"And on the third day, Colin created a beast of the air. And he saw that it was good." It pays at the start of each day in the workshop to visualise, to pause and create a mock-up of the mock-up, or a mother of all mock-ups.
First impressions? Well historically my machines have lacked adequate clearance from blade-strike, and I like the stance of this one... redolent of the legendary Hughes 500 known in Vietnam as 'Little Bird' and I name this one 'Even Smaller Bird'.
It looks somewhat 'lumpen', rendered as it is with inch-square alloy that should be half as thick. This however is because commonly most material comes measured by the inch, or 25 millimetres.
I like its compactness. It sits there and says, "Fuck you, your'e never going to be more compact than me." I do wish it was more refined in its use of language like me though.
You will be thinking ~ though I'm not ~ that it looks like a human salami slicer. That however is why we incorporated those hard-points: for we are going to raise the flight deck on a par with the disks, from whence our protection will come.
Join me now if you would by praising me in singing:
You raise me up, so I can stand on drones
You raise me up, to fly over stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your flight-deck
You raise me up to more than I can be,
or at least as high as the rotor-disks.
