Image credit: Drogo Aerospace
A fixed-wing drone cruises for hours but needs a runway. A multirotor lifts off anywhere but guzzles its battery and comes home early. For the Indian Army’s surveillance missions — border ridges, forward posts, terrain with no airfield in sight — neither is enough on its own. A Hyderabad startup has bet its business on the hybrid that does both.
The company is Drogo Aerospace, formerly Drogo Drones, and its flagship platform is the JK 250e, a hybrid fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle built for the Indian armed forces’ intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) requirements. On 15 October 2026, Drogo announced that the JK 250e had received type certification from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) — and according to founder and CEO Yeshwanth Bonthu, it is the only UAV in India with a hybrid fixed-wing and multirotor configuration to hold DGCA type certification for training purposes.
The hybrid answer to the endurance problem
The JK 250e’s design logic is straightforward: vertical-lift rotors get it airborne from a clearing, a field, or a forward post, and a fixed wing with a cruise propeller takes over for efficient forward flight. The result, according to the company, is two to three hours of endurance on a single charge — multirotor-style freedom from runways with fixed-wing staying power. No conventional runway, no catapult, no landing strip: the aircraft is designed for sustained surveillance and situational awareness in the field conditions where the Army actually operates.
The certification matters for an unusual reason. The DGCA type certificate covers training use — meaning the JK 250e can now be used to formally train India’s UAV operators, building a domestic pipeline of certified pilots for the hybrid configuration itself. It is Drogo’s sixth certified platform, and the company frames the milestone as a step toward international standards.
Already flying for the Army
This is not a prototype story. In June 2026, Drogo delivered the first batch of 41 JK 250e drones to the Indian Army under a ₹72-crore contract, formally received by officials of the Army’s Southern Command in Nashik, Maharashtra. The total order covers 217 aircraft, with the remaining 176 scheduled for delivery by August 2026 — a tight execution window that puts Drogo among the small but growing group of Indian private companies supplying unmanned systems for frontline military use.
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The delivery validated something the company is still building: manufacturing scale. Drogo currently employs around 300 people and is setting up a 1-lakh-square-foot drone manufacturing facility in Maheshwaram, Ranga Reddy district, on 4.5 acres allotted by the Telangana government in the Electronics Manufacturing Cluster. The company expects the plant to create around 500 additional jobs as defence orders move from limited trials to larger supply commitments.
From drones to an aerospace ecosystem
The rebrand from Drogo Drones to Drogo Aerospace — announced alongside the Army delivery — signals the ambition. The company is developing indigenous loitering munitions, including a “Delta Wing Kamikaze” one-way-attack drone, long-endurance UAVs, AI-powered aerial intelligence platforms, and advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems.
In September 2026, Drogo signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Munitions India Limited (MIL), the defence public-sector undertaking, to jointly design and integrate indigenous UAVs with advanced loitering munition systems — Drogo builds the UAV platforms and empty-payload hardware, MIL brings warhead and munitions expertise. The company has also showcased its platforms to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at a defence industry exhibition in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh.
The quiet significance of the JK 250e is what it represents: a private Indian company moving from prototypes to Army supply contracts, from a drone maker to a certified, scaled aerospace supplier — with the regulator’s stamp now covering the aircraft itself and the training pipeline behind it.
Sources: The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Week, Deccan Chronicle, The Hans India
