On September 3, 2026, we were named one of three winners of Pitch the Press at Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas. We pitched the H4C Quad. Skyline Nav AI and UtopiaCompression Corporation took the other two spots.
That is the whole headline. Below is the detail, and the thank-yous.
Commercial UAV Expo ran September 1–3 at Caesars Forum. We were at Booth 803. On the final day the show announced the winners of its annual Pitch the Press competition, and we were one of the three.
What Pitch the Press actually is
Every year, Commercial UAV Expo selects a group of exhibitors to pitch their newest product directly to the trade press. This year that group was chosen from a larger pool of applicants.
The format is short on purpose: one hour total, a two-minute elevator pitch per company, then a brief Q&A from the panel. The judges score on innovation and potential return on investment, then pick three.
This year’s panel:
- David OakesEditor, US Drone Review
- Haye KestelooOwner, DroneXL.CO
- Patrick EganCEO, sUAS News USA
Matt Collins, Content Manager at Commercial UAV News, moderated the session.
What we pitched: the H4C Quad
We spent our two minutes on the H4C Quad, the compact, medium-lift quadcopter we have been building toward all year.
According to the show’s announcement, three things stood out to the judges: our humble beginnings, our current commitment to stateside manufacturing — which they described as a significant shift in the market — and the fact that what we brought was a complete system rather than a single component.
The humble-beginnings part is literal: Harris Aerial started in a college dorm room at UCF in June 2014.
The H4C is a foldable quadcopter built around a modular quick-release payload mount — roughly 45 seconds to swap a sensor. Aux power runs at 5V, 12/14V, 24/28V and 48V, with a data stack of Ethernet, UART, CAN, GPIO, HDMI and USB-C, so a payload you already own goes airborne the same way every time. Two 8 Ah 12S smart batteries run in parallel and are hot-swappable in the field.
Flight time is 50 minutes with no payload, roughly 32 minutes at 2 kg and roughly 24 minutes at the full 4 kg, tested at sea level in no-wind conditions. Empty weight is 8.15 kg (18 lbs) and maximum takeoff weight is 12.15 kg. The airframe is injection-molded aerospace-grade thermoplastic and folds to 414 × 380 × 238 mm, small enough for one person to carry in a hard case.
It is NDAA compliant, and it is designed, manufactured, assembled and supported in Casselberry, Florida. First-run production is slated for the end of Q1 2027, and pre-orders are open now.
The other two winners
Skyline Nav AI won for Pathfinder Edge, a lightweight plug-and-play hardware box that gives a drone precise navigation without GPS. The judges pointed at what that means for public safety missions.
UtopiaCompression Corporation won for Aero Vision Detect, which handles aircraft detection — a problem that only gets harder as the amount of drone traffic in the sky goes up.
“The presentations, and the buzz around them, at this year’s Pitch the Press was one of the highlights of the day.”
— Matt Collins, Content Manager, Commercial UAV News
Thank you
To David Oakes, Haye Kesteloo and Patrick Egan for the time and for a fair hearing — two minutes is not much room, and they listened closely. To Matt Collins for running the session, and to Commercial UAV Expo and Commercial UAV News for putting it on and for counting us in.
To Phoenix LiDAR Systems, on the floor with us again this year. Their Ranger U120 is one of the payloads the H4C is built to carry, and integration work like that is a real part of why we could stand up and call the H4C a complete system instead of an airframe.
To everyone who stopped by Booth 803, asked the hard questions and put hands on the aircraft. Those conversations are the actual reason we go.
And to the Harris Aerial team — the people who designed and built the H4C, crated it, and worked the booth. Three companies’ names went up on that stage. Ours belongs to that group.
What happens next
The H4C goes into limited first-run production at the end of Q1 2027 and pre-orders are open. If you saw it in Las Vegas and want to talk configurations, payload integration or fleet pricing, our team is reachable here. If you have not seen the rest of the lineup, the heavier platforms are on the Carrier drones page, and our recent guide to NDAA-compliant heavy-lift drones covers the compliance questions we get asked.
Questions we were asked in Vegas
What is Pitch the Press at Commercial UAV Expo?
Pitch the Press is an annual competition at Commercial UAV Expo where selected exhibitors present a new product to a panel of drone-industry journalists. Each company gets a two-minute elevator pitch followed by a short Q&A, all inside a one-hour session. The judges score on innovation and potential return on investment and select three winners. In 2026, the presenting companies were chosen from a larger pool of applicants.
Who won Pitch the Press at Commercial UAV Expo 2026?
Three companies won: Harris Aerial for the H4C Quad, Skyline Nav AI for Pathfinder Edge, and UtopiaCompression Corporation for Aero Vision Detect. The winners were announced on September 3, 2026, at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas.
What is the H4C Quad, and when can I get one?
The H4C Quad is a compact, foldable, NDAA-compliant quadcopter that carries up to 4 kg and flies up to 50 minutes unloaded (roughly 24 minutes at full payload). It uses a modular quick-release mount so it is payload agnostic, and it is made in the United States. Limited first-run production is slated for the end of Q1 2027, and pre-orders are open now on the H4C Quad page.
Where was Harris Aerial at Commercial UAV Expo 2026?
Harris Aerial exhibited at Booth 803 at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas during Commercial UAV Expo, September 1–3, 2026.
Source: “Harris Aerial, Skyline Nav AI, and UtopiaCompression win ‘Pitch the Press’ at Commercial UAV Expo 2026,” Commercial UAV News, September 3, 2026.
