Might seem trite with practically four hundred souls succumbing to the fever in the past twenty-four hours to be building drones, but then when all of this is over and there's an almighty tax bill to be paid then we're going to need to earn the revenue. And so I plod on, inspired by the example of so many others in these direst of straits.
I'm taking it easy on myself as the song says during this lockdown in the UK, and I've limited myself to (a) changing the colour of the lower quad from black to red and (b) fitting motors to it. I like the expression 'lower quad' incidentally... has a distinctly collegiate feel to it.
My design philosophy centres on DIY, or literally the ability to do everything by yourself, and this extends to transporting, assembling, operating and disassembling where required. Accordingly as things stand what you have here is a simple quad some 50" square that is bolted to the bottom of a passenger compartment, with another bolted on top.
You're probably thinking that the lowermost set of propellers are going to be mowing the lawn, but I've thought of that. With what remains of the week there will be an undercarriage added, and like so much else that is a part of this design, it will be unique in appearance... I've always preferred the road less travelled.
One lesson from watching preparations for the GoFly challenge in fact was that the lightest possible airframe needs combining with the sturdiest possible set of skids, having seen any number of heavy landings. As things stand, helicopters (albeit with seven or eight decades of development behind them) have what I would call perfect 'poise', whereas drones do not. They hold there station with the consummate ease of a hoverfly, but land like a dead duck.
(On the software side of things too, the lower set of motors and propellers will be stopped prior to landing, in order to give those expensive carbon-fibre blades a fighting chance).
