June 14, 2021
Buffeted by wind gusting in moments from 20 kt to nearly calm and back again, an Aerovel Flexrotor, nose to the sky, opens its rear fuselage into a petal of landing legs. It remains doggedly on-station as it prepares for touchdown, and lands gently on a target barely bigger than its leg span. Its robust…[ Read more ]
January 26, 2021
Aerovel, makers of Flexrotor, the most advanced Group 2 unmanned aerial system (UAS) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), today announced strong reliability results for its latest Flexrotor variant. In demonstrations conducted for SOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) missions, Aerovel demonstrated over 150 cycles on the latest Flexrotor variant. One Flexrotor aircraft has 102…[ Read more ]
January 11, 2021
Aerovel recently hired aerospace veteran Ali Dian as interim CEO to manage day-to-day operations and to interface with civil and military customers in the US and abroad. Aerovel founding president Dr. Tad McGeer will continue as the company’s Chief Technology Officer focusing on the continued technical excellence of Aerovel Flexrotor as well as any future derivatives….[ Read more ]
September 26, 2018
Diminutive, and squat on its four lunar-lander legs, a Flexrotor spins-up its outsize rotor and levitates into the hot, high desert twilight. As it disappears into the darkness, its legs join into a trim rear fuselage, its broad wings take over, and the rotor slows to a flickering idle for a long, efficient cruise until…[ Read more ]
October 15, 2017
Long range and endurance are capabilities not often associated with VTOL aircraft. But Aerovel’s unmanned Flexrotor, a unique miniature tailsitter, is cut from a different cloth. Last week a Flexrotor named for the sea nymph Actaea lifted off into a grey and rainy morning with 7.5 kg of fuel onboard. It transitioned from hover to…[ Read more ]
November 2, 2016
Many weeks of slow and costly slogging through ice and fog might have been in store for a workboat fleet, sent a thousand miles from the nearest port to retrieve massive anchors from mooring sites spread across the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. But the lead ship was equipped with Flexrotor, a small unmanned aircraft built…[ Read more ]