It looks like a flying wheelie-bin after I mock it up in wood in the garage by way of assessing the ergonomic aspects. But it does teach us, as ever, how it can be put together at full-scale in the materials of choice (next up aluminium and thereafter carbon-fibre).
With the spars planed back to 50mm square (gratis and thanks to NWTT in Ashton, Lancs) the airframe looks altogether more seductive. For any of you that want to follow, the board is of MDF and at about a quarter-inch... cheap and easily worked, but don't try sailing with it later.
I have extended the board by a couple of inches or 100mm so as to overlap the spars top and bottom, with cut-outs top and bottom right to accommodate the rotor-arms. Originally I set the verticals up independently with brackets, but setting them fun-square was a pain in the arse, frankly, and so I have tried the means by which cast-iron phone-boxes were assembled.
Thus the first panel is pinned to its two uprights first, and then 'stood' in place whilst screws are driven through its lower margin to fix it to the base. I then do the same with the opposite side (see photo below) and then it is simply a question of cutting two more panels to attach to the remaining sides.
Cut-outs for the window-spaces are made once the assembly is complete, as this provides the maximum structural integrity in the meanwhile. While I do this however I realise that even better than a 20-inch (500mm) square outline for the booth, a 16-inch (400mm) would serve even better, so long as you can squeeze into it, as it provides for larger rotors again.
I may therefore dis-assemble this quickly before going much further, though I did finish up at five-thirty with all four sides fitted, and re-jig to suit a slimmer human frame. (For those of you wanting to measure yourselves for a flying machine, you need to see what gap you can squeeze into at elbow-level with your forearms raised, as if grasping a pair of side-sticks.)
It's hours of fun, but doesn't pay the bills.
Before we sign out, let's hear it for the Panavia Tornado, the Rolls-Royce-engined swing-wing fighter bomber that signed off RAF service with a fly-by yesterday (while I was doing all this) over the aerospace factory at Warton, just up the road from hereabouts.
This county has a fine ~ possibly the finest ~ reputation for the production of airplane parts.
