What is a tailgate vertical takeoff and landing drone? Taking V-BAT as an example, the drone features narrow wings, a stick shaped fuselage, and a fuel powered unit and ducted control system at the tail. Inside the culvert, there is a propeller that provides power. Before takeoff, the body of V-BAT is not parallel to the ground, but perpendicular to it. It is able to do so because the R&D team designed a tailstock for it. This tailstock is composed of four sets of tail supports connecting the outer side of the duct to the fuselage, allowing the V-BAT fuselage to steadily move vertically upwards. For this type of drone, the design of the tailstock is quite important. It can not only provide support for drones before takeoff and landing, but also provide assistance during flight. For example, when Airbus' Flexrotor tailgate vertical takeoff and landing drone takes off and lands, the tail can be divided into four lobes, forming an X shape and serving as a support; During cruising, its tail can be retracted to serve as a stabilizer. There are many types of drones that can take off and land vertically, why do we still need to develop the tailstock configuration? Simply put, countries need drones that are easier to deploy, have higher speeds, and have longer ranges. In this regard, the potential that unmanned helicopters can explore is clearly limited. Among the vertical takeoff and landing drones developed by various countries, multi rotor drones are more common. Although their air attitude adjustment is flexible, their range is limited due to the relatively fixed rotor. The composite wing configuration drone is equivalent to "grafting" several rotors onto fixed wing aircraft, such as the Israeli Trojan drone, which to some extent solves the problems of easy deployment and long-range, but the structure is relatively complex and the flight efficiency is low. Tilt rotor unmanned aerial vehicles reduce the number of rotors and improve flight efficiency through mechanical rotation and tilt mechanisms, but they increase the motion mechanism and have a high failure rate. The design of a tailgate vertical takeoff and landing drone is not limited to the displacement of the rotor, but chooses to change the orientation of the fuselage. That is to say, compared with the previous types of vertical takeoff and landing drones, the tail mounted vertical takeoff and landing drone has a clear adjustment process from vertical to horizontal placement in the air. It is precisely this adjustment of posture that allows the tailstock vertical takeoff and landing drone to smoothly transition to level flight, exerting the role of high aspect ratio fixed wings and achieving longer range. When launching and retrieving such drones, the tailstock allows the body to point directly into the sky, resulting in a smaller footprint and easier deployment; In the air, it can transition to level flight, like a fixed wing aircraft, flying faster and farther; Mainly relying on the comprehensive application of sensing devices, power systems, aerodynamic layout, and thrust vectoring strategies to adjust posture, with fewer moving parts, resulting in lower maintenance and usage costs and failure rates... It is these advantages that have enabled tailgate vertical takeoff and landing drones to enter the fast lane of development. Many tail mounted vertical takeoff and landing drones adopt modular design and open architecture, so they can choose to carry different mission modules to perform diverse tasks such as intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance or ground attacks. With the application of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, they are also evolving towards autonomy, clustering, and cross domain collaboration. Last November, the Omen tail mounted vertical takeoff and landing drone, known as the "precursor," had a certain representativeness in this regard. Based on a specially developed artificial intelligence module, this drone can process sensor data in real-time, plan flight routes, and avoid threats. The V-BAT is equipped with L-MDM missiles, which is also one of the manifestations of the continuous expansion of functions of such drones. (New Society)