There are times during development when you're at a crossroads, and having reduced the chassis yesterday to just twelve inches by sixteen, I am decidedly unsure about which way to proceed.
I could stand on the same outline holding on to a form of Zimmer frame, but although this is a common approach to eVTOL I don't think it's the optimum. From a general point of view it is the very least stable in aerodynamic terms and wholly reliant on either a very acute sense of balance or else computer stabilisation.
An airline instructor told me once how a colleague found himself flying an F-16 without the necessary flight control computers. Bearing in mind such aircraft are inherently unstable to improve manoeuvrability, he was delighted to have been able to control it for as long as he did prior to ejecting.
I also consider the layout at foot-level augmented by another at waist-height to compensate; or even wearing it like a yoke with a crash-helmet protruding and hands hanging from holds.
None of it feels nearly as comfortable as hanging the thing around my midriff ~ a location with the benefit that the centres of lift and thrust would appear to be ideally aligned.
In the event reducing the foot-print proves to be a net gain with two lessons learned:
(a) motors and propellers do need to be mounted on the underside so as to free up my arms
(b) the spars themselves prove an ideal mount for the manual flight-controls
In other words the left-most spar is ideally placed to support a side-stick whilst that at ninety degrees to it can be used to mount a thrust-lever (or collective, to the rotor-heads among us). I find that the former works about 45cm forward of the rear spar and the latter at around 35cm, incidentally.
You can of course simply invert the chassis in order to reverse this arrangement, particularly in view of the fact that helicopters are steered with the right hand.
Nonetheless I have only ever flown an Airbus as commander and it therefore would feel only natural to me to guide the vehicle with my left hand ~ indeed any Airbus captain will tell you that adapting to a side-stick at all, and in the 'wrong' hand too, was easier than anticipated.
The photo is a montage because I'd lost the selfie-stick. And ignore the beer-gut if you would, please?
