What is a VTOL drone
The advantages and uses of VTOL Drone for your business and operations
VTOL is the future. There have been many projects announced that are striving to become the first company to start using VTOLs for transporting humans. One of the most known projects might be Uber Elevate, which wants to launch its taxi service across the world.
However, there are a lot of similar projects, that could be interesting for your business. In this article, we’ll talk more about VTOL, the different types of VTOL, and the added value it will have for your business.
What does it mean, VTOL?
VTOL is the abbreviation of Vertical Take-Off and Landing. As the name indicates, it refers to an aircraft such as a UAV that can take off and land vertically. The benefits of a VTOL aircraft are that it can take-off and land in nearly any environment. The benefit in combination with its wings makes the VTOL a very efficient object for longer range flying and still having the benefits of the multicopter drones that can ascend and carry for example packages or cameras.
The differences between VTOL
When it comes to VTOLs, people, in general, speak about two types of technology, namely the rotorcraft and powered-lift.
Rotorcraft VTOLs, also called rotary-wing aircraft, are the VTOLs that can lift by rotor blades that are spinning around a central mast, such as a helicopter or hexacopters and octocopters of which the Aurelia X6 series and Aurelia X8 series are the best examples.
Powered-lift aircraft are aircraft that can take off and land vertically, however they perform differently from rotorcraft VTOLs when in flight. This kind of aircraft has a more conventional fixed-wing design, like an airplane that you would take for your business or holiday trip. Great examples of powered-lift aircraft that do operate with vertical take-off and landing and changing over to their wings are the Bell V-280 Valor, or on a smaller scale and for different objectives, the newest Aurelia Q1 VTOL drone.
Longer distances, a longer flight time. A win-win
VTOLs can practically take-off and land in any kind of terrain. Besides, with the fixed wings that the powered-lift VTOLs have, they can fly longer and at a higher altitude than multicopter drones.
The powered-lift VTOL of Aurelia Aerospace, the Aurelia Q1 VTOL, can fly between 2 and 2.5 hours and up to a range of 20 kilometers with video transmission.
Is your business or operation in for example construction, maintenance, agriculture (for example surveying), or public safety, a fixed-wing VTOL will save a lot of time in comparison to multirotor drones that you have to land every half hour (Aurelia X6 Standard), or 50 minutes (Aurelia X6 Pro).
