Quadcopters are great at hovering, but don’t have long range. Fixed-wing aircraft can travel long distances quickly, but don’t like to stay in one place above the ground.
Krossblade’s SkyProwler solves both of those problems. The hybrid aircraft is a remote controlled quadcopter with wings, or a plane with six rotors, capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL).
After vertically taking off, its four quadcopter blades are retracted, as well as the landing gear. This allows it to fly unobstructed as an airplane. It can also take off like a normal airplane, then land vertically.
If that wasn’t enough versatility, the wings can be removed, allowing it to fly in “hornet” mode as a high-speed quadcopter. As with many popular quadcopters, one can attach a GoPro for filming, or you can use the optional “Eye” camera with integrated gimbal stabilization for video. Flight can either be controlled manually or through several automated options.
Currently active on Kickstarter, the Skyprowler craft has been in development since at least 2013 when VTOL and transition to winged flight was achieved. This type of transitional flight is still quite new in the radio control community, so it’s cool to see something on the cutting edge come together. A prototype can be seen above, but the results of more than a year of work, seen in the video below, is really impressive.
As highlighted in the video, you could use this to film exotic cars or surfing, but I personally look forward to better coverage of hand-to-hand marsupial combat.
via makezine.com
