Friday, October 23, 2020

Bend and Break?


Probably not many people out there trying to design a helicopter that'll fit through double doors, but that's the benefit of operational experience... you learn what works in practise beside theory.

I adjust the lateral stabilisers to slide through the skids, so that they remain removable but are now centred directly on the propeller axes.

Trial and error is expensive however, in terms of both time and money.

These are eight millimetre carbon-fibre tubes, but they don't quite cut the mustard even though I've inserted threaded steel rods inside of each.

I shall likely revert to the tied-and trusted half-inch glass-fibre tubes of the sort accompanying us to California back in February.

As checked-in luggage these survived flight connections at Dublin and New York, and continued their travels around the domestic US network (having been missed in the dark) before appearing as lost baggage at NASA Ames some days later... and wholly unscathed.

All that, and they're four times cheaper.