Laurent Collet-Billon appointed Managing Director of Fly-R
Fly-R is a French company that designs and develops a complete range of rhomboid-wing UAVs, a technological breakthrough that opens up a wide range of civil and military applications.
Laurent Collet-Billon has been appointed Managing Director of Fly-R, a company chaired by Éric Thieulin, specialising in the design and development of rhomboid UAVs. Laurent Collet-Billon is a top-ranking engineer general in the French armaments industry, and was Delegate General for Armaments from 2008 to 2017. He was closely involved in the development of airborne deterrence, telecommunications and information systems, and the space component. In his various roles, he has worked to ensure that the response to the needs of the armed forces is just right, and that the imperatives of the sovereignty industry are taken into account in highly constrained military programming laws. Laurent Collet-Billon has been a director of Fly-R since 2024.
Thanks to its special aerodynamics, the rhomboid wing, in the shape of a rhombus with no vertical plane, allows much greater speed ranges and manoeuvrability than other wing shapes. With the same wingspan, an aircraft with a rhomboid wing can double its performance in terms of speed, flight time and loads carried.
Until recently, no system of this type had been operationally developed, given its complexity. Advances in aerodynamics and associated calculation codes, as well as in materials, equipment and propulsion, have made Fly-R’s innovative approach a success.
About Fly-R
Fly-R was founded in 2013 by 2 civil and military aeronautical engineers, François Varigas and Rémi Albert. The company has developed a range of rhomboid-wing UAVs, with wingspans ranging from 120 to 600 centimetres, offering remarkable performance for civil applications (surveillance of industrial complexes, medical assistance, combating illegal trafficking, etc.) and military applications (target detection, air-to-ground strikes, operations in hostile territories, air defence, aerial combat, etc.). Since 2019, Fly-R has forged an in-depth partnership with the Office national d’études et de recherches aérospatiales (ONERA). In 2023, Fly-R was awarded the 1st Innovation Prize at SOFINS, the Special Forces Defence and Armaments Exhibition.
Cover photo: Laurent Collet-Billon, (source : Fly-R)
