Event 38, an Ohio-based drone manufacturer, has just announced its first VTOL drone called the E400. Built in the US, it is on a short list of fixed-wing VTOL drones made stateside.

Sporting a 90-minute flight time, the E400 from Event38 is a fixed-wing VTOL drone similar to Autel’s Dragonfish and many others made by different companies worldwide. This is a first for Event 38, with its previous professional drones needing the assistance of a human throwing them to take off. Now the company’s mapping drones will be able to compete with drones that can take off vertically, just like a consumer drone.

The E400 also sports what Event 38 is calling a hot-swappable camera payload. The company offers several pre-built solutions or the ability to create your own using its open-source autopilot software, and says the payload can be swapped in less than a minute without any tools.

We’ve been making fixed-wing drones for over a decade, but the E400 is our first…

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Source: dronedj.com