Test-flight of Friday 26th May

As ever you'll get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth... on the day that Elizabeth Holmes begins an eleven-year stay in a penitentiary for exaggerating what tech can do.

Last week's test-flights proved to be what Elon Musk calls a success and everyone else considers a failure. Which is probably why he's a multi-billionaire and we're not.

Flex is the Achille's heel of drones, with control predicated on every motion sensed by the flight-controller being attributable to alterations of vehicular trajectory and not to the elastic response of its various parts. The day being hot and the lower two-thirds of the airframe being constructed in plastic, perhaps this can be forgiven.

The upper and lower drones were however wired in X-8 control logic, meaning that all control motions had to be transmitted throughout the entire frame, the bulk of which was literally plastic. By way of a Catch-22 however I was unable to rebuild the lower drone and accommodation box in alloy ~ as I'd done for the upper quad ~ because the power on hand from the eight U7 T-motors would be insufficient.

Ruined my weekend for sure, but as Marcel Proust wrote, the way out of depression is to make a decision... any decision. Accordingly we've a three-pronged means to rectify the situation prior to further flight-testing.

Firstly, a reduction in the payload by way of removing the mannekin's legs. If it worked for Douglas Bader, then it can work for Monty.

Secondly, stiffening each of the drones with carbon-fibre straps that cross-brace the longitudinal bars attaching each pair of motors to their respective airframe.

Thirdly, allocating directional control to the upper drone alone and flight-testing that one independently prior to attaching it to the vehicle.

This leaves the motors of the lower drone running at a consistently higher RPM that is more efficient and which mirrors conventional helicopter control in so far as collective merely offsets the weight of the payload prior to cyclic ever getting involved in control.

The addition of cross-braces, incidentally, will appear something like that seen below, which looks quite fun in itself... Landspeeder, anybody?

The Shape-Shifting ZEVA

Fellow GoFlyer ZEVA recently raised $230,000 in crowdfunding towards development of its circular personal air vehicle in which you were to stand within a scallop-shaped shell and launch into the air, only to lie prone once it pitched over into cruising flight. An innovative concept altogether, but from which there was always something to be learned from conventional aviation.

Firstly, 'flying saucer' shaped wings have been pursued on any number of occasions in the past but ~ frisbee aside ~ have rarely proved enduring on view of the fact they are decidedly inefficient as aerofoils.

Secondly, prone-piloted aircraft also share a long history, both the French and British having adapted jet-fighters in that way. Broadly speaking they were dropped because in the event of a crash the first thing to cushion the blow would have been your head, and also because people themselves were not really designed for lying on their front. Nonetheless that does not debar the more adventurous of us (or rather, them) from doing so dressed in wing-suits.

Needing not to disappoint investors though, the emphasis has clearly turned toward a more conventional from of flight altogether, not altogether different from any number of similar air-taxis currently under development ~ with the exception perhaps of using a 1940's airframe as its basis.

The question in all of this being, is there a market for a personal air vehicle based only on vertical forms of lift in the shape of propellers? The answer is that it is difficult to tell without seeing the number of consumers buying the product, whilst the product itself remains ever beyond the reach of the end-user.

Virgin O(r)bit

Virgin Orbit concedes defeat and is knocked down for less than a tenth of its original stock market value. A generation ago, Mao Tse Tung suggested that China could not put a potato into space had it wanted to; whereas now as they gear up for ventures to both the Moon and Mars, it is the UK that would appear not to be able to launch root vegetables into orbit. Nonetheless there are two lessons to be drawn, and the first is that Richard Branson remains an outstanding entrepreneur in a place that encourages them only in lip service. The second that the two areas where the bulk of speculation is currently invested (viz. space launches and electrical aircraft) are clearly ones in which values may rise or fall to the tune of several zeroes.

Our own launch ~ on which a decision as to whether or not to continue development at full scale will be based in large part ~ is set for tomorrow, May 25th.

D-Day, if you like, or Drone Day.

Grand Prix (great price)

The Formula One grand prix is cancelled, not so much out of respect for those who have died as a result of flooding in Emilia-Romagna, so much as for the fact that it is hard to race cars through floodwater. Formula One is a flag-bearer for the conversion of fossil fuels into carbon dioxide as fast as possible ~ at six miles per gallon ~ and I feel the race should go ahead if only to celebrate its contribution to climate change?

Enter the Dragon

While you wait, another personal air vehicle emerges from the desert sands. The video exalts the fact that it's a groundbreaking innovation (it isn't) and is the first of its kind, which is true to the extent that you yourself are the first of your kind. Nonetheless it's a step in the right direction as the market polarises between intra-city air-taxis for a number of passengers and recreational Part 103 vehicles like this for a single operator.

This then the fourth about-to-be that's promising some form of delivery off the back of advance deposits or expressions of interest, viz. Blackfly, Jetson, Ryse and above. Things to note however regards this handsome carriage are that unlike the previous it does not appear flying other than empty of the passenger that might double its gross weight, plus the fact that it is offered as a kit; a course abandoned by those clearly farther advanced and probably for safety reasons.

Aviation is littered with attempts at producing a utilitarian air vehicle that promises to make the air as safe a place to be as the ground, whilst space-flight for paying clients appears always to be over the horizon. Fact is, most pilots (and airline passengers) are united in not feeling wholly comfortable in the air and it's not set to change any time soon.

Benz, incidentally, refused to sell any number of prototypes as he consider them to be unsafe for the general public ~ and that was something never intended to venture into the air. Nonetheless as competition showed there was be no holding back the demand  for what were essentially expensive and impractical playthings at the time, air vehicles are likely to pursue the same development year on year.

They are all pitched at around the $100,000 dollar mark and all have found a home in the US due to the relaxed regulatory system for aircraft of this type (as have air-taxis in China)... something that Europe struggles with. Which it did, however, for as long as it possibly could with the automobile.

Under Construction

Final assembly and flight-tests of the half-scale prototype octocopter due this month.