Our test-pilot Monty the mannekin remains silent on the journey South, cognisant of the fact no doubt that the next vehicle he is set to travel in is an experimental drone. Thought I was doing well too until I drew up behind a Land Rover pulling a trailered... Spitfire! And I never knew the wings came off, but there are pictures out there proving it.
The prototype's with someone who gets large drones flying for a living, whom we wish well. My friend and colleague in the US has eight broken propellers along with broken body-parts stemming from recent experiments with air vehicles of this size, and so no-one here underestimates the challenge.
Though as Anais Nin said, "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
We're not expecting news next week however, seeing as the same magician is involved in trials for experimental drone delivery on behalf of the National Health Service. But it is around a year since our test-flight in the hangar at Llanbedr, in whose aftermath the prototype as we know it, Jim, took on its present shape.
A recent visit to the Army Air Museum nearby was enough to convince me that early development of the helicopter was by no means smooth, which people often forget. It is a feature of technological progress that we come to imagine that everything we take for granted in the modern world was always as reliable as it now appears.
But we are, as we both agreed before leaving him to it, pioneers.
