Helicopters are excellent aerial vehicles for multi-purpose tasks. Search-rescue, emergency aid delivery and several commercial, as well as military operations, can be carried out with ease via helicopters. Their vertical take-off and landing system along with their ability to hover over places for a long time puts them at an advantage in any situation. With all the advantages come some of the massive disadvantages too. Operating helicopters require hefty costs and trained pilots. With surging global warming and decreasing fossil fuels, helicopters aren’t exactly nature-friendly. They use approximately 16 gallons of fuel per hour which can shoot up to 30 gallons for bigger models. In such cases, we need to rely on a better solution which has an efficiency at par or greater than the standard helicopters. This is where the Cormorant drones come into play.
The Cormorant is a compact, unmanned, single-engine, VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft. It has internal lift rotors which enable it to fly in obstructed spaces, like mountainous, wooded or urban terrain, where helicopters are unable to operate. The Cormorant drone has a futuristic design and is extremely compact. The main features that set it apart from every other drone and similar aerial vehicles are its internal rotors and a significant payload capacity which enable it to evacuate two people in an emergency. This also helps in fast and flexible payload reconfiguration for other missions.
Cormorant is also suited for unmanned missions, which can easily be operated by ground-based units. It offers great functionality to emergency responders in their routine work despite the harshness of a situation, like floods or earthquakes. Its ability to deliver food, water and medical supplies directly to the affected people even in the most isolated areas can save uncountable lives. The Cormorant drone was designed by a company called Urban Aeronautics which is based in Yavne, Israel.
Consumer quadcopters and multi-rotor copters can do photography, surveillance or at most deliver light packages but Cormorant is capable of carrying cargo weighing 500 kilograms (1102 lbs) in both commercial and emergency scenarios up to a distance of 50 kilometers (31 miles). Thereby it can deliver 6000 Kilograms (13,227 lbs) within 24 hours, which is enough to supply 3000 people with sufficient food, water and other supplies. It is also outfitted with remotely controlled mechanical arms which can perform a variety of tasks.
In its advantages over helicopters, the Cormorant can also hover in harsh environments and withstands winds up to 40 knots which is a significant improvement over standard helicopters. Cormorant can be optionally equipped with a rocket-deployed parachute, that will safely lower the complete vehicle and its payload from almost any height in the case of an unlikely malfunction of its engine or lift rotors.
This drone has an upper hand in almost all aspects of aerial transportation of goods as well as people. Safety, speed or payload delivery, Cormorant seems to manage it all very well. It is also built as per the FAA’s (Federal Aviation Administration) design requirements for Rotorcraft, resulting in an aircraft with very high safety and reliability.
Watch the demonstration of the Cormorant Drone:
