01
The network stops where the road stops
Most facilities outside the trunk corridors are reached by one route, on one surface, in one condition. When that route degrades, the whole supply line degrades with it.
Autonomous Aerial Logistics · Kenya
Autonomous Aerial
Logistics for Kenya
Scheduled 25 kg cargo flights for health systems, laboratories and commercial shippers.
THATCHER-VTOL // FLEET MARK 1
A Heavy-Lift Aircraft Built for Middle-Mile Logistics
Electric rotors for vertical precision takeoff and landing anywhere without runways. A combustion engine for long-range cruising. Refuel and relaunch in under 10 minutes. Operated in Kenya under partnership with The Good Drone Company.
REFUEL: < 10 MINSRANGE: 1,000 KMCERTIFICATION: KCAA BVLOS
REG: 5Y-1298A
AUTHORIZATION: APPROVED
[SPEC-01]
0 kg
Maximum Payload
Temperature-monitored cargo capacity
[SPEC-02]
0 km
Maximum Range
Long-haul regional flight radius
[SPEC-03]
0 km/h
Cruise Speed
Efficient transit velocity
[SPEC-04]
0 km/h
Top Speed
Dash & emergency burst capability
[SPEC-05]
0 m
Wingspan
High-lift VTOL aerodynamic wing
[SPEC-06]
0 m
Max Altitude
Barometric service ceiling
The problem
The problem is not distance. It is a network that breaks at the edges
Kenya does not lack goods, roads or operators. What it lacks is a way to move small, urgent, high-value consignments to places where road freight has never been reliable or economic — and to do it to a schedule.
02
Small, urgent consignments are uneconomic by road
A vehicle and a driver cost the same whether they carry 2 kg or 2 tonnes. So the small, urgent, high-value load waits for a full truck — or never moves at all.
03
Unpredictability is the real cost
Operators do not plan around averages, they plan around worst cases. Unreliable transit forces buffer stock, duplicated inventory and cancelled procedures.
Same cargo, same route
A 120 km county referral run, carried two ways.
Road transit is set by surface, traffic and consolidation waits. A flight is set by airspeed. For a blood unit, a lab sample or an isotope with a 110-minute half-life, that difference decides whether the cargo is still useful on arrival.
By road
0.0hrs
Typical door-to-door on a 120 km county run, including consolidation and route conditions. Operator estimate.
By ThatcherX
0.0hrs
Direct routing at 115 km/h cruise, launched on demand. Indicative for a 120 km county run.
No amount of road investment fixes a consignment that is too small to justify a truck and too urgent to wait for one.
Operational Capabilities
Autonomous Aerial Use Cases
Select any use case to explore flight specifications, mission profiles, and Kenya regional corridors.
The category
The breakthrough is not the drone. It is the payload–range combination
Autonomous delivery in Africa has been built almost entirely around small, standardised, urgent parcels. That solves one problem very well. It leaves the heavier middle mile unserved.
10 – 25 kg
Heavy middle mile
Full consignments, inter-facility resupply, commercial freight. This is the band ThatcherX is built for, and the one with the fewest operators serving it at scale in the region today.
Slice size reflects the payload span each class covers. At 25 kg, a single sortie carries a materially larger consignment than today's small-payload delivery platforms, which operate at 1.8 kg and 3.6 kg per flight — and it does so without a launch catapult or a recovery net.
The network
Not one drone route. A repeatable network architecture
Select a phase to see how the network grows from a single county hub to national coverage. Phases 3 and 4 are modelled projections, not committed builds.
First county network
ContractedTen Level 3/4 facilities around a county referral hospital hub. Three round trips per facility per week — 3,120 flights in year one. All routes physically surveyed. Launching Q4 2026.
6 hubs · 5 routes shown
Traction
The hardest setup steps are behind us
The barriers that stop most drone ventures are regulatory, technical and institutional. Each one is cleared and evidenced.
Technology
Exclusive Kenyan partnership with The Good Drone Company
Sole Kenyan operating rights for the 25 kg hybrid VTOL platform.
ExecutedInfrastructure
Konza test and validation centre
Collaboration agreement with the Konza Technopolis Development Authority.
ExecutedFlight operations
Inaugural flight test flown
At the national drone corridor, observed by KCAA and the Ministry of Defence.
FlownCommercial
Seven strategic partnerships signed
Healthcare, county government, radiopharmaceuticals, logistics, aerial intelligence.
SignedDeployment
First county network agreed
Ten facilities, routes physically surveyed, scheduled for Q4 2026.
Signed · Surveyed
How it works
We do not sell drones. We run a scheduled air service
- 01
Route survey
We physically survey every facility pair — landing areas, obstacles, airspace, ground handling — before a single flight is scheduled.
- 02
Approvals
Operating approvals and route authorisations are secured with the regulator and the county before service starts.
- 03
Scheduled sorties
Flights run to a published timetable, with on-demand launches for urgent cargo. Cold chain and chain of custody handled end to end.
- 04
Reporting
Every sortie is logged: payload, transit time, condition on arrival. Counties get the data they need to procure with confidence.
Konza Airstrip Operations5Y-1298A Flight Crew
The team
Aviation people, not a pilot programme
Thatcher is run by a dedicated Kenyan team of flight operations, engineering, and logistics specialists working alongside civil aviation regulators, county health systems, and airframe engineers. The aircraft you see across this site is ours, registered in Kenya, and flown by this crew.
Talk to the teamNext step
Tell us the route. We will tell you the flight plan
Send us two points and a payload. We come back with transit time, sortie profile and what a live county network would look like.
Partners & Collaborators
Working with civil aviation regulators, county health systems & flight partners
Contact
Partner with ThatcherX
Counties, health systems, funders and logistics operators — if you move time-sensitive cargo in Kenya, there is a route for it.
- info@thatcherx.com
- Based in
- Nairobi, Kenya