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Comment by anjel | Hacker News Reader

There seems to be many entrants to this new sector of aircraft manufacture. I'm always left with the same 2 questions, unanswered.

1. What's the generic name for these aircraft vs "Helicopters?" 2. Whats the advantage of these aircraft vs Helicopters?

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1. I call that a multicopter. There are specialized names for multicopters: if it has 4 props, "quadcopter". 6 props: "hexacopter". Octocopter, etc. Some names give an indication on the configuration. Say you have something that looks like a quadcopter (so a square with one prop on each vertex), but each prop is doubled (so there are 8 in total: 2 "squares" on top of each other). Then I call that a "coax octocopter".

Same for VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles. I usually use VTOL to mean "a fixed wing" (i.e. something that looks like a plane) that takes off and lands vertically, but there are different configurations. A "tiltrotor" will have the rotors facing up when taking off, and then the rotors will tilt to face forward during flight. A "tailsitter" will have fixed rotors, but the vehicle will takeoff like a rocket (so "sitting on its tail", I guess), and then transition to forward flight.

You can refer to this list before naming that -copter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUPAC_numerical_multiplier

If enough of us are saying Tetracopter, it will stick.

1. I think we’re still deciding. 2. Quieter, easier to pilot, no fuel smell or storage.

on the other hand . no range.

2. I wonder, too. In terms of energy, I think the helicopter is the most efficient (it has to do with the surface covered by the prop, where one big rotor covers a bigger surface than many small ones).

Then in the startup world, I think it is more sexy to VCs, because that's new. Who would be interested in an autonomous helicopter? That's has-been, right?

1. I propose "more quiet helicopter"

I vote for aeromobile.

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