Pendleton doubles down on drone testing with new hangar

Within the excessive desert of northeast Oregon, a brand new constructing goes up—however this isn’t your common airport hangar. The Metropolis of Pendleton, Oregon this month broke floor on what it’s calling Flex Hangar III.

That is the primary everlasting construction inside what’s the metropolis’s quickly increasing UAS Industrial Park. Spanning 18,000 sq. toes, the hangar is designed to help business drone operators, protection contractors and superior air mobility (AAM) corporations testing on the Pendleton UAS Check Vary — an unlimited, FAA-approved drone hall overlaying 14,000 sq. miles.

The brand new three-bay hangar, slated for completion in January 2026, will embrace 60-foot bi-fold doorways, climate-controlled workplace house and 10 Gbps fiber connectivity. It additionally affords direct entry to Taxiway Golf (that’s an aviation time period for a particular taxiway at an airport connecting runways to different features of the airport, like this hangar). With it, drone corporations have simply integration with the adjoining runway at Japanese Oregon Regional Airport.

All concerning the Pendleton UAS Check Vary

The vary sometimes helps 10+ packages at any given time, and has facilitated practically 65,000 UAS operations up to now. That quantity has been made doable by each ample airspace and an unusually drone-friendly ATC tower, which works intently with operators to help advanced flight plans. It’s created numerous jobs (each within the drone business, in addition to in industries that help enterprise together with motels and eating places).

Pendleton’s 14,000-square-mile take a look at space is greater than only a declare to bragging rights—it permits for superior operations together with:

• Past Visible Line of Sight (BVLOS) testing (with help in securing FAA waivers)
• Night time operations
• Swarming and coordinated multi-aircraft flight
• Class IV laser testing
• Testing throughout different terrain: forests, mountains, desert, and farmland

Operators can take a look at in real-world circumstances whereas pushing the bounds of autonomy, vary, and environmental resilience. And with an working ceiling as much as 15,000 ft MSL, the vary affords a degree of vertical freedom few others can match.

What packages use the Pendleton UAS Check Vary?

The Pendleton UAS Check Vary, owned and operated by the town, has develop into a proving floor for a number of the drone business’s most formidable packages.

Among the many corporations which have publicly shared particulars about their operations out of the power embrace tactical dronemaker Astrium and NASC, which has offered drones for the Division of Protection and is at the moment engaged on its ArcticShark drone designed to function in temperatures effectively beneath freezing.

Then there are some drone supply corporations, akin to medical drone supply Spright, which was then acquired by Air Strategies however in the end shut down. After which — most notably — there’s Amazon Prime Air. That’s the drone supply firm affiliated with Amazon, however that has struggled to maintain tempo with rivals like Wing and Zipline. Amazon’s program has been marred by frequent management turnover, technical setbacks, and a number of high-profile crashes — a few of which occurred throughout testing in Pendleton.

A spokesperson for the take a look at web site wouldn’t touch upon Amazon’s (or any firm’s) particular operations.

“As a matter of coverage, we don’t verify or deny particular buyer operations,” mentioned Cole Rixe, Enterprise Growth Supervisor for the Pendleton UAS Vary. “A lot of our business and protection clients worth the privateness and anonymity that working in Pendleton offers.”

What to anticipate when the Flex Hangar III opens

That Flex Hangar affords but another excuse for drone corporations to go to Pendleton.

The truth is, Rixe mentioned the town has already secured one signed letter of intent from a future tenant and is seeing “sturdy curiosity from a number of others.” Pre-leasing was solely not too long ago opened, and the hangar represents an intentional funding in attracting long-term packages that require each hangar house and built-in floor infrastructure.

12 months-round operations are a core a part of the pitch. Due to Pendleton’s semi-arid local weather (simply 12–13 inches of rain per 12 months), climate hardly ever grounds flights. Each parcel within the UAS Industrial Park comes outfitted with industrial energy, water and high-speed fiber, making the world not simply airspace-rich—but additionally plug-in prepared.

Flex Hangar III additionally options fashionable security techniques, together with strong hearth suppression, and was designed with classes realized over years of operations. These learnings presumably embrace responses to security incidents, like these involving Prime Air, although Pendleton officers emphasize compliance with all federal reporting necessities, whatever the operator.

After which what’s subsequent?

Flex Hangar III is simply the beginning of a broader imaginative and prescient. Pendleton’s long-term plan consists of:

• Full build-out of each side of two paved cul-de-sacs, one accomplished and one within the planning part, working parallel to Taxiway Golf
• Further purpose-built hangars and workshops on every parcel
• Potential for manufacturing and meeting buildings additional again from the taxiway
• A proposed air visitors management heart improve to maintain tempo with increasing operations

What are these FAA take a look at websites?

The FAA-designated UAS take a look at websites, established underneath the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, are a community of strategically situated services created to advance drone integration into the Nationwide Airspace System. Managed in partnership with universities, state governments and analysis establishments, these take a look at websites — that are discovered elsewhere across the nation together with North Dakota and New York — function essential hubs for validating applied sciences like past visible line of sight (BVLOS), detect-and-avoid techniques, autonomy, and superior air mobility (AAM) platforms.

Every web site affords distinctive geographic and regulatory benefits, starting from excessive climate testing to proximity to army ranges, and performs an important function in supporting each business innovation and public security by enabling real-world flight testing underneath FAA oversight.

Rixe says the Pendleton web site stands out for its entry and affordability.

“As a result of we’re owned and operated by the Metropolis of Pendleton, our mission is centered on financial improvement—not revenue,” Rixe mentioned. “That permits us to supply unmatched velocity, flexibility and affordability.”

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