All commercial UAV applications for which the HOVTOL was designed are expected to be low, (under 500 ft. AGL by FAA restriction) and slow, (under 100  knots air speed). Applications such as fire fighting, search and rescue, agricultural spraying, news/media, real time video download for Internet applications, etc., do not require the aircraft to be more than 500 ft. above ground level (AGL) nor above 100 knots air speed to be very effective in these types of civil/commercial UAV applications.  However, while the design for commercial applications as shown at this site is preferred for commercial UAV's; Patent 5,890,441, being a "utility" patent, can be used in just about any  aircraft.

Current UAV designs do not afford the ability to land and take off from  a location other than their origin of take off nor other than where the ground control station and pilot are located. Virtually all  UAV aircraft designs require this kind of proximity operation.  Most designs do not take off and land vertically, this is a must for most civil/commercial applications. The few existing or proposed designs that do take off and land vertically either do not meet the current FAA restrictions nor expected FAA requirements for commercial/civil use or they do not meet or can not be modified to meet expected commercial/civil needs.

FUTURE (NEAR TERM) POTENTIAL MARKET SEGMENTATION:

1. Military: Surveillance - Target Acquisition - Real Time Battle Field Command Observation - Combat Aircraft - Target Drones - Logistical Supply and  Combat Re-supply - Organic Ground Combat Support - Battle Damage Assessment - Search and Rescue - Fire Fighting - Non-lethal weapons (High Power Microwave), Chemical and Biological Warfare - Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Remote  sensing, Monitoring and Early Warning - Rapid Smoke Camouflage Disbursement.

2. Civil Government: Surveillance - Border Patrol - Law Enforcement - Weather and Atmospheric Monitoring - Disaster Relief - Emergency Communications Relay - Airborne Early Warning (storms, terrorist attacks, chemical/biological/nuclear).

3. Civil State and Local: Law Enforcement (particularly rural) - Fire  Fighting - Search and Rescue - Highway/Road Monitoring - Weather - Aerial Surveying.

4. Commercial: Agriculture - Commercial Fishing - Package Delivery (FEDX/UPS) - Merchant Marine & Shipping - Petroleum - News/media - Railway/Pipeline/Power line Monitoring - High Value/Risk Surveillance -  Commercial Security - Aerial Surveying - Telecommunications - Internet (real  time video and telemetry downlinks to the Internet for news, media, sports, science and industry applications).

The government's and the military's need to obtain a VTOL UAV aircraft that addresses their ongoing problems for more cost effective systems that operate without the crash rate of the past but which also meet operational requirements, acceptable payload standards and which have the flexibility to land and take off vertically from any location without the danger of exposed rotor blades is realized by the HOVTOL commercial UAV concept.

The HOVTOL's concept in becoming useful in manned applications and potentially competing with the helicopter industry is especially noteworthy with respect to the Bell/Boeing V22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft, see Fig  (1).

LONG ENDURANCE CAPABILITY

As a result of the HOVTOL patent utility the aircraft's configuration affords the current market a very cost effect  alternative to long endurance flight capabilities.  This low tech approach is  considerably less expensive and safer than existing long endurance UAV designs  that are not yet fully developed and their effectiveness is currently in question.  The unique and novel concept affords an alternative to launching  expensive satellites for telecommunications as well as other satellite borne  applications.  By cost sharing it can also be jointly used for  military, scientific, as well as commercial applications offering  several obvious advantages.

The concept would be deployed in two manners.  The one shown above would be more of a military application as the shown  application requires the employment of lithium hydride and water stored on board  the aircraft to inflate a balloon over a target area with hydrogen.  As hydrogen  is extremely volatile a secondary and more practical approach for commercial use  would be to launch the aircraft with the balloon already attached employing helium.  The aircraft would be turned off at launch and remotely turned on to reposition the balloon over a target area and or to keep the balloon over a  specified area and then turned off again.  This application is also currently patent pending.

CONCLUSION

Civil and commercial market UAV applications are so much more varied in scope than government/military applications, and virtually untapped. Therefore, it stands to reason that efforts should be focused on the commercial sector.  Current changes in the future goals and  missions of the larger aircraft manufactures such as Lockheed/Martin, Boeing,  and Northrop Grumman, clearly show a very definite posturing for a growth trend in the unique UAV market sector.

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