03 · The conditions

Every number has a condition. Here they are.

From here on, under every figure there's the condition that makes it true and the chapter of the study it comes from. That's the reason this page exists.

The twenty hours and the ten hours are the same aircraft. What changes is the vertical takeoff module: with it mounted you take off from a valley clearing or a ship's deck, and that mass is carried in cruise for the whole mission. Claiming the twenty hours without saying this would be convenient for us and useless for you.

The payload bay changes load and changes mission: connectivity repeater, transport module, optics, thermal, laser, agricultural sensors. The aircraft doesn't know what it's doing, the bay does.

The multirotor can't get there, and it's not a matter of money.

A twenty-five kilogram quadcopter flies thirty-five minutes because it has to hold itself up by pushing air downward, all the time. A wing holds itself up on its own.

You can't make up the difference with a bigger battery: below twenty-five kilograms the batteries needed for a full day of flight would weigh more than the entire aircraft, and the winter sun at our latitudes delivers a fraction of the requirement. What's left is thermal and hybrid.

We chose the series hybrid: a small engine running at a constant speed, a generator, an electric bus driving the cruise propeller and the vertical-takeoff rotors. You pay a small fuel penalty. In return you come back with the engine off, you fly in silent mode, and the rotors are fed without a second chain.

If you need half an hour over a construction site, buy a multirotor and you'll be right. This page is about full shifts.