I've looked at clouds from all sides now, and spent much of the night wondering how access might best be provided into the 'mobile drone'. I keep running away from the idea of making anything but a rigid box in which to fly, and as a result eventually I have it... in the form of a loft-ladder up the outside and likely down the inside too.
The design is ideally adapted to such a simple means of entry, being as it stands four-square on an extended base and is therefore supremely stable whilst sat on the ground, something that is only improved by the stock of battery cells in its base.
There is also something of the 'Dan Dare' about it... getting into the capsule at the top of the Apollo spacecraft was rarely an elegant procedure, and what I have most liked about sitting in all of those fighter-jet cockpits in different museums was how you had to be shoe-horned into a place in which you were tightly confined, yet with all the controls well in reach.
Another advantage of the practicality of this cut-down version of the booth is that baling-out is a relatively straightforward affair. Assuming you're strapped to a parachute, given enough height the props can be stopped at which point the pilot and machine drop until such time as the chute is deployed, deftly sliding the occupant free of the flight-compartment: WOOF!
Ladder nothing to be ashamed of though, as this chap proves whilst boarding a 'Shenyang'... the Chinese version of the Sukhoi-27. I have flown into the city of Shenyang many times in command of the more modest Airbus 320, and one of my line-trainers thereabouts was a charming gentleman who had flown this type amongst others.
Does highlight though another benefit of the full-sized flying phone-box.
It'll have a door.
Does highlight though another benefit of the full-sized flying phone-box.
It'll have a door.
