Sunday, August 25, 2019

Step Away From The Vehicle


There was a French philosopher who once said that anything looked at for long enough appeared absurd... might have been Marcel Duchamp?

When designing though I always think it's wise to step away from the vehicle overnight and look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. Paid off here because returning to the garage today I've grown used used to those eight legs and trying it on it's comfortable to walk around in.

In other words, it works ergonomically. What I've had to devise today is its ground-handling routines, because (a) those carbon-fibre propellers are sensitive as shins and (b) there's enough weight in the airframe to put your back out if you lift it without the right technique.

In that vein it is altogether easier to mount it on the tailgate for transport instead of the roof-rack. Having adapted the spare wheel mounting (an idea I've returned to a few months on) it's good to see that only the lowest pair of propellers require ties because the others rotate freely within the road-legal span of eight feet.

The airframe span with the rotors stowed as above is just 4 feet and 8.5 inches, whilst with the propellers freely-rotating their farthest tips span only 7 feet and 4 inches.