America’s mad scientists all have one dream: DARPA money. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, regularly throws round sweet, sweet tax dollars to push the envelope on any number …. DARPA Lift Challenge Won by Helicopter.
Not every DARPA project ends in revolution though– like the latest DARPA Lift Challenge, whose goal was to see the creation of a vehicle that could perform Vertical Take Off And Landing with a payload 4x its own weight. We hoped for something revolutionary, something bizzare, something really, really cool– and there were absolutely entries on the field that met all of those superlatives. Unfortunately, sometimes conventional designs are the convention for a reason, and the overall winner by AVIDrone, Inc.
Was just a very well made electric helicopter. One big lift rotor, one little tail rotor– aside from clever details in the solid-state batteries and carbon-fiber construction, it is a totally normal aircraft… albeit one that could lift 3.84x its dry weight, or 112 lb of payload. Interestingly a battery-powered hexrotor drone took home second place with a 3.64:1 lift ratio.
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