Advanced Aircraft Company Hercules
Another SLT joins the party. I predict that 2017 will be the year of the SLT with most people using the work of Tridge and the Opensource autopilot Ardupilot project to run the things.
The Hercules is a 36-pound gross weight, 8 rotor UAS with a 2-stroke gasoline engine.
It incorporates electric propulsion technologies based on current NASA research and development.
The design significantly improves range and endurance over typical multi-rotor UASs.
Performance improvement is achieved due to patent-pending advanced aerodynamic design and a series hybrid electric propulsion system. The Hercules offers more than six times the range and endurance of current products on the market. In addition, if the gasoline engine were to fail, a battery provides 2 minutes of flight enabling a safe landing.
Long endurance capabilities increase your mission options. The advanced design has the operational efficiency to provide ease of use for the UAS service provider.
The Hercules UAS has a long range in addition to long endurance, combined with the ability to hover. For this reason, the Hercules UAS is optimised to fly at a higher airspeed than other multi-rotors currently on the market.
Conversely, the Hercules design is able to fly at a similar airspeed as the traditional multi-rotor aircraft while attaining greater efficiency. In addition, the Hercules UAS can be customised for the operator’s mission. For low airspeed missions, the operator benefits by the ability to remove the fairings/wings, enabling Hercules to carry an additional four pounds of payload while achieving the same endurance.
