A WHOLE NEW WAY TO FLY
It isn’t every year that an entirely new mode of flight is developed—but when it is, it seems that uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) are the preferred venue, likely because new concepts can be tested at significantly less cost and risk than the alternative.
One such example was on display at the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Xponential show in Orlando, Florida earlier this year: the Aergility Atlis. At first glance, the Atlis appears to be one among a seemingly endless parade of embedded multirotor, hybrid gas/electric VTOLs developed for cargo delivery on display at the show every year.
Look more closely, however, and there are clues that something special is happening here: the wings are too thin and stubby to provide enough lift for an aircraft of this size, they lack ailerons, and the multirotor propellers seem over-size, even given the bulk of the airframe. What is going on here?
That is the question I put to Brian Vander Mey, Aergility’s director of sales and marketing.
“It’s a union of two different flight technologies,” he explained. “You have a multirotor that is used for vertical takeoff
