Southlake-based Aerolane aims to use the same technique that delivered U.S. troops on D-Day to deliver cargo across the country. But its towed cargo glider, the Aerocart, comes with a 21st-century autonomous edge.
David Seeley | Dallas Innovates | April 24, 2025
Now here’s an innovative way to fly cargo across the country: by hitching a ride with a plane that’s going your way.
That’s the idea behind Aerocart, an automated towed cargo glider from Southlake-based Aerolane. The company’s solution may look futuristic, but it’s actually based on the same principles the 82nd Airborne used to tow cargo and soldiers into France on D-Day in World War II.
This week, Aerolane announced that it’s opening a flight operations headquarters at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport. It’s slated to be “a critical testing ground” for Aerolane’s ongoing FAA Supplemental Type Certification process, with a mission of helping the startup launch its first Aerocart cargo glider system for commercial service “later this year.”
“We’re excited to locate our flight operations headquarters at AllianceTexas,” Aerolane Co-Founder and CEO Todd Graetz said in a statement. “It’s a great privilege to operate in one of the nation’s most critical intermodal cargo hubs.”
Leveraging patented technology
Aerolane’s patented Aerocart technology is being built into a series of autonomous towed cargo glider systems “that boost the capacity of existing planes while requiring only a marginally higher fuel burn,” the startup said. To date, the company has flown a range of prototype Aerocarts across “a wide swath” of Texas and Florida since 2022.
The company notes that aviation is entering its second century. Its proposition for what’s next?
“We make it affordable, ubiquitous and clean.”
To achieve that, Aerolane says it started with one big question: Is it possible to enable the capabilites and speed of air at the cost of ground transportation?
Aerocart, it says, is the answer. The company says its autonomous cargo glider “instantly boosts the payload capacity of any flight—with minimal fuel requirements.” A key Aerolane goal is to transform airline asset and crew productivity and network agility, while leading the industry in overall cost savings.
Perot Field is a key part of The MIZ
The world’s first industrial airport, Perot Field offers a wide array of flight services, including air cargo, corporate, and government aviation. It’s the cornerstone of Dallas-based Hillwood’s 27,000-acre AllianceTexas development.
And Aerolane’s pursuit of FAA certification seems to have landed in the ideal place: The airport was born out of a collaboration between Hillwood, the city of Fort Worth, and the FAA itself.
Perot Field is also a key part of the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone (The MIZ). The MIZ is a testing and proving ground for all kinds of next-gen aviation solutions, from delivery drones to electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and more.
“We’re excited to welcome Aerolane as an operator at Perot Field and the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, where they can scale and commercialize logistics innovation in one of the world’s most unique multimodal transportation environments,” Christopher Ash, SVP of aviation business development for Hillwood, said in a statement. “At Hillwood, our focus continues to be on bringing innovative supply chain technologies to North Texas while providing next-level amenities to our customers.”
Content retrieved from: https://dallasinnovates.com/cargo-glider-co-aerolane-to-open-flight-ops-hq-at-perot-field-fort-worth-alliance-airport/.
