Banggood is now taking pre-orders for a VTOL wing. It seems to be the holy grail of VTOL to me - no redundant motors, no extra servos, so it's a simple, reliable, and above all, efficient.
Note that the link above excludes electronics, the Arkbird Lite 2.0 FC is required, along with the usual electrics.
Tridge..? :)
Comments
My 5c about efficiency of transitional A/Cs: in terms of parasitic weight, I agree with you that this design is as minimalistic as possible, however the huge thrust needed for take-off and landing demands powerful motors and props, which are (often) not optimized for high efficiency fixed-wing flying.
Best,
Pascal
NASA version: http://newatlas.com/nasa-drones-mars/48623/
@Gary, it was written in the sky that we would get Tridge attention. :)
Jason Hi, 4 videos on youtube, but not that one in ff ,some questions answered in comments.
@rick, do you have a video of it in Full forward flight? The video shows hover mode, but, I'm curious to see how it flies when it's in Plane mode?
What's really cool about that design is it looks like you could transition to plane mode very quickly on takeoff reducing the wasted energy of the hover mode a lot. Looks like you could begin angled flight even 1 foot above the ground and begin taking advantage of the lift generated by the wing almost immediately!
Hi Rick,
Yeah on further reflection I can see that in VTOL(ish) mode you would probably need servo control plus independent throttle control in order to maintain stability, orientation, course and control.
Otherwise it would be impossible to control and you'd be back to needing a minimum of 3 or 4 motors.
Might work for a quick takeoff, but landings would be unlikely at best.
Best Regards,
Gary
Gary, yes servo tilt, it changes the flight dynamics more than I expected I think you will see lots more of this.
That is one cool design Tridge,
Seems like you could almost get by with free pivoting prop motor units, maybe spring loaded a bit or with appropriate weight / pivot offset.
I can't tell if that one is using a servo or not.
Best Regards,
Gary
which is why I love this design:
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/google-wing-nasa-greased-lightn...
hopefully we'll have ArduPilot flying that sort of vectored tailsitter (belly-sitter?) soon
The overwhelming problem with this design is that wind and gusts makes them incredibly difficult or impossible to land successfully.
Even weathervaned so that the wind runs parallel to the wing from the end you are left with any vertical control surfaces directly interfering with the wind.
And this model has considerable vertical control surfaces.
Even without them, that big wing is very problematic when landing in any wind or gust condition at all.
I think they can be a lot of fun for hobby use, but I will be surprised if it is ever successful in a commercial role.
Even the ones with horizontal take off and landing have problems as wind and gusts can play havoc with them especially near the ground, but the tail sitters have a much worse problem.
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