Yamaha Motor has entered into an agreement with a Kenyan company, Astral Aerial Solutions to offer a series of services in Africa. Starting with Kenya, the company will offer its unmanned helicopter drones for various services like: –

  • Agricultural chemical spraying of cultivated rice paddies and orchards.
  • Collecting information about the affected areas immediately after disasters
  • Transporting relief supplies.

Yamaha and Astral will commence trials of the unmanned helicopters Fazer R G2 from December 2020. The Fazer R G2 is a high end industrial drone. It can fly to uninhabited areas beyond visual range. It carries a 12 litre tank of gasoline and satellite enabled communication system giving it a maximum range of 90 km and a flight ceiling of 2800m. It can carry 35 kgs of load. An operator with a remote control is required for the unmanned helicopter to takeoff and land. Once airborne, the Fazer R G2 can fly to areas including those out of visual range using a pre-programed route. This allows the helicopter to be used for a broad range of applications including dangerous missions like volcano surveys or radiation measurement.

The Fazer R G2 has several hard points for mounting photography and measurement devices. Moreover, an increase in permitted payload from 10kg to 35kg and an increase in the operating altitude from 1,000m to 2,800m has enabled the drone to survey previously-unreachable high-altitude volcanic mountains in Japan such as Mount Asama, Mount Tokachi, Mount Kusatsu-Shirane, and Mount Aso.

The Fazer R G2 is 3665 mm x 734 mm x 1226 mm. It’s rotors have a diameter of 3115 mm while the tail rotor is 550 mm. A 390 cc horizontally opposed (boxer) 2- cylinder, liquid-cooled, 4-stroke, OHV, engine breathing through 2-valves per cylinder produces 20.6 KW (28 HP) of power at 6000 rpm. This engine can push the 81 kg Fazer R G2 to a top speed of 72 km/h.

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