I have been remotely designing and simulating a solution for a research professor at Arizona State working on a faster and cheaper method to distribute hydrogen. Because hydrogen has such a low density, semi-trailers are too small to contain large amounts of low-pressure hydrogen. We thought flying the hydrogen made more sense and came up with a conventional vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Dissatisfied with the results, the second design we came up with was a UAV that is small enough to land at a gas station but, instead of rotating the motors for horizontal flight, the entire aircraft rotates to decrease complexity.

With this unconventional design and removal of the human pilot, I was able to increase the effectiveness of all lifting surfaces due to the decreased longitudinal stability. This solution was tested on NASA’s X-29 however, in my design, the four motors will provide adequate pitch control.

This design is competing in the AFWERX Reimagining Energy Challenge for the DOD.