German drone delivery company plans big drone pilot hiring spree

How would you like to move to Germany and become a full-time drone pilot? You don’t even have to speak German.

Delivery drone startup Wingcopter announced a Series A funding round — and along with it, plans to approximately double the size of its company in a drone pilot hiring spree.

Wingcopter, which is based in Darmstadt, Germany (near Frankfurt), revealed plans to grow from its current team of 45 employees to 70 within the next few months.

The company develops and sells transport drones for humanitarian and civil applications.

It’s already posted a long list of job openings, and many don’t require you to have German speaking skills. Though, you’ll likely have to be willing to relocate to Germany.

As expected in the drone industry, many of the drones are for software and hardware engineers (which tends to be the most common job postings in the industry). There are roles in finance, product and sales.

And yes, there’s even a job post for a drone pilot. As a drone pilot, your job will include briefing involved people on safety, exploring air routes, and ensuring that the UAV mass and balance is within the calculated limits. The company expects applicants to have five years of experience, a glider pilot or sport pilot license, and experience as a drone pilot.

Wingcopter is primarily funded by Corecam Capital Partners, which participated in a seed round in December, and invested more just a few months laters. The exact round was undisclosed, but the seed round was at least a few million dollars.

Wingcopter’s drone is an unmanned eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, meaning it takes off and land vertically like multicopters (ideal for flying in small of spaces), but it can fly long distances like a fixed-wing aircraft. (which is quicker and more efficient).

. The company holds a patent for a tilt-rotor mechanism, which the company says enables it to exceed the range and payload capabilities of commercial multicopter drones.

In its short life, the company has already demonstrated beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights, bringing laboratory samples between the Merck plant in Gernsheim to the company’s headquarters in Darmstadt — a distance of over 25 kilometers, over highways and state roads, power and rail lines, and industrial infrastructure.

The company is also involved in a humanitarian aid project in Malawi, delivering 90 kg of medicines to remote areas partially cut off from a flood. Wingcopter was also one of the companies to participate in the African Drone Forum and the Lake Kivu Challenge in Rwanda.

Wingcopter’s drone, which can fly up to a range of 75 miles and in strong winds of up to 44 mph, also holds a Guinness world record in speed. It can fly 150 mph.