I re-abandon the idea of testing the prototype in the absence of the phone-box, and by the end of last week had effectively gone as far as I felt inclined. Without mentioning the Titanic I would compare this stage to that prior to 'fitting out' as it applied to shipbuilding... the moment the hull is launched (or wheeled from the hangar in my case) ready for its luxury superstructure to be applied.
This will take the form here of wiring up the electronic components and programming the associated parameters for flight. As per the launch of a ship, what you see here is equipped with the equivalent of the coal-bunkers and steam-engines, except in the form here of Lipo battery-packs and electric-motors.
I would have liked a pack to address each of the eight motors, but the fact we'd already invested in a pair of seven-cell packs suggested it were better to invest in a further pair to suit the top-end of the vehicle. As the prototype is over-powered in its current form ~ flying only a Mothercare mannekin in lieu of a human being ~ a pair of six-packs would prove to be sufficient.
Despite the lockdown I managed to source these off-the-shelf at Alien Power Systems, a company recommended me by Pete Bitar in the 'States and which proved serendipitously to be only a half-hour drive in the car to collect. Alien is my sort of enterprise, begun a man who arrived from Italy and worked in a restaurant prior to founding a successful operation that does business world-wide.
I also speak to the man who established DJI in the USA (a marriage made in heaven). He advises that with many hundreds of eVTOL efforts abounding on YouTube that it's no longer enough to get some sort of proof-of-concept airborne, but rather to prove that for whatever reason it is proven to be superior flight solution.
I'm confident this is, but that would be like Edmund Hillary saying at base camp that he was confident of climbing Everest. He did so too, but there was much between 'here and there'.
