The UK-based company is trading batteries and electric motors for pumps and gas engines delivering a range of hundreds of miles and flight times that last hours, Gizmodo reported. 

Flowcopter’s long-range heavy-lift drones are being developed to help helicopter operators optimize freight, surveying, and search and rescue operations. 

The heavy-lift drones will reportedly run aviation-certified combustion engines that will drive digital displacement pumps – designed for harsh environments – providing control bandwidth to fly.  

Flowcopter claims its drone could stay in the air without refuelling for up to six hours and cross distances up to 900 kilometres. Shorter flights could facilitate payloads up to 150 kg, making the drone a more capable short-range autonomous delivery vehicle that doesn’t have to deal with traffic or lengthy charge times between flights.  

As we see in the video, Flowcopter has built a rather more raw-looking prototype that performs tethered flight testing. regardless of its look, it seems to take off the ground. Although it looks relatively unstable, it’s an impressive proof of concept, and one that will improve as more advanced building materials are incorporated into the overall design.

‘This product will offer a step-change in the capabilities of today’s heavy-lift drones in robustness, range, and payload,” the company mentions on its website. 

Flowcopter says the drones are capable of lifting more payload than electric drones and can fly for longer based on rugged off-road vehicle technology without high voltages, it can be easily and safely maintained without specialist facilities.  

According to msn.com. Source of photo: internet