I also wonder if the Google drone uses a symmetric airfoil (no lift at level flight) like the QuadShot, or if they use a standard wing design. The symmetric air

I also wonder if the Google drone uses a symmetric airfoil (no lift at level flight) like the QuadShot, or if they use a standard wing design. The symmetric airfoil obviously makes control easier when in vertical (quadrotor) flight, but loses efficiency and stability in horizontal (plane) flight. I have a QuadShot and it's not too difficult to control. I think with a good control system the airframe could work pretty well. The QuadShot is quite lightweight, has all its mass centered, and has a pretty large wing cross-section which makes it difficult to fly in the wind though. I also don't feel that the QuadShot's firmware was ever quite nailed down completely - I feel that there's still a lot more stability to be gained by tweaking PIDs and improving the control system, or by adding additional inputs like optical flow. The Google device probably benefits a lot from being bigger as it's difficult to substitute for inertia.