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A helicopter can autorotate when its single engine quits, or continue flying when one of its multiple engines quit. Quadrocopter requires all four motors to wor
by pps43 7y ago
A helicopter can autorotate when its single engine quits, or continue flying when one of its multiple engines quit. Quadrocopter requires all four motors to work to remain in the air. This is a reasonable tradeoff for light hobby drones, but not for heavier drones for commercial delivery.
- mikepurvis 7y agoThis isn't quite true. Cheap drones may not have this capability, but controlled, safe landings of quadrotors with a single failed motor have been demonstrated, see this ETH Zurich video from 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs Obviously there are still other single points of failure such as the battery or controller, but at this point there's no excuse for crash landing a commercial drone just because a single motor (or rotor) has failed.