VTOL Fixed Wing UAV

The answer to limited flying hours and weight capacity of 'drones'

This is a research problem I find fascinating. I personally faced this problem in the early 2000. After building fully working long endurance UAV in 2004, I offered free UAV services to potential customers in government agencies and agriculture industries. This way I was able to gauge whether the 'illusive' multi-billion dollar 'untapped' civil UAV market was real or not. When these customers brought me to site and explained the mission, I faced a problem I didn't anticipate. It was a big problem. In most cases there was no runway, field or clear piece of land for the UAV to take-off and land. 

Around the year 2014 onward, quadcopter drones entered the market. Clearly this had the potential to solve the problem of takeoff and land within small area. However, until now (2018), drones could not fly long endurance and they have severe limitation on the amount of weight it could carry. This limitation stop short the effectiveness of drones to complete projects that require such objectives to be achieved.

 One answer to the problem is to create a working hybrid - a fixed wing UAV capable of flying long hours and carry heavy payload that is capable of vertical takeoff and land. And this is the subject of my research today.