5 ms·

Planes with wings, by and large, do none of the following: hover, fly sideways, fly backward, fly straight upon or down, land or take off vertically. I say by

Planes with wings, by and large, do none of the following: hover, fly sideways, fly backward, fly straight upon or down, land or take off vertically. I say by and large because there are exceptions, but they are complex, expensive, and compromised.

demosito666 6y ago
Well, yes, this is true I guess. However, this drone is advertised not for those things, but for long range predominantly. This is what I find a bit strange. As for complex and expensive the first google result for "rc plane vtol" for me is this one [1] and it costs around $50. And then there are things like [2]... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFISwEQbaz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFISwEQbaz0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxHamYEQNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxHamYEQNU
- imtringued 6y ago
  I'm surprised. The first vtol plane you linked works so well I don't even understand why quadrocopters even exist at this point. So quadrocopters are just a modern fad and will disappear eventually.
  - asutekku 6y ago
    It looked really unstable and the shape meant that even a smallest wind will screw it up.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    It really depends on the application. For most industrial applications, they are really apples and oranges, with planes being unsuitable for many missions. There is no shortage of fixed wing drones and commercial operators are not idiots. They buy what they need for their application.
  - jlcortex 6y ago
    Quadcopters are equivalent to helicopters in terms of performance. VTOL-planes fly as a plane, they do not have hovering endurance, barely a few minutes at the most, just for take off and landing. So they cannot perform missions that require hovering capabilities. A hybrid multicopter has the advantage of longer-endurance, traditionally exclusive of planes, while still keeping all the advantages in simplicity, ease of use and versatility of multicopters.
- filleokus 6y ago
  I think yet another factor (that I haven't seen mentioned already) is the payload platform orientation. On a quadcopter you have a horizontal plane on which you can mount cameras or other sensors. Suppose you want to do some mapping, which is a pretty common scenario for these kind of industrial drones. With a quad, you can easily mount a camera which is mostly pointing in the same direction, regardless of air speed. With a gimbal you can direct it pretty freely. With a VTOL aircraft like your [1], the ground angle would shift 90+° degrees depending on airspeed (nose-up hover vs nose-forward flight). It would require a pretty aggressive gimbal to just keep the camera pointed towards the ground, and some angles would be impossible to get in hover mode. But for some industries like AG/large scale mapping, range is so important and you are basically always just interested in looking straight down and fly in simple pattern, that fixed vings are a thing: https://wingtra.com https://wingtra.com
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  >Well, yes, this is true I guess. However, this drone is advertised not for those things, but for long range predominantly. It is implied. Costumers shopping for $20,000+ industrial drones already know the tradeoffs between fixed wing and quadcopters.
jholman 6y ago
That's not true of fixed-wing drones. I've seen fixed-wing drones, made of really cheap parts, just act like helicopters. Hover, translate in arbitrary horizontal directions, VTOL, etc. I dunno if they were "flying backwards", but they did reverse flight direction. I think it's mostly just a matter of power-to-weigh ratio, which small aircraft have in spades.
- m463 6y ago
  I would expect the efficiency would be severely compromised by these maneuvers. Sort of like fly 20 minutes or take off vertically for 30 seconds. For efficiency, I think the best bet might be to take off from the top of a downhill slope gaining momentum and flying. To land, return facing up the slope killing momentum. sort of like this: https://youtu.be/vscvM8ysAwM https://youtu.be/vscvM8ysAwM
  - jlcortex 6y ago
    That's the point. Even though some fix-wings or convertible drones are able to do certain maneuvers similar to multirotors, their endurance is extremely limited then. A hybrid copter like HYBRiX is able to hover for hours, but it would be even more efficient on translational flight. Here you can see to which degree we can control the drone when we push it to its limit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHIZgQPgLtZ/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CHIZgQPgLtZ/ This means an outstanding resistance to wind, which fix-wings do not have.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > I've seen fixed-wing drones, made of really cheap parts, just act like helicopters. > I think it's mostly just a matter of power-to-weigh ratio, which small aircraft have in spades. Yeah! These small aircraft parts actually provide a respectable amount of thrust. The low weight of drones and model aircraft usually means they have massive thrust-to-weight ratio. T/W > 1 means the engine alone is able to propel it straight up. The larger the ratio, the more it acts like a rocket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio

demosito666 6y ago

Well, yes, this is true I guess. However, this drone is advertised not for those things, but for long range predominantly. This is what I find a bit strange. As for complex and expensive the first google result for "rc plane vtol" for me is this one [1] and it costs around $50. And then there are things like [2]... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFISwEQbaz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFISwEQbaz0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxHamYEQNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDxHamYEQNU

imtringued 6y ago
I'm surprised. The first vtol plane you linked works so well I don't even understand why quadrocopters even exist at this point. So quadrocopters are just a modern fad and will disappear eventually.
- asutekku 6y ago
  It looked really unstable and the shape meant that even a smallest wind will screw it up.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  It really depends on the application. For most industrial applications, they are really apples and oranges, with planes being unsuitable for many missions. There is no shortage of fixed wing drones and commercial operators are not idiots. They buy what they need for their application.
- jlcortex 6y ago
  Quadcopters are equivalent to helicopters in terms of performance. VTOL-planes fly as a plane, they do not have hovering endurance, barely a few minutes at the most, just for take off and landing. So they cannot perform missions that require hovering capabilities. A hybrid multicopter has the advantage of longer-endurance, traditionally exclusive of planes, while still keeping all the advantages in simplicity, ease of use and versatility of multicopters.
filleokus 6y ago
I think yet another factor (that I haven't seen mentioned already) is the payload platform orientation. On a quadcopter you have a horizontal plane on which you can mount cameras or other sensors. Suppose you want to do some mapping, which is a pretty common scenario for these kind of industrial drones. With a quad, you can easily mount a camera which is mostly pointing in the same direction, regardless of air speed. With a gimbal you can direct it pretty freely. With a VTOL aircraft like your [1], the ground angle would shift 90+° degrees depending on airspeed (nose-up hover vs nose-forward flight). It would require a pretty aggressive gimbal to just keep the camera pointed towards the ground, and some angles would be impossible to get in hover mode. But for some industries like AG/large scale mapping, range is so important and you are basically always just interested in looking straight down and fly in simple pattern, that fixed vings are a thing: https://wingtra.com https://wingtra.com
s1artibartfast 6y ago
>Well, yes, this is true I guess. However, this drone is advertised not for those things, but for long range predominantly. It is implied. Costumers shopping for $20,000+ industrial drones already know the tradeoffs between fixed wing and quadcopters.

jholman 6y ago

That's not true of fixed-wing drones. I've seen fixed-wing drones, made of really cheap parts, just act like helicopters. Hover, translate in arbitrary horizontal directions, VTOL, etc. I dunno if they were "flying backwards", but they did reverse flight direction. I think it's mostly just a matter of power-to-weigh ratio, which small aircraft have in spades.

m463 6y ago
I would expect the efficiency would be severely compromised by these maneuvers. Sort of like fly 20 minutes or take off vertically for 30 seconds. For efficiency, I think the best bet might be to take off from the top of a downhill slope gaining momentum and flying. To land, return facing up the slope killing momentum. sort of like this: https://youtu.be/vscvM8ysAwM https://youtu.be/vscvM8ysAwM
- jlcortex 6y ago
  That's the point. Even though some fix-wings or convertible drones are able to do certain maneuvers similar to multirotors, their endurance is extremely limited then. A hybrid copter like HYBRiX is able to hover for hours, but it would be even more efficient on translational flight. Here you can see to which degree we can control the drone when we push it to its limit: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHIZgQPgLtZ/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CHIZgQPgLtZ/ This means an outstanding resistance to wind, which fix-wings do not have.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> I've seen fixed-wing drones, made of really cheap parts, just act like helicopters. > I think it's mostly just a matter of power-to-weigh ratio, which small aircraft have in spades. Yeah! These small aircraft parts actually provide a respectable amount of thrust. The low weight of drones and model aircraft usually means they have massive thrust-to-weight ratio. T/W > 1 means the engine alone is able to propel it straight up. The larger the ratio, the more it acts like a rocket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust-to-weight_ratio