FlightGear

This is a bit old - 09 but did a quick search on this site and nothing.

Thought you blokes and sheilas might enjoy.

Wonder how she auto-rotates?!

Cubdriver

I posted a link to this a few years ago, been a while. It is a pretty useful idea and one which has never been made until now, as far as I know. But like any novel design it is a mix of pros and cons. The main strength is its STOL capability, which unfortunately does not offer much value in the small UAV area because you can launch a small fixed wing UAV from your shoulders if runway is hard to get. STOL really matters when there are no airfields large enough to launch a much larger machine. On the other hand, this design seems to be very good at offering wide margins of forward speed- as slow as hover craft and as fast as some airplanes. I cannot speak to its aerodynamic efficiency, that rotor wing has to be a pretty draggy thing, it's probably a mid ground between rotary wing and fixed drag levels. I doubt it will catch on for anything, in particular the fixed drum rotor looks vulnerable to damage.