I'm going to make these a feature of the blog if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity. Firstly you might be wondering how the foot-well element of the personal air vehicle came to look so different after so much earlier effort. The simple answer is met by Dyson's dictum that you learn nothing until you start building. Less than ever that is not so true at all nowadays: if you've a design department and finite-element analysis software then you can 'build' prototypes and stress them on-screen during a cappuccino. With the metaverse around the corner too, there'll be three-dimensional look-and-feel in a virtual reality, with products going direct to robotic 3-D printers and human beings barely getting a look-in.
To many people this sounds like the ideal world, although to a great extent what we've found as a Western civilisation in particular is that every advance that means we don't have to spray-paint parts in sub-zero temperatures also means that life has that little less meaning. My son already prefers life inside a computer game, and he's not wrong: it's the biggest business on the planet and only set to get bigger. So I recognise I'm a dinosaur but as Dylan Thomas (and I've seen his beach-hut) said at his dying father's bedside, "Fight, fight against the dying of the light."
To return to more prosaic matters however, firstly the weight of this part had to be cut drastically, even at this stage. Secondly I wanted it to accord to what had appeared in the patent diagram as closely as was practical. Thirdly I did not like the holes in each of the side-panels, as the product aesthetic is so far as is possible, square. Fourthly this one is a whole lot easier to step into in ergonomic terms, especially with rotors spinning on the overhead as they will be. And fifthly, because it's my party.
I'm relaxed however at it knowing it would be a fraction of the weight and a whole lot stiffer in carbon-fibre, but that's an ace up the sleeve. The mannekin itself is a whole lot lighter than a real three- or four-year old, and so a bottom end being heavier than needs up restores the balance somewhat for testing.
The important thing is that ~ and probably a first in eVTOL or PAV design ~ the product is designed in separate modules viz. foot-well, connectors, harness and drone. Each of these is effectively independent and could be contracted out to specialist suppliers in the say that, for example, you'd deal with Shimano rather than build derailleur gears.
From my own point of view ~ and this is probably true of aircraft design generally ~ the prototype has to look increasingly credible at each step of the way. I've designed three previous layouts on a broadly annual basis, and each of the foregoing were impractical in ways that you could only have known by hauling them around on a trailer (or indeed shipping them as checked-in baggage between London and San Fransisco).
Each of these previous lessons has been incorporated in the current proof-of-concept, which is in many ways the one I wanted to build at the outset... albeit modified along the way by a process of live-and-learn. The best you can hope to do is to inspire, and I am gratified that the response to the '22 build is proving universally positive.
This week and following success in using giant drill-bits in your old man's hand-drill, I intend to adapt the rotor-head in the same way as a sub-set of flight-testing. At this scale we could lift the power-assembly and bolt it on top of the four columns, but at full scale you'll be lifting a great deal of weight in an effort to dock it with an overhead assembly. That is a lot easier nearer ground level, beside any question of stability even arises.
We'll also fabricate a harness-come-flight-deck for those 'white scarves' in particular who prefer to stay in control of the flight instead of trusting the AI to beam them up.
