Liberty Lifter

The Liberty Lifter program is currently designing and will build, float, and fly an affordable and innovative seaplane that can potentially transform fast logistics missions for the DOD and commerce.

Liberty Lifter’s innovative manufacturing techniques and materials offer a path to utilize existing infrastructure to rapidly build – at low-cost – a capability essential for our warfighters, helping to advance the efficacy of our defense industrial base to meet near-term needs.

Liberty Lifter could also provide sea-based search and rescue and disaster response at the scale of ships with the speed of air transport.

Liberty Lifter will deliver these innovative capabilities by:

• Operating efficiently for long distances flying low over the ocean surface in a wide range of conditions
• Sustaining flight altitudes up to 10,000 feet mean sea level with a compromise on range
• Efficiently transporting large payloads at speeds far exceeding existing sea lift platforms

Program status

In June 2025, DARPA completed its work on Liberty Lifter. After restructuring the program to focus on areas of highest technical risk, the program’s simulation success and materials testing proved the viability of the Liberty Lifter concept. 

Instead of building a demonstrator aircraft, DARPA is working with industry and DOD stakeholders to accelerate transition of what we’ve learned to encourage rapid fielding of platforms leveraging the technologies developed at DARPA.