Why do we do this?
Well I've lived a long time and seen computers develop from kit-builds that frequently failed and needed tending by high priests of the "computer room" of whose fraternity (and it was almost invariably male in those days) I was briefly and ineptly a member.
But now we barely give the equipment a second thought, devoting ourselves instead to what it can do.
In the realm of aviation, single-seat aircraft have always led a troubled existence and in the way that advancing nations like China evolve from bicycles toward electrical EVs weighing two or more tons in an effort to move individuals from A to B, so advantages of eVTOL will evolve toward where the money is most likely to follow: which is it, but with wings.
Nonetheless the most numerically successful motorised form of transport of all time has been the modest Honda Cub, which was specifically designed for noodle delivery in the narrow back-streets of Tokyo and conquered the world from there. The earliest form of transport common to all civilisations too was likely to have been the litter or sedan chair, which was basically a box-seat with a human porter at either end prior (a) roads and (b) wheels.
Most of the best work I've done on advancing the art of eVTOL has been lying awake at three in the morning, at which time the outline see here was sketched out. French exercise books incidentally are squared and ours in the UK are lined, which is likely the reason they build Airbuses there and not here.
For really it's a time to return to our roots, and build something we set out to do in the first place, which was exactly that: a flying box-seat with an octocopter on top.
It has really to be an octocopter for resilience, but from the outset this was one with a difference because uniquely it was a pair of quads stacked one atop the other with overlapping propellers which co- instead of contra-rotate: a type of 'virtual quad' safer and more efficient that plain-vanilla four-motored multicopters.
You can read about it more here: https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/6778/ but don't take my word for it and let physics do the talking instead.
Fact is though, some four years down the line and with all of the experience that we gained building and flight-testing a half-dozen different configurations at half- or full-scale... it would be altogether easier this time around.
The picture below shows the rig that was first fitted and successfully flown with an underslung box-seat that would accommodate an adult, albeit uninhabited. The only reason in retrospect that it was ever reduced to a quad was because of the logistical challenges connected with checking it for flights between London and San Fransisco in order to attend ~ and we were the only UK team that did ~ the competition there.
Like computers, this stuff will one day be taken for granted for all inventions ~ as the philosopher Schopenhauer observed ~ are eventually viewed as self-evident by us all.
