The flying tractor is butt ugly, a single carbon fiber tube and a massive rectangular carbon fiber wing. But it can carry 300 pounds of freight under is wing, slung onto the carbon fibertube. It is a 1/2 scale STOL without the cabin and without the sheet metal. The motor is 30 hp, and it cruises at 40 mph about thirty feet above the field. It is a slow lifter, the motor is a four cycle, two cylinder.
It can spread seed or fertilizer or chemical at ten acres an hour. It cost 15 grand, a third of that cost is the motor. It is all about the light weight, but strong, carbon fiber materials. Carbon fiber has filled an empty gap in air vehicles. Just above the earth, everywhere, we will deploy autonomous planes, fly bots.
Three parties drive this, hobbyists and educators demanding the carbon solutions, as is commercial aviation and military. Everyone wants the small scaled down version, the flying bot.
My foam airplanes are analogous. I can take the bare foam board, roll it, laminate it and weave it, just like the carbon fiber is treated, with resin and heat. That is what intrigued me about Dollar Tree foam airplanes, the limiting factor is not the air frame anymore, nor is it the autonomy; linux has that. There is nothing stopping the market at this moment. Sufficient carbon fiber components already available in the proper shapes, they just need epoxy, bolts, and utility clamps on that fuselage. We are talking farmers, today do this; and it will spread far and wide.
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