Talk:Quadcopter/Archives/2015

Why do helicopters still exist?

Sorry, I know this is not a forum, but anyway, I'm totally baffled as to why traditional helicopters still exist.

To me it appears that in times of modern sensors and powerful computers, quadrotors EXCLUSIVELY have advantages and NO disadvantages over traditional helicopters.

So, why are there no manned quadrotors flying around everywhere?

Lobbying? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.187.110.50 (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi - quadrotor researcher here. Believe it or not, quadrotors are actually inferior to traditional helicopters in pretty much every way except for their simplicity and robustness. In terms of dynamic performance, responsiveness, power efficiency and ground effect handling, helicopters win hands down. This is largely a result of the higher disc loading of quadrotors' smaller rotors, compared to the larger blades of helicopter. Of course, the complexity of helicopters means that something that is simpler has a lot of value for low-end tasks that don't have expert engineer support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.102.158.16 (talk) 01:56, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be important to explicitly point out the disadvantages of multicopters in the article, because now it makes it seem like there are none, and that leads to misunderstandings such as that expressed in this comment. For instance there is an interesting post which explains quite in detail why multiple small propellers are inherently less efficient than one big one. Of course being a blog post I don't think it qualifies as a proper reference, so it would be cool to have someone with more experience in the field lending a hand here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.175.96.153 (talk)