The manufacturer of the Supercam SX350 convertiplane announced an increase in sales: GK "Besplotnye Sistemy" (Unmanned Systems Group of Companies) observes a steady growth in requests for this model from customers. According to their assessment, this confirms the global market trend for light-class industrial and military drones — hybrid platforms are becoming increasingly in demand. The company claims that this trend was also noticeable at the International Exhibition ADEX-2026 in Azerbaijan. 

The manufacturer explains the increase in demand by the peculiarities of operation. Monitoring objects for most customers are located in remote and hard-to-reach places. For inspecting power lines, it is difficult to find a site measuring 50 by 100 meters, which is needed to launch an airplane-type drone: power lines pass through forests and rugged terrain, and the strip would have to be cleared in advance. A convertiplane only needs a flat area of 10 by 10 meters.

Parachute landing also requires open terrain — otherwise, the drone may get caught on power line supports or wires and damage expensive payload. This also applies to working near buildings, bodies of water, and on construction sites. Precise vertical landing in such conditions is safer.

What vertical take-off provides

Vertical take-off eliminates overloads during launch. This is critical for expensive laser scanners and dosimeters: their internal elements can be damaged by a sharp impact during launch, and then during a hard landing. Shock-resistant protected payloads are available on the market, but they are significantly more expensive.

After gaining altitude and transitioning to horizontal flight, the Supercam SX350 accelerates to 120 km/h — this ensures high data collection speed and coverage of large areas. The manufacturer calls the model optimal for inspecting industrial facilities where there are no prepared take-off sites, the terrain is complex, and tasks require rapid data collection.

According to the company's forecast, the trend will shift towards greater autonomy: stationary automated basing platforms (droneports) will appear, along with scheduled flights and automatic processing of monitoring data.