C of G Check

Important moreso from the aerodynamic point of view and about where we'd want it centred, some 13" or 330mm aft of the forward bulkhead, depending on preferred metric. Although the craft could be foreshortened, rearward extension of booms and skis not only provides space for rear lift-motors, but also acts as a counterweight to the extension of booms and skis some four feet (1200mm) forward.

On the hydrodynamic side length of craft translates directly into sea-keeping ability. What therefore has to be done next ~ once logos are lacquered up with acrylic ~ is to pop it on the local waterway to see how it floats at rest. Prior experiments many moons ago showed it sitting nose-low: not an issue underway, but nonetheless offending my sensibilities before the off.

But come on Gromit, let's go for a curry!

All Logo'd Up

Both of you have been asking where that wonderful GPO-phone-box-style logo you can see down the sides of the drone come from, and the answer is right here!

Simply size those images above and below to print on A4, and then rather than cut out and keep it's more a question of cut out and tape together before gluing in situ.

We've also bumper-stickers reading 'Maritime Droners Like To Watch' you may like?

Pack Drill

In common with the other prototype I mount the battery-packs on the aft bulkhead, where edge-protectors will include screws for fitting rubber-bands around the pack.

Forego plastic trays featuring on the other prototype, and instead I'll add a length of Velcro tape to the bulkhead to engage the underside of the battery.

Must break off now to fix a toilet, flushed as I am with the success here.

Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up

The rubber caps fitted to the spindles, I set the craft vertical again and add a domed screw to help secure the power bar at the rear where the wood has more holes than a Swiss cheese... though every hole that doesn't kill it makes it stronger. Do please use a shallow fastener here as it coincides with the 40mm screw driven in from the top-side.

The Thin Controller

Electronic speed-controllers I mount in alignment with the front end of each lift-prop downwash-deflector for aesthetic reasons: it's what Steve Jobs would have wanted. 

At the same time were lift-motors fitted, it parks them in that downwash for cooling purposes; as we'll be pumping all 80A through these babies.

Back End Operation

We've a crucial meet this morning, which I'm not happy about as it's a Sunday and reserved for coffee and croissants. Sales are telling me that Airbus insist this thing still go through a regular doorway, and recommend I reduce the rig to match the width of the skis. I approve it, although the Head of Safety and Compliance storms out and channeling my inner Elon I shout 'Go now go, walk out the door! Turn around now, you're not welcome any more!' but he already has.

The atmosphere electric, we turn to next item on the agenda and sales again insist it still be able to stand upright for storage, motors or not. Engineers are concerned that in this event there might not be clearance for 22" rear lift-props, although it turns out back in the workshop that as they are mounted 50mm above the booms, clearance is still satisfied if we shorten the booms to accommodate cruise-motors.

Accordingly I gave the green light and amidst the whoops and cheers ~ which I insist on under threat of redundancy, although that happens to whoever stops clapping first ~ we crack open Krispy Kremes and celebrate. At the water-cooler engineering suggest motors are protected by rubber feet in storage, and a push-on type is already available on our merch pages.

The price, in accordance with aviation spare-part practise, just $500 the pair.

War and Peace

The best-selling car in the UK is currently produced by China's JAECOO, and is a triumph of both teamwork and advanced means of engineering and production. It is what develops principally in peace-time. Wartime in contrast actually benefits individuals and simplified means of production and deployment, as politicians are desperate for solutions as against consumers.

The above is a good example, and was pioneered by a Cambridge doctorate student whose expertise lay in biochemistry moreso than windows: his idea polyethylene sheet and a frame of PVC piping and foam insulation to create push-fit replacements for broken windows in Ukraine... which has many.

Lose a window in war in a place like that and you're instantly in the cold and dark as you plug gaps with whatever comes to hand... to the extent one old lady Harry was able to help was sleeping in the bath-tub, it being the warmest place to do so.

Things have moved on to blend modern production means with manual, in the way drones in Ukraine might still feature laser-cut carbon-fibre sheet, but modified with impromptu add-ons like canisters of optical fibre strapped on with duct tape.

Now therefore it comprises a bespoke uPVC extrusion into which two PET panes are inserted into four edges that engage using simple end-caps. The result looks barely different from what went before with a little expanding foam squeezed around the edges ~ except that being shatter-proof, it makes living safer as well as warmer.

Well done Harry, who has interrupted his studies to bring more light into the world.

And if you wish to make a donation, Harry's charity is at Insulate Ukraine.

Turn to your hymn-sheets now, to join in "What a Friend He Has in Colin".

Ed. France making the best family cars, Germany the executive, UK the Japanese.