A view of one of the landing rods in place. Advantage of prototyping is learning lessons that are carried forward into the next build: the M5 bolts should have been relieved of their heads prior insertion, so that their uncut ends protrude. Nonetheless the idea of speculative builds like this is to achieve the big picture, the broad outline of a design that looks like it's literally going to be a flyer at whichever scale.
Their means of attachment for instance is probably sub-optimal... pair of brackets, one of which is drilled out to allow the rod to be slid into place and fixed with a wing-nut. We could have riveted plastic conduit clamps to the footwell panels in order to form a guideway. In fact I did order M8 P-clips for precisely this reason, but they proved to be too tight a fit once closed by the pop-rivet.
Previous iterations of the box featured an 'H' arrangement of rods like helicopter skids, but then they need to perform running landings, while VTOLs don't. Principally though, despite the sacrifice of an element of ground-stability the attraction of this fit is that it remains consistent with our design strategy: limiting part count to a bare minimum and inter-operability of parts.
The landing rods are fitted like the arms of the drone above, which they complement. Ensure that brackets are fitted at the correct corners, else otherwise the rods extend from along the wrong side of the frame. The vehicle's arms and feet are arranged left-foot forward because they appear better that way, but don't ask why ~ perhaps they look better the other way to left-handed people?
If you wish to reverse the look, flip the drone other side up prior to fitting the motors.
