Boeing had considered bidding with its large H-47 Chinook helicopter, or offering the V-22 tilt-rotor craft that it makes with Bell.
This four-rotor craft, made by AeroVironment of Monrovia, California, weighs in at 5.5lb (2.5kg) and fits easily in the boot of a car.
Discussing the finding at a news conference, Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, assistant chief of staff for Marine aviation, said investigators "have found no mechanical or software failures" that might have caused the crash, which killed all 19 people aboard the Osprey, a tilt-rotor craft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like a fixed-wing plane.
Later, in November, their countryman Paul Cornu, who was a bicycle maker like the Wright brothers, attained a free flight of about 20 seconds' duration, reaching a height of one foot in a twin-rotor craft powered by a 24-horsepower engine.
The much larger Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout, a 3,150-pound 3,150-pound 1,420-kg 1,420-kg resembling an unmanned helicopter, has been operational with the U.S. Navy sincraft09; it was firesemblingn anti-drunmannedling operations off thelicopterof thasUnited States.
Fig. 5 Characterizations of four-rotor craft attitude.
The Austin-based company just took the wraps off the Hexa, the 18-rotor craft it intends to make available for short recreational flights.
Not only are the basic routines for keeping a multi-rotor craft aloft and stable getting better and better, but we are also seeing critical safety features like safe emergency landings, protection from signal hijackers and awareness of other nearby drones for mutual avoidance purposes.
