Four-Star

Revivified somewhat by the outlines of GoFly's forthcoming "readiness" audit of progress thus far (and we're currently marginally less ready than Ethelred the Unready) I return to the workshop, where doubling the blades up is looking more attractive than ever. This pair have been fixed to a test-bed in order that we can hook it up to a speed-controller and give the batteries an outing. Game on!

Mounting Trepidation?

There are any number of enabling technologies that allow for eVTOLs like this to change the conventional ways that aircraft were built.

Mounting an engine ~ particularly a reciprocating type ~ was never straightforward heretofore and involved a good deal of thought.

Now it is altogether simpler and requires not nearly so much forethought, to the extent I can venture to do it myself.

Serendipity

You don't chance upon stuff lest you venture forth in the first place.

Am putting together the test-bed to be used for trials of the battery-packs we've stripped from a Mitsubishi Outlander hybrid.

This will take the form of a compressed booth that nonetheless features the same foot-print and parts of the vehicle that will be piloted, except that it will need eventually to be stretched vertically to best accommodate that pilot.

Never did like the fact that the upper 'deck' had a hole cut into it in order to provide that accommodation at waist-height, so that this part got thrown away. Accordingly both the bottom and top ends of the airframe are now cut from a single piece, as per the above pic.

In casually stacking them against the sofa however I see that not only can the one be joined to the other at each of its corners (Pythagoras would be delighted), but that fixed this way the upper set of rotors coincides with the lower almost exactly.

All this on a day when ~ rushing to fix the outline secure in my mind at least ~ I speak to the ex-FAA personnel tasked with reviewing team efforts for certification in the Part 103 sports utility aircraft category.

I speak in fact to the author of said certification and we are gratified to see that the design is likely to tick the required boxes, at least so far as the necessary observation flight. 

The FAA will not so much be concerned about my wellbeing as that of others, so perhaps those divorces were not a wasted experience after all...

All Square?

Two innovations in one here that advance the cause.

I've always been troubled by the fact that cutting a  sizeable aperture in the retaining plates of the upper quadcopter with which to accommodate my torso has been a significant waste of material, whether foam infill or alloy plate.

I mock up the alternative here in ply, to see if there's a solution and it seems that there is.

The central void here is sufficient to accommodate me ~ in which event the arms of the quad can be fixed to either its inside or outside perimeter.

At the same time the portion removed from its centre can be used as a base for the 'phone-booth' or flight compartment.

At the same time it also means that the upper quadcopter can be slid up the sides of the same flight-compartment into position at waist-height.

This allows for the frame to remain decidedly compact, while at the same time allowing a suitable means of ingress and egress.

Dimensions pictured are 500mm and 300mm square respectively.

All will become clear sooner rather than later...

Volt-Face

Invariably bespoke battery-packs are required for these eVTOL vehicles, which ups the cost considerably when it comes to one-offs like prototypes. The eng has therefore suggested we adapt packs that have been sourced from scrapped Mitsubishi Outlander hybrids.

This is an inspired solution for preliminary testing, because those vehicles that are scrapped have generally not been so for reasons connected to their perfectly serviceable battery-packs, but because they've collided with a tree or another car.

In a way then, we're making hogs fly.