Generally speaking, if your drone starts spinning incredibly fast, you have a serious problem. But here’s the twist: (badumtsss) with the right design, spinning actually provides a substantial increase in hovering efficiency due to some clever exploitation of the laws of physics.

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Part 2 – Forward Flight Testing:    • Is THIS the Most Versatile Aircraft D...  
Part 3 – The Extraordinary Redundancy of Spinning Drones:    • The Extraordinary Redundancy of Spinn...  

There are plenty of spinning VTOL drones that are inspired by the maple seed. This type of drone has always caught my interest because the complexity of controlling it as it spins always seemed to outweigh whatever benefits it provided, if any. So, I decided it was time to figure out what makes these unique spinning VTOL drones so attractive by building my own that is able to spin with wings, or just fly around like a regular tricopter. As long as you don’t mind your payload spinning, and needing to implement a custom control method (coming soon…?) to intuitively direct it around, a spinning rotor drone is substantially more efficient at hovering than a regular multirotor drone. In the next video, we’ll take it to the next level by exploring fast forward flight with this unique drone design. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it!

00:00 Intro
01:19 Build
02:41 Altitude Hold
03:52 No Wings Power Data
05:49 Wings On Power Data
06:40 Why It's So Darn Efficient
08:00 Conclusions

#VTOL #Drone #Tricopter