When to go with Wankel engines
There was a lot of discussion at the Xponential conference sessions about tradeoffs among different kinds of engine technologies. Wankel engines — a cutaway of which from UAV Engines Ltd appears here — are often found UAVs because they tend to run with little vibration. But experts say Wankels don’t work super-well at high altitudes and can’t run on heavy fuel. Smaller drones typically use piston engines that are basically higher quality versions of models once found mainly in RC hobby planes. Examples include units from HFE International shown here.
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