and Associate Transport Minister James Meager announced plans to reduce Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certification requirements for operators of large drones.
“We will scrap requirements for lower-risk routine drone operations to apply and wait for certification before starting work, which can take up to nine months and cost thousands of dollars. Only a notification to the Civil Aviation Authority ahead of time will be needed,” Meager said.
Meager has directed officials “to overhaul the rules and create a simpler pathway, while maintaining critical public safety and environmental protections” with the aim of the new rules being in place by mid-2027.
“Overseas farmers, who compete with New Zealand farmers, can spray crops with precise and targeted application of chemicals using drones, at a fraction of the cost compared to Kiwi farmers,” Seymour said.
The pair noted that in Australia, drones of up to 150kg are already unregulated for farmland use.
Using Starlink to take remote control
Spooner said he was “neutral” on the potential deregulation.
His take is that farmers don’t necessarily want to grapple with a giant UAV.
While the AC-16 can arrive with a specialist operator, who will fly it on the farm, the BFD 70 packs a Starlink dish for connectivity to anywhere.
The idea is that one operator at a Christchurch mission control will be able to remotely wrangle multiple BFD 70s around the country, although Spooner said the operator should only have to step in if things go wrong, given the supersize drone’s ability to execute a mission autonomously.
The founder said his firm has developed a good working relationship with CAA, which includes two “bubbles” of airspace for test flights.
Spooner is already planning BFD 70’s successor. He’s aiming for a 250kg beast.
His take is that within 15 years, humans will have disappeared from the spraying process, with all work carried out by UAVs.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
