The one-day “Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (UCA) Conference” will be held on June 13 at Maaspoort, an attractive concert and event center located in Venlo, the Netherlands.
      Leave it to the inventive Dutch to launch an unmanned aircraft conference (now in its fourth year) from a place that can best be reached via flight to Dusseldorf, Germany, about 48 min (59.8 km) away from Venlo by car.

A Bridge Too Far?

      Discussion about drones, unmanned vehicles from cars to trucks, airports, and even outer space is top of the menu in 2017. This event gets right down to business with “early bird” admission rates (until May 11) of 245 Euros (85 for students).
      Entry gets you, a luncheon, dawn-to-dusk speaker events, and finally drinks at the close.
      Two other events team up with the UCA Conference and are running concurrently on June 13th.

Even More, Bring Some People

      Unmanned Cargo Ground Vehicles and Cargo Innovations Conference are also on the bill with individual or combination tickets available (register here).
      UCA and these related gatherings are an interesting cluster of folks with deep thinkers, start-ups, and a gaggle of dreamers and doers voyaging into a program that no other cargo conference has dared.

By Any Other Name

      Of special interest is the California start-up that for some reason has dropped the “U,” calling itself Natilus.
      Natilus wants to build a hybrid electric powered cargo drone dubbed Nemo.
      Natilus Company said it will test a 30-foot carbon-fiber scale-model this summer backed by $750,000 from Tim Draper’s DFJ Venture Capital.
      If the tests work, Natilus hopes to build an 80-foot operational drone capable of carrying 40,000 pounds to start flying cargo from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2019.
      Looking even further ahead, the company told reporters that it intends to launch a model that can carry 200,000 pounds to China.
Geoffrey