Footnote

Ed. He's left the building, dear reader, and too late to spot his humble blog exceeds a million views. Every night now he'll lie in bed, the brightest colours filling his head, because a million views are keeping him awake. And it's all thanks to you, the bots.

HUGE #7

Here's our second sub-assembly and as artist and all-round Ozzie entertainer Rolf Harris used to say before being arrested for paedophilia, 'D'ya see what it is yet?'.

Now however we've happily to wait for this to set; which we didn't do long enough last time, did we Gromit?

Accordingly it's time for a glass of Chianti and somebody's liver.

Good-night Teddy, good-night readers! 

HUGE #6

Here's the first sub-assembly, joined by the time-honoured method of a squeeze of Stixall where the pontoons meet the surface of the airfoil ~ with a gentle squeeze so it appears from the sides like the filling of a Victoria Sponge ~ and then a filet to one side with another to follow later. I've emailed Bake Off judge Nigella Lawson to ask if she'd like to give my pontoons a gentle squeeze, but am yet to receive a reply. 

HUGE #5

Thought we forgot about boats, didn't you, but have I ever let you down? (Ed. Yes).

Nonetheless you will see here how we can turn seven laminated panels into a flying machine, and as Elon Musk commented upon revealing his latest roadster, without the benefit of AI.

Took two sheets of half-inch backer-board here that I already took from a four-by-two (600mm by 1200mm) to reduce its scale to manageable proportions... aim being to produce a pattern that is able to be doubled or halved in size at will. These two sheets therefore measure 1' by 2' (300 x 600mm) from the off.

The upper sheet is divided between a wing and one of the pontoons or floats; and the lower between tail-plane and two uprights. The seventh panel, already the subject of a movie by director Akira Kurosawa, is essentially a spare that can be dedicated to a variety of add-ons, but likely here to form the surface of a ram-wing.

A ram-wing is not a part of a flying goat so much as a surface intended to assist in the launch of wing-in-ground-effect types of aircraft, incidentally.

Now let's assemble these into modules that we'd recognise from any flying machine. 

Ed. The nomenclature HUGE, which stood for Hilton's Universal Ground Effect, is to be replaced on grounds it's stupid... but we'll run with it through completion.

Unhinged

I recently abandoned a build because in retrospect the adhesive simply hadn't set, yet I now find it is able to produce a hinged joint between say horizontal deck and pontoon in various of my designs in maritime dronery.

Which is a remarkable finding in itself, producing the possibility of builds with fewer hand-tools and accessories than ever.

I have produced a series of moving pictures to demonstrate quite how, doing so in the style of celebrated mime-artist Marcel Marceau. I did have white cotton gloves once but not any more, though I feel this barely detracts from the performance.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the hingeless hinge:

Ed. Hi-res versions are available to collectors on subscription, and the adhesive in question was 'Stixall', doubtless named after Stixall Priory in Yorkshire.

Tesla Roadstar

You'd expect a reflection here, and you're not wrong, but as ever the Edison of our day has proven the seeming impossible to be possible. The jets that provide such a precise control and skull-rattling acceleration however are compressed-air thrusters of the sort used to manoeuvre spaceships. And as he's already returned stages of a rocket to Earth and set them down like a pencil on end, in some ways this is rather less impressive than that.

It also begs the question as to who aside from Bond would want to find themselves fifty feet up and upside down in a car reliant on jets that ~ like jets everywhere ~ would be likely to fail just when needed most.

The acceleration they provide too from air stored within carbon-fibre tanks may also not be the first implementation of the kind.

I recall a couple of teens in the 'States found a section of disused railroad running to a mine some way distant, and mounted a car on it with wheels adapted to suit and a set of JATO bottles normally used to launch C-130 Hercules off short stretches of ground.

The results suitably spectacular ~ sufficient to persuade them never to try it again.

Working on jet-assisted take-off bottles for Suzuki's Jimny aftermarket myself and can't wait to find myself up against a Roadster at the lights.

One in a Series of Two

Many of you I know will have enjoyed our series 'Clouds you can spot from the A1' and these delightful flying saucers are 'lenticels' that form when standing waves in the atmosphere break briefly through the dew point. They form in the lee of high ground ~ here to the East of the Pennine Hills ~ the waves propelling them often used by glider pilots to break world altitude records that put airliners to shame.