Drako — the aircraft · Vortex Aerospace

The concept

Drako starts from a question most programmes avoid: what if the aircraft did not have to be the best at any single thing? A pure VTOL machine pays for its hover in cruise. A pure runway aircraft needs a runway. A pure seaplane is a seaplane. Drako is designed to be top tier at all of them and to move between them in minutes at the field.

The answer is a canard delta — a layout with a long history of stable, roomy, efficient airframes — carried on four coaxial propulsion pods that tilt as a set. With the pods tilted and the full-span flap down, the aircraft leaves and returns from a short strip, or from water on its floats. With the pods aligned and the flap up, it is a clean delta in cruise.

Wing

Canard delta

All-moving canards ahead of a delta main wing with a single full-span slotted flap and outboard elevons. The outer panels fold for transport.

Propulsion

Four tilting coaxial pods

Fully electric. Each pod carries a contra-rotating pair on a pylon; the pods tilt for short and vertical-assisted take-off and landing.

Structure

Printed on a composite spine

A fully 3D-printed airframe on a carbon composite spine, with kit foam wing panels. Detachable nose and tail; top service bays with lids.

Ground

Wheels or floats

A steered nose wheel with a hub motor taxis the aircraft under its own power. The wheels swap for twin floats for the amphibious role.

Vision

Thermal Watch

An onboard thermal camera and an AI flyer detector on video give the aircraft a sense-and-avoid picture of what shares its sky.

Method

One recipe, proven

Every part comes from one engineering recipe with automated clearance, fit and structural proofs on every build — the reason the design moves fast.

Renders

All images are rendered from the current engineering build of the aircraft — the same geometry the demonstrator is printed from. Nothing is illustrative.

Drako from the front quarter above, in flight configuration with the pods running — Front quarter · flight configuration 01

Drako in plan view from directly above: canards, delta wing, four pods — Plan view 02

Drako head-on: the four pods and the canards — Head-on 03

Profile · landing configuration 04

Drako from below and behind — Low rear quarter 05

Configurations

One airframe, several roles. The change between them is made at the field, by hand, with a small number of parts.

Drako in landing configuration — **Landing**Pods tilted, flap down, canards and elevons trimmed; the wheels take the ground.

Drako on twin floats — **Amphibious**Twin floats bolt on in place of the wheels for operation from water.

Drako with wings folded — **Transport**The outer wing panels fold up; the props stop; the aircraft fits a trailer.

Drako with service lids open — **Service**Top bay lids lift, the nose and tail cones pull off their spigots.

Onboard vision

Thermal Watch

Drako carries a thermal camera and an AI detector trained to find flyers — birds, other aircraft, drones — in the video, day or night, against sky or terrain. It is a sense-and-avoid picture for the aircraft and for the people responsible for it on the ground.

Detection is done on the video stream itself. The clip shows the detector's output on test-bed footage: the box is the machine's call, not a human annotation.

Thermal Watch · test bed

Confidential

Specifications

Drako's figures are not published. A full data pack is available under NDA to qualified partners, investors and operators, together with access to the live 3D programme view in the partner portal.

Request under NDA Partner portal

Geometry, dimensions and folded footprint NDA
Mass, balance and payload envelope NDA
Propulsion, energy and endurance envelope NDA
Take-off and landing performance by configuration NDA
Structural and clearance proofs from the build NDA
Thermal Watch sensor and detector performance NDA
Print set, materials and assembly sequence NDA