I’m pretty sure I’ve seen small (i.e., handheld-sized) commercial UAVs that fly like this. But as others have pointed out, at any realistic size you start to run into a lot of problems:

• The VTOL rotors will create massive drag when they’re not in use. There’s a reason virtually every aircraft with embedded VTOL jets engineered ways to cover them up during level flight. This cascades into a whole bevy of complexity issues.
• When you’re not using them, you’re lugging around 3 out of your 4 rotors for no reason.
• You’re also sacrificing a lot of internal volume for your lift fans. This isn’t so much a problem in small UAVs, again, but it’s not great if you were hoping to use that capacity for fuel or cargo.

So yeah, like others said as well - now that we have tailsitter drones of moderate size, there’s not really a use for this layout.

Did the ai that made this slop know it was supposed to fly?

Your wings would fall off. There is almost no material where they should be the strongest because there is a giant hole in it.

The center of gravity has to be forward of the side props or you’ll have a hard time balancing it. This means the mass of fuel/battery, engine and payload have to be around there.

You’ve seen how big the props are on toy drones, helicopters, or the V-22 compared to the rest of the thing? They need to be that big to provide enough lift.

Maybe but prop planes have pretty short takeoffs and landings anyway, from the little I know.

The issue you have here is weight, how many engines do you need to power those 4 props.

I know fuck-all about aerodynamics and that kind of design stuff, but if you have the resources for it, would you be able to 3D print and wire a small-scale version of this as an RC flier? You could then test how it handles first-hand, and perhaps put it in a small wind tunnel (iirc Mythbusters had an episode where they made a cheap DIY one with a shop fan and plastic straws)

Is this a post by an AI chat bot? The replies are odd.