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James Pels
James Pels is founder and CEO of Ay Up Duck Aerospace, a UK start-up developing new approaches to long-endurance unmanned flight. Its first aircraft family, Mandarin, is being developed as a persistent observation platform combining efficient fixed-wing flight with hybrid-electric propulsion and flexible launch and recovery options.
James has spent more than 20 years working across technology, innovation and business transformation, including extensive work with UK Defence. He founded Ay Up Duck to explore how unconventional technologies and architectures could overcome some of the practical limitations of current unmanned aircraft.
His focus is on turning promising technologies into useful operational systems – and asking whether accepted approaches to aircraft design are necessarily the right ones for the emerging BVLOS market.
Sessions
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Beyond the battery: What will it take to make drones truly persistent?29-Sep-2026Future of Flight Theatre 3
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