Nicholas Coates of Rotor Technologies will speak about his company on Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire in Londonderry. Courtesy photo/Aviation Museum of New Hampshire

LONDONDERRY — Can you guess the Granite State’s largest export business? If you said the aerospace sector, you’re correct.

One New Hampshire business that’s part of the state’s future-facing aviation industry is Rotor Technologies, Inc., a Nashua-based manufacturer of unmanned helicopters–sometimes referred to as the world’s largest drones.

You might wonder why someone would want an unmanned helicopter. It turns out that there are a lot of reasons why, especially when it comes to hazardous job conditions such as carrying cargo in disaster zones or to offshore oil rigs, or to fight wildfires, diminishing the dangers to human pilots.

To learn more about how Rotor’s autonomous aircraft are working towards these applications, join Nicholas Coates, the firm’s vice president of Partnerships, on Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire, 27 Navigator Rd. in Londonderry.

The presentation, part of the museum’s Exploring Aviation series, is open to the public. Admission is $10 per person; Aviation Museum members may attend free of charge.

Rotor is in the process of developing unmanned helicopters for multiple purposes.

Right now, the company is focused on missions with their Airtruck utility helicopter, with a secondary focus on agricultural applications such as crop dusting, another potentially dangerous sector of the aviation industry. Dozens of accidents take place each year when crop dusting planes collide with power lines, cell towers and other aircraft.

In 2025, Rotor announced two new unmanned aerial vehicle models: the Airtruck, which can handle more than 1,000 pounds of payload; and Sprayhawk, an agricultural UAV with 110-gallon capacity. Airtruck and Sprayhawk, both based on the Robinson R44 full-scale helicopter, have a maximum takeoff weight of 2,500 pounds each, making them the largest civilian drones available to purchase in the world.

Rotor was founded in 2021 by Hector Xu, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he led the development and successful flight of the first ion-propelled airplane.

Rotor’s approach focuses first on bringing autonomous aircraft to critical and dangerous missions, while developing the technological foundation for the autonomous transport of cargo and passengers.