I know you’re thinking: “That’s a crazy title.” But bear with me on this one. It’s not as crazy as it seems. Just slightly crazy.
It turns out that the humble and useful anvil has a storied history of flight. So it’s even more useful than you thought. You see, back in the day (like 200 years ago), anvil quality control was a hot topic. Apparently, it was a common problem that you’d buy an anvil from thames.com (predecessor to amazon.com) and the thing would break.
Well, it’s moments like this where the mesh of human will and creativity take hold. A visionary enters the story. We don’t know who that visionary was but we know for certain that this guy didn’t mess around.
The idea was as simple as it is brilliant: “Anvil Firing.” It’s a method of testing anvils where you stack one anvil on top of another anvil and then gunpowder is poured in between two anvils – and ignited.
This accomplishes two things, both of which are awesome. (1) If the bottom anvil did not shatter, it was deemed safe to use. (2) The other anvil (on top) is launched like a rocket. It flies. Like 1000s of feet. Into the air.
Think we’re joking? People still do it today. Because how else are you going to get views on YouTube? Video link here.
What conclusions can we draw here?
- Aerodynamics? An anvil cuts through the air like a hot knife through butter.
- Thrust? It has impressive and efficient acceleration capabilities. When explosives are used.
- Hover? It can hover. At its apogee. For perhaps a second.
- Payloads? It can deliver payloads. As long as that payload is an anvil.
Now, let’s compare the anvil to a standard drone.
- Aerodynamics? The standard drone loses on all fronts. It’s a direct-drive open propeller. The most aerodynamically efficient propellers are ducted and spin at low RPMs.
- Thrust? The propeller on a standard drone is poorly designed to deliver thrust because it is thin. It has to be thin because it has to spin at very high rpms.
- Hover? Score one point for the standard drone. Even the most inefficient drone can hover longer.
- Payloads? Anvils are over a hundred pounds. Anvil wins the payload contest. Plus the standard drone has an inefficient design. There are way too many extraneous parts, all of which add weight. There’s nothing superfluous about an anvil. It’s a very efficient design.
So is our recommendation that you buy an anvil for your next drone? Well, no.
But it’s this kind of crazy comparison that has got us rethinking how important the performance, cost, and design characteristics of a drone are, and in turn, got us looking at drones and companies that defy convention.
One of those new companies is Modovolo, a start-up that has rethought what a drone is. And it’s a concept that we believe is long overdue. The Modovolo Lift is fifty percent lighter than comparable commercial drones on the market, with fifty percent more thrust, translating to better than twice the flight time.
You can check it out at modovolo.com.
Modovolo has just launched a limited pre-order. There are only 200 available so we recommend acting fast. Those pre-order customers will get lots of goodies too: guaranteed production priority, special access to the modovolo engineering team, a limited edition modovolo t-shirt, and get to direct what kinds of Utility Pods will be built first. There are others too that are defying convention. There is a new lighter-than-air concept from Buoyant Aero (https://www.buoyant.aero/) and a new commercial hauler from BlueFlite (https://www.blueflite.com/) that we are also tracking.
