Have to start prototype construction tomorrow, as far behind schedule as was my university thesis, and there have been two significant developments.
The first is that due a re-casting of what is going to be happening inside the square outline that you see above, its dimensions have reverted to those I used at the very outset, which is so often the way: it's called a hunch.
Secondly I realise that for some way into the testing at full-scale I can probably proceed with a wooden frame. This sounds outlandish in a world where everyone else is slavishly pursing CAD renditions of prototypes for three-dimensional printing of parts or else construction in carbon-fibre.
It has a few things going for it however.
Firstly, short of materials during WW2 both the Germans and the British retained wooden fuselages to produce aircraft that were among some of the best-performing of their day.
Secondly, even when jet fighters got into serial production following the war, they retained wooden parts among their structure.
Thirdly, the young "Real Life Guys" in Germany who've done as much as anybody to advance the course of manned drones have used wooden frames as often as not at the outset, and recommend so doing.
Finally, I've made some of these frames myself at working scale and they've proved as robust and rather lighter than the first full-scale mock-up (in 3mm alloy) which appears above.
(If there's a measure of success in all of this, however, it's the one most likely to appear in a museum.)
And where did the "8" come from? Well if this were fitted with 36" propellers at those axes spaced 60" apart, then the diameter of the aircraft at its widest would be eight feet.
