Designing Purpose-Built Drones for Ardupilot Pixhawk 2.1

The simple gets more complex

Well, our Bixler obviously wouldn't work. It's just not designed to carry much weight nor payload for our purposes. Just one 10,000 mAh battery weighs ~1,400 grams (49.39 ounces). That's more than our entire flying weight of the Bixler. We choose this battery because 6S (22.2V) batteries provide enough juice to lift heavy loads in a multicopter. And 10,000 mAh should provide plenty of flight time for our airplane as well.

So, we know what won't do the job. What will? Enter the Skywalker EVE-2000. For a final production model, of course we'd design something more purpose built. But this is a great airframe to test out a hybrid design. It has huge wings (2,400 mm wingspan), and has a maximum wet weight of 4,600g ...