Munich-area startup ERC System has unveiled Victor, an uncrewed hybrid-electric cargo eVTOL designed for defence, logistics, and disaster response, at ILA Berlin 2026. The company says the aircraft can carry a 250kg payload over a range of 300km at a cruise speed of 250km/h. ERC System is targeting first deliveries in 2028.

Victor uses a lift-and-cruise architecture with eight lifting propellers for vertical takeoff and a pusher propeller for forward flight. A piston engine serves as a range extender on top of the electric powertrain, a design choice that ERC’s chief commercial officer Maximilian Oligschläger has said reflects the company’s reluctance to “bet on future technologies.” The hybrid approach trades the simplicity of a fully electric system for the range that battery technology alone cannot yet deliver.

The aircraft builds on flight testing of ERC’s Romeo prototype, a 2.7-tonne, 16-metre-wingspan demonstrator that the company says is the heaviest fully electric aircraft of its type to have flown in Europe. Romeo began hover testing near Munich in November 2025, completing roughly ten flights. ERC says the tests validated its flight-control system and lift-and-cruise configuration.

ERC System was founded in 2019 in Ottobrunn, just outside Munich, by Christopher Schrop, Maximilian Oligschläger, and three other co-founders. The company emerged from stealth in July 2024 and is backed by IABG, a German aerospace testing and certification specialist that serves the Bundeswehr. IABG has invested what has been described as a “significant double-digit-million-euro sum” and remains ERC’s sole institutional backer.

The company claims Victor’s direct operating costs will be roughly 70% lower than those of a small helicopter. That figure has not been independently verified, and no uncrewed eVTOL of this size has yet operated commercially in Europe, making the comparison speculative. The aircraft’s modular interior can be configured for cargo, medical supplies, or mission-specific equipment, with rear clamshell doors for loading.

Victor’s 250kg payload, 300km range, and 250km/h cruise speed are company specifications that have not been demonstrated in flight testing. The specs were disclosed at ILA Berlin and have not yet been independently confirmed. German dual-use drone makers like Quantum Systems have attracted substantial investment in recent years, but ERC’s cargo eVTOL occupies a different category, heavier and slower than military surveillance drones but designed for sustained logistical operations.

ERC is also developing Charlie, a crewed eVTOL for inter-hospital patient transfers, which it expects to enter service around 2031 in collaboration with German air rescue operator DRF Luftrettung. The company frames Victor as a near-term revenue generator while the longer and more complex certification process for a piloted aircraft plays out.

The 2028 delivery timeline is ambitious by the standards of an industry that has repeatedly missed its own deadlines. At least six European eVTOL manufacturers have entered insolvency since 2023, including Lilium and Volocopter. Defence drone startups like Berlin’s Stark have attracted billions in capital, but the transition from prototype to serial production remains the defining challenge for the sector.

ERC has no revenue, no certified aircraft, and no publicly disclosed customer contracts. It is competing for defence and logistics customers against established players with operational track records, including Dronamics, which already holds a European cargo drone licence, and military drone manufacturers with active deployments in Ukraine. What ERC does have is a flying full-scale prototype and a strategic investor with deep roots in the German defence establishment, which may matter more than venture capital in a market increasingly shaped by government procurement.

OpenAI announced a new feature that it says will provide additional protection from prompt injection attacks, where malicious chatbot instructions are hidden in webpages and other content sources.

Among other things, Lockdown Mode will disable live web browsing (so you can only access cached content), the retrieval and display of images from the web (you can still generate images), deep research, and agent mode.

The company says that even with Lockdown Mode turned on, ChatGPT could still be vulnerable to prompt injections — which could, for example, “appear in cached web content or in an uploaded file, and could still affect the behavior or accuracy of a response.”

But the goal is to reduce the likelihood that sensitive data gets shared in the process.

“Lockdown Mode is not intended for everyone,” OpenAI says. “It is designed for people and organizations that handle sensitive data and want stricter protection from data exfiltration risks related to prompt injection.”

The company says it’s currently rolling Lockdown Mode out to self-serve ChatGPT Business accounts, as well as eligible personal accounts.

Fitness influencer LeanBeefPatty showed off her very own Malevola cosplay after the developers behind Dispatch revealed that she influenced the character’s physique.

Dispatch released in late 2025 to critical acclaim, following former superhero Robert Robertson as he takes a job at SDN dispatching local heroes to save the day from disaster in Torrence, CA.

AdHoc Studio’s debut title became an instant smash hit thanks to its engaging narrative, decision-based gameplay, and its colorful cast of characters, several of which were voiced by notable gaming influencers like JackSepticEye, MoistCritikal, and Alanah Pearce.

It turns out that these weren’t the only influencers who made an impact on the project. Dispatch’s art director Derek Stratton admitted that fitness creator LeanBeefPatty’s chiseled physique, along with that iconic Cindy Crawford Pepsi commercial from the early 90s, served as major inspirations for Malevola’s design.

“She is Cindy Crawford from that commercial meets that sort of hot rod demon lady, and the body type of LeanBeefPatty, who is an influencer who’s like, ripped,” he told IGN in November.

LeanBeefPatty’s Malevola cosplay goes viral

Come mid-December, LeanBeefPatty publicly thanked the Dispatch devs for using her as reference for Malevola with a cosplay of the character, which she posted to Instagram to the tune of 340K likes.

“What a huge honor to be referenced in the character creation of Malevola from Dispatch! (Along with Cindy Crawford),” she wrote. Thank you so much, truly! Please forgive my mildly scuffed semi closet cosplay. Hopefully, I can get a bit of grace in that aspect.”

Fans flooded the comments section to congratulate the influencer and gush over her striking depiction of the character. Even prolific voice actor Matt Mercer chimed in, writing, “Oh my goodness, this is INCREDIBLE!”

“The circle is complete. You have cosplayed a character that’s based off of you. The planets are aligned, the beacons are lit,” another joked.

Yet another tagged Alanah Pearce, the voice of Malevola, asking, “This u?” The games writer and streamer jokingly replied, “Yeah, actually.”

Given that Malevola was basically based on LeanBeefPatty’s appearance, it’s safe to say this is one of the most accurate cosplays we’ve ever seen — minus the height, of course. (Malevola is 6 feet, 6.6 inches tall in the game, while Patty, a former gymnast, stands at 5 feet 2 inches.)

Dispatch fans won’t have to wait long for more news on the game, either, as developers recently teased plans for a possible second season in an interview with Eurogamer.