ARACE UAS Griffin Pro VTOL on three motors

ARACE UAS Griffin Pro VTOL on three motors

On LinkedIn recently I put the cat amongst the pigeons or some other prey by suggesting that quadplanes, 4-engined separate lift thrust (SLT) delivery airframes might not be suitable for medical delivery trials. My contention is that an X8 or even Y6 are better suited for operations over people as they have redundancy. This was in response to the incident in Scotland.

I had forgotten that the Griffin Pro has demonstrated flight after a motor failure. Tridge from Ardupilot has a review here.

ARACE GRIFFIN Pro is a next generation, ready to fly industrial aerial vehicle manufactured in the EU. It can perform vertically takeoff and landing (VTOL) from any 5x5m flat surface. Granting it the ability to be deploy from practically anywhere. For example, the side of the road, middle of a forest, top of a building, truck, boat and so on. Once reached safe altitude the flight mode will transition to horizontal forward flight and the UAV will proceed as a tradition fixed-wing aircraft. It is capable of up to 2.5 hours flight time.

If you want to have a go at flying a Griffin in the comfort of your own home there is a SITL version available for free.

Gary Mortimer

Founder and Editor of sUAS News | Gary Mortimer has been a commercial balloon pilot for 25 years and also flies full-size helicopters. Prior to that, he made tea and coffee in air traffic control towers across the UK as a member of the Royal Air Force.