When a man is to hang in a fortnight ~ and not necessarily from a drone ~ it concentrates the mind. So said Samuel Johnson in eighteenth century London.
Back in twenty-first century London we have to figure out a way of persuading British Airways to let us carry a helicopter as checked-in baggage.
The more I look at this, along with the competition, I realise our USP has to focus on making the world's lightest, most compact and above all most practical means of vertical transport.
Which is why I am still drawn to the idea of a seat.
But looking farther afield (or upwards in fact) I have long struggled with what configuration to arrange the propellers in, and the more I peruse the matter the more I am drawn to the conventional X-8.
If only for reasons of packaging.
Looking at a drawing extracted from the WIPO specification, it is clear that either a quad or else a pair of identical quads stacked one upon the other will fit in a box around one metre square whilst the alternative octocopter layout requires one around 133 centimetres square.
Even my school mathematics suggests the octocopter requires a package one third larger.
And in a flat-packed world, every centimetre counts.
Especially at check-in.
