Kite Aero has started building its KITE delivery drone at a composites plant in Geelong, the company said on 14 September. It says the aircraft has “a pipeline of more than 100 units”. It has not said how many are on order.
The KITE was Swoop Aero’s aircraft. Swoop, a Melbourne medical delivery startup, went into administration in October 2024. Its creditors put it into liquidation a month later. Kite Aero bought the aircraft and its flight software out of liquidation in March 2025.
The plant belongs to Sykes Advanced Manufacturing, part of Geelong firm Jeff Sykes & Associates. Quickstep used to run it. Kite Aero chief executive Philip van der Burg called the move “a decisive step in scaling”. The company is pitching the KITE to American and European buyers as a Five Eyes aircraft, with its design owned in Australia.
Zimbabwe says yes
On 21 September Kite Aero said its partner in Zimbabwe could now fly the KITE beyond visual line of sight. The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe added the approval to Drone Solutions International’s operating rules. It took six months of review, with demonstration flights in August.
Drone Solutions will start with pathology and medical samples. They will fly between regional health facilities and central labs. Drone Solutions chief executive Jeremiah Musabayana said the regulator “set a high bar”. Kite Aero counts Zimbabwe as the 25th place to clear the KITE for such flights.
The two releases count flights differently. The Geelong one credits the KITE with more than 2,000 flights under Kite Aero and 11,000 before that. The Zimbabwe one says the safety case drew on more than 41,000 flights. Neither release says what the other 28,000 were.
