Great question! I don't think there's any sub $5k VTOL you can just buy COTS that can get close to 3 hours of range. Also, nothing is as plug and play as DJI. If you're motivated enough to do a little DIY and learn how to use Ardupilot or PX4 (easier), you can buy a kit like the Heewing T2 VTOL and assemble yourself. But I don't think that will do more than two hours flight time, even with a similarly high energy density battery pack to what I used.

https://wingtra.com/vtol-drone/

Never used one, but either this design or a tri-rotor v-22 style tilt motor are the two designs I've found intriguing. Worth checking out at perhaps?

I reviewed and purchased a smaller drone, from WHISPR. Through that, I looked at similar VTOL drones, which OP is demonstrating. In theory, they're cheap:

https://www.uavmodel.com/products/makeflyeasy-hero-2180mm-ua...

This one has a maximum climb rate of 3 degrees. Which means you'd need to plan a route that's continously climbing, and tacking back and forth to avoid going steeply. So you would probably combine flight planning using Mission Planning: https://ardupilot.org/planner/ and custom json tweaking following MavLink protocol: https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/mavlink-routing-in-ardupilot....

The open source flight controllers and systems are https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-autopilots.html#ope... a good place to start. There's a few orgs building the full experience, but you'll of course pay for fully integrated, but still open source, hardware+software.

The scenario you describe is exactly what a VTOL or normal play is for; quad copters simply do not cover enough ground.

Also consider the camera. DJI typically ship with really low quality cameras, but https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1785754-REG/sony_ilx_... would get you a much higher pixel density so if you're more interested in the imaging, you can flight higher, near the licensed ceiling, completing more ground faster.

I've also found AI models know how to calculate pixel densities, so it's pretty easy to mock out a flight plan even if you dont have the actual drone available.

Yes I used single wall foaming PLA which is much less impact resistant and more brittle vs any foam, even cheap foamcore and especially EPP or EPO. This has definitely been an issue with crashing and rebuilding.

But my first and only other VTOL build was foamcore Readyboard and that took a 12 ft drop onto asphalt with only a slight compression in the fuselage. Never replaced it.

I would add dovetails or other clips for printed sections if I did another printed build.

Yes avionics and propulsion parts are COTS for speed, the Amprius pack is US manufactured but others are all made in China.

I'm starting to see some more Ardupilot used commercially too but yes the UX is janky and unintuitive.

PLA is pretty bad compared to foam when it comes to planes, as it's very heavy and very brittle. Any semi-hard landing will break parts off, and heavy planes fly badly.

The big advantage is that you can just print the part again, which almost makes PLA worth it.

ABS would probably be better, as it's much more durable and lighter, but it's still much heavier than foam, and printing ABS isn't great.

Ardupilot is very, very mature software. A lot of the drone video coming out of Ukraine, the HUD overlay is likely from Ardupilot. If you can think of it, Arduipilot supports it. Airplanes, helicopter, VTOL, speedboat, even sailboats.

Thanks! I'm using the standard Ardupilot control systems for hover, transition and cruise flight. On the firmware side, it's just some parameters and tuning that is customized.

What I started with - Had built one VTOL before from foamboard, not 3D printed. - Familiar with Ardupilot from that project and assembling a multicopter and COTS VTOL. - So I had a little experience building a structurally sound airframe for VTOL loads, but 3D printing was a wrinkle. - How I worked it out is a hard question. But it was being focused with design, flight testing and troubleshooting. LLMs, Youtube, forums, etc for help when needed. - Building in public helped paradoxically. It actually saves me time to build in public because of the motivation boost that helps me move faster and to share progress sooner. Even though there's a higher lift to document and share.

It doesn't look like it required any AP customization, AP will do VTOL out of the box.

Thanks and yes I'm glad you say that. Would love to see it. It's hard to convey how much faster and better your work will be if you are actually passionate about it.

Appreciate that! It's just a lot more effort making long videos with the voiceover/clips/etc.

Shameless plug: https://aliptera.com/

Tilt-rotor on all 4 motors with an extra twist: the wing shape adds to the lift in vertical mode, so you can use smaller motors, so they're more efficient even in horizontal mode.

Very similar design already used by Wing. I'm guessing they did a fair bit of analysis and modeling of the cost, range, complexity, safety, etc. etc. tradeoffs before settling on what they're using currently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Aviation#/media/File:Wing...

It's actually not a terrible inefficiency.

With this config, the cruise motors and prop are optimally sized for cruise - which gives non trivial gains to both eta for propulsive motor efficiency and prop efficiency.

Vs a tiltrotor/wing/body in which the cruise motor has to do double duty as lifting motors. Given it takes anywhere from ~4-7x more power to hover (depending on disc loading) than to cruise, you can see how the motors are not in an optimal throttle/rpm band in this case. Archer's CTO Munoz has actually said this publicly.

Adding a tiltrotor mechanism is surely not worth the added complexity and weight, in this case. You're right though on the added weight and drag from having separate motors and props.

And the weight (and drag) penalty is ~5% given the actuators and subassemblies for tilting don't come for free either.

This is also the most the penalty will ever be as electric motors continue increasing in specific power, and quite rapidly this century so far.

A1, 256 x 256 mm lets me print these wings in four sections (including a double walled thin section for the boom mounts). With a high AR glider you'd probably need a few more. Carbon fiber spars + CA glue will do the trick for attaching them

Thanks, I've not! But given the battery mass fraction is 53% for this build, rule of thumb is about 30% of a VTOL's weight for battery if you want to include payload. So I could just use a smaller 6S battery.

Or I could probably add another ~0.5 lbs or a little more without issue. The lifting motors hover at 45% ish throttle so there is some headroom for more payload without reducing battery mass fraction.

Thank you, appreciate that!

> That battery seems expensive (most expensive part?)

At first, I was like "Nah, just looks like my RC car battery", but then I Googled it...and it's a whopping $1,305 [0].

I looked closer at the specs and they're insane for a battery as small as it is. They have double the energy density as measured by both volume and mass compared to my RC car batteries [1].

[0] https://www.upgradeenergytech.com/product-page/gold-v1-6s2p-...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Zeee-Connector-Vehicles-Helicopter-Ai...

Thanks! Yes ~$700 without battery and I scored the Amprius pack on special for $700 but it is currently $1300.

Still tba if/what I open source

Yes it really depends on the transmitter protocol. I was using SBUS, simple, cheap, familiar from my previous project. But limited to < 1 mile or so I believe, but ELRS and other protocols allow tens of miles or more.

If you use ELRS, probably 100ish km.

Thank you!

You should do it!

Thank you!

Not tested! But minimum I would say 70 mph. If designing for speed, I'd be looking at a cruise motor and prop that maximizes the thrust output rather than cruise efficiency

edit: at least 70 mph