Louisiana Flies First Uncrewed Aircraft Under FAA eVTOL Pilot Program, but Neither Federal Program nor State Fund Has Put Money Behind It
Why It MattersThe first uncrewed program flight lands in a state whose offshore transport remains a helicopter business, with no federal program money and no appropriation to the state's vertiport fund behind it.
A survey of Louisiana's advanced air mobility and drone industry covers 17 companies, programs and facilities, each with a status and the date it was last checked. Fourteen are operating, and two could not be confirmed either way. Louisiana is the tenth state in a series of fifty, and the first state in the federal eVTOL Integration Pilot Program to fly an aircraft with nobody on board.
In late August 2026, Elroy Air ran a week of autonomous, uncrewed Chaparral cargo flights from Houma-Terrebonne Airport under air traffic control. On August 31, the FAA announced these were the first remotely piloted aircraft test flights under the national program; crewed flying under the program had begun earlier, on July 10 in Virginia, under a Pennsylvania lead. The cargo was ordinary offshore freight: medical supplies, toolboxes of spare parts, food and jerry cans of water. The FAA's pilot program page now puts Louisiana's project across four states, adding Oklahoma to Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and lists MSU, Teros, BETA and Elroy Air as partners.
Elroy Air's merger registration took effect on November 5, 2026, with a shareholder vote set for November 25, and Bristow now holds 15 early delivery positions for the Chaparral. New Orleans police logged 209 drone flights in the first quarter of 2026 and 112 in the second.
The industry the first flight is meant to serve is a helicopter industry. Roughly 15,000 people a month are flown to offshore locations supported by Port Fourchon, which handles more than 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's deepwater energy production. Bristow keeps five Louisiana bases, more than in any other state, and calls Louisiana its core United States base of operations. PHI runs 213 aircraft from Lafayette and Metro Aviation more than 130 from Shreveport.
The state has a dedicated Advanced Aeronautics Director and a Vertiport Development Fund created by statute in 2024, but the fund has never been appropriated a dollar, and the state's own announcement of its federal selection says the federal government will not provide funding through the program. A letter of intent for 100 Elroy Air Chaparral aircraft and an order for up to 55 BETA ALIA aircraft were announced without a disclosed value, and neither is a Louisiana investment. Louisiana has published no advanced air mobility economic forecast.
By the survey's count, Louisiana ranks 11th of 50 states by active organizations (14, tied) and 4th of 45 by share operating (82%). Terrebonne Parish holds 5 of the 17 mapped organizations.
