SkyTote - the VTOL UAV that transitions into horizontal flight

April 8, 2006 One of the greatest difficulties with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is that they invariably don’t have high speed as one of their attributes. The principles are well explained in our article about the Cartercopter, and it’s one of the prime reasons the US military has persisted with the V-22 Osprey. There has been much emphasis on the development of new unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) in recent times, and development imperatives have often been torn between the various needs for UAVs that can quickly move from target to target yet loiter as a fixed and stable platform, all the while operating with no launch and retrieval infrastructure. One of the planet's most innovative companies, Aerovironment, has proposed an innovative configuration known as the Skytote to meet all of these needs. The SkyTote is a novel UAV using dual counter rotating propellers that will take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but also transition into horizontal flight like a conventional aircraft for efficient point-to-point operation. This complex vehicle uses an intricate drive system to allow helicopter operations with cyclic and collective control, as well as blade pitch control, combined with normal aircraft control surfaces in conventional flight operations

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