60" Build Step #29

Cash-flow is king when you're building your own flying machine, and I am mocking up the motors for the 'look and feel' of the final product and for ideas on how to mount the real thing, as and when. You can do no better for this than floral foam, and here I have separated one of the polyurethane foam inserts from its plastic well, which can be upended and glued to the top of an intact unit to produce a double-sided cylinder of broadly the same dimensions as the T-motor U15 units set eventually to take their place. This costs around £4 instead of the £600 that would be needed for the original. If you want to try this yourself, use rubber solution glue because the solvent in most glues will simply dissolve PU foam: though rarely an issue for flower arrangements.

60" Build Step #28

One of the design criteria is that the vehicle can be pitched on its side for storage and transport. Nonetheless the motors will be mounted centrally on the perimeter sides of the airframe so that they overhang by a couple of inches. In order that the airframe is not resting on one or other of the motors when manoeuvred in this way, I am going to have to reorientate the four uppermost 'prongs' from a vertical orientation to extend fore and aft. On one hand this overhang will protect the motors in this case, though it will also provide a carrying handle at each corner with which four people can between them carry the airframe prior to launch... picture to follow as and when.

60" Build Step #27

A few mods as we go along here, principal among them the replacement of the skids ~ which are inessential in a vehicle of this kind ~ with removable feet that I like to call lunar landers. At the same time I have taken the opportunity to extend the legs to one foot in height, and at the same time I have flipped the platform to mount its grilles up top.

The seat has been replaced with one that can incorporate a lap-strap, in the form of a stackable chair whose legs are removed and which is snapped into place with conduit brackets.  A number of the alloy lengths from the previous post have been shortened so that the podium supporting the seat is 12" high instead of 18", this being because it looked rather better but also because it pitches my feet at the airframe perimeter; in the fulness of time I'd like rudder pedals mounted here.