EP 110 — AdlerAerospace’s Wilhelm Meya On The Broken Math Of Drone Defense

<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilhelm-meya"><u>Wilhelm Meya</u></a> spent his first career building linguistic technology. Then he pivoted into aerospace, founded <a href="https://adleraerospace.com/"><u>AdlerAerospace</u></a>, and started integrating battle-tested Ukrainian and European drone technologies for U.S. and allied defense customers. Two and a half years in, the company builds heavy-lift UAVs, autonomous interceptors, and counter-UAS systems, and was selected for the Pentagon&#39;s Drone Dominance program and the DARPA Heavy Lift Challenge.</p><p>Wilhelm tells Dave Graff why the only real answer to cheap long-distance strike drones is a cost-matched kinetic interceptor, how his team partners with automotive manufacturers to hit World War II-level production scale, and why the companies closest to the battlefield are outpacing Silicon Valley on solutions that actually work.</p><p>Topics discussed:</p><ul><li><p>Integrating Ukrainian and European drone tech for NATO-standard defense systems</p></li><li><p>Building the TALOS-J autonomous jet interceptor for sub-$100K engagements</p></li><li><p>Partnering with automotive manufacturers to scale drone production</p></li><li><p>Why magazine depth drives the need for cost-matched interceptors</p></li><li><p>Layered air defense architecture combining jet and electric interceptors</p></li><li><p>Mounting a micro gun on a heavy-lift UAV for kinetic counter-UAS</p></li><li><p>Why electronic warfare and RF jamming are already obsolete against autonomous drones</p></li><li><p>Lessons from Ukraine&#39;s weekly hardware iteration cycle vs. U.S. multi-year development</p></li></ul><p><strong>Listen to more episodes: </strong></p><p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dib-innovators/id1720062726"><u>Apple </u></a></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z3PpCHsglA3uk2S6dCRBP"><u>Spotify </u></a></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX2eBOnzz1SX0Psj6BmbdCw"><u>YouTube</u></a></p><p><a href="https://radicl.com/dib-innovators-podcast"><u>Website</u></a></p>