Back to the Future #11

Important at every stage to keep visualising the eventual outline, something that auto-makers have always done, once in timber and clay but increasingly using 3-D models in both hardware and software.

These here are the 18-inch struts, tho' when I look at them (and my original sketch) they look too tall... auto-makers at this stage look for qualities like 'stance' and the extent to which the vehicle pleases the eye.

I'm not best pleased with this, and shall remove the 18-inch jacks and take an inch off either end. If you do this yourselves ~ though you may prefer to sit back as ever and watch me screw things up ~ I recommend you mark which timbers go where in order that the screw-holes line up afterward.

I've also had messages on the forum asking if it matters what tins of tuna are best suited for this exercise, and whilst mine are in brine those in sunflower oil should do equally well.

Smaller struts will also lower efflux from the propellers further into ground-effect, a measure that improves its chances ~ literally ~ of getting off the ground.

Anal Techs

It was driving down the M6 motorway that I first saw one of those things up there on the left, stood outside a boarded-up building, but weeks or months later that I would find out what it was; a security monitor, that subs for a security guard.

Think about that, and what it does for one of the few remaining jobs in a world that is (a) increasingly dystopian and crime-ridden* and (b) falling over itself to sub robots for people.

We've all been aghast this week at the antics performed by humanoids celebrating the Chinese New Year, to the extent we needed a lot of convincing it wasn't simply more AI being served up to our eyeballs.

And it set me thinking as to who'd want to spend upwards of $20,000 on performing bots, when you can hire a clown for kids' parties at discount rates nowadays...most of them likely to be ex-CEOs who can provide tax-advice too?

But you realise these make ideal guards to patrol premises at night; something that appears not to have occurred to Unitree, who manufacture the dog and 'droid above (with apologies to the Dog and 'Droid tavern in the Cotswolds).

Accordingly the apps they list on their website are altogether more innocuous, and include 'data and training' besides football and boxing.

It does raise the question of how they might be recharged, as night-watchmen do with tea and pork pies?

And I'm guessing this might follow existing practise, and feature a chair where they can sit periodically to recover while still remaining vigilant?

So it is that I plan on filing a patent today, outlining one with a butt-plug.

* Ed. Yes, and thank you too for lightening the mood.

Cogito Ergo... nomics

I take a better look at the mannekin and really he ~ though he may be transitioning ~ is more two-thirds scale than half, standing as he does at a metre tall.

Each of these centre-bodies are tho' built at half-scale from two by four feet backer-board: the one on the left designed for droning and requiring only three quarters off ~ it being broadly six-inches square and the other eight.

Experience from having flown scale-build octocopters would suggest that it will be a struggle to keep the weight down, and so what I intend is to construct two maritime drones using identical centre-sections like that on the left... and supported after all on 18" struts at each corner.

One of these is to be fitted with two cruise motors and dummy lift-motors to demo operations in displacement and on the plane as a regular cat; the other will feature four lift-motors and dummy cruise motors in order to demo unassisted launch from land onto water, and operations just above it at speed inside ground-effect.

The benefit of the latter is that it can be demo'ed equally over turf as over water: a whole lot easier in terms of recovery should it come to an unscheduled stop for any reason.

I've two sets of skis courtesy of Wickes home depot store ~ who have yet to realise that they sell skis  ~ and the plan is to finish the crewed mock-up prior switching a pair of skis over to the additional drone-sized version.

All in all I'm happy with how it is coming together. I like hovercraft and helicopters beside boats and the idea of combining all three in a way that is straightforward and largely free of regulation is as attractive to me as it must be to so many others.

So let's make, make a better drone, for you and for me and the entire human race.

Ed. I think I'm going to be sick.

Back to the Future #10

We've probably touched on this elsewhere but the box is unlikely to include perfect joins all round and so what I do here is switch to silicone to seal it up altogether. At the same time you can pop a bead of sealant down the outsides of the box where it about the cap-ends, principally for extra support (because they are anyway sealed from within).

Silicone preferred at this stage because (a) its cheaper (b) its lighter (c) its quicker and easier to apply. Nonetheless it produces powerful fumes in enclosed spaces and should at any stage you feel that you are being watched over by a giant rabbit then it is probably time to take a break.

Lift Plus

And here's what I mean... as China races ahead in both robotics and electric VTOL.

But this beast from Shanghai is what they mean by a 'lift plus cruise' configuration, and what we are considering among these pages for our flat-cat.

Its benefit is simplicity, needing no actuators to vector motors from the vertical to the horizontal that might potentially prove to be something of an Achilles Heel.

On the other hand what they've done with it looks altogether more complicated than what might be achieved with a conventional helicopter carrying a similar number of people, like Robinson's R88 below.

I was long ago offered an interview by Bristow Helicopters in the UK that I declined, and had I not done so it would have been a Robinson that I'd be using for my initial training.

It's one reason I suppose that if I am to build a boat, it has also to hover.

For regular readers too, note the cable-cutter.

Max Flex

The question of how tall the struts should be to match the re-jigged accommodation raises its ugly head, and so I return to the lab to find out (once I've donned hazmat gear in order not to introduce even a speck of dust into the environment).

Am switching from uPVC skirting boards to stripwood for this build, now that Wickes (as I told them) has become the go-to destination for maritime drone-building.

What I've done is park the trailer on the middle of this eight-foot lath, because that is about how much the rear lift-props and that accommodation are set to occupy.

With laser-calibrated hydraulic jacks (out of view here) I discovered that these bad boys are unwilling to flex beyond eighteen inches... worth knowing as I had settled on twenty-four inch uprights.

What I shall do ~ as we always want to work in divisors of stock timber at 96 inches or 2440mm ~ is to settle for 16 inches instead. Or in fact 400mm, as the laminated foam that we set out with was rounded down to 1200mm by 600mm.

We could bend the timber further ~ and permanently ~ like Scandies do with chairs, but that involves a steam-room I don't have. Besides, this is set to be delivered in flat-packed form, which doesn't really admit anything that is curved from the get-go.

I used to remove extraneous items from within the frame of each photo in order to clarify, but now I can't be bothered. If that upsets you, you can leave now and take your things with you.

Back to the Future #9

This being the value of a mock-up or visualisation (in the highest possible definition and three dimensions): I dismantle the bods of a couple of mono-ski builds in order to re-build a centre-body to more practical proportions. The template is now at the level of the rhesus monkey, putting it well within range of those emerging from UK schools everywhere:

Ed. or just a little beyond his own school-leaving grades of D, D and E. He did tho' make president of the Geographical Society, enabling him to stay in the warmth at lunch-time playing documentaries backwards through the projector.

Back to the Future #8

I invite Monty ~ Teledrone's chief test pilot ~ over for a 'look and feel' sesh now that the booms have been dropped roughly in place. And you can see now why the propellers are to be fixed fore and aft, well away from the whirling cookie-jars.

This is a suitable 'lift-plus-cruise' configuration of eVTOL and the more I look at it, the more I like it as against a vectoring pusher-propeller arrangement (which does however require only four power-units, as against the six required here).

It has the benefit ~ as do all distributed electrical power (DEP) types ~ of simplicity, for to raise it into ground-effect requires only adjustments to the thrust from the lift propellers while pushers at the rear 'do their thang'. With vectoring rear propellers you would be having to juggle the angle of vector besides the throttle in order to stabilise ground-effect flight, which has got problems written all over it.

Am also greatly encouraged by the guy recently featured here who is going for the quadcopter endurance record, and who discovered that any forward motion (or else headwind) does wonders for reducing the draw on the batteries.

The MO with the baby above is, therefore, to squeeze that collective lever to power up the lift motors so as to ease over sandbanks, ice or snow or indeed launch into flight within ground-effect (or surface-effect if you prefer) when sea conditions are at their calmest.

Boats flying above the water are (a) faster and cheaper than ones in the water and (b) altogether less complicated than aircraft designed for free-air operation.

So pleased with what I see though that I decide to have a fried breakfast.

The singular advantage of the vectoring type at this stage of the game is that we can get away with two-metre booms instead of the eight foot (2400mm) spars seen here. Most carbon-fibre tubes retail in either one-metre lengths, or more rarely two.

Autogyrations

Many remarkable people lead lives that go largely unrecorded, and in the UK that is largely true of Ken Wallis: a pioneer of what are called gyrocopters here, autogyros in the US. He never really got the aircraft off the ground in terms of manufacture, unlike Igor Benson who at least produced plans for a kit-built type that consistently sold (and still does) from the 1950s onward. Electrification, interestingly, sees this concept being revisited widely if only for its over-arching simplicity.

Ken Wallis himself flew nearly three dozen missions in Wellington bombers during WW2, but beside this built or raced cars, boats, motorcycles and aeroplanes when he was not promoting this enduring form of aircraft.

I've only really one thing in common with him ~ dandruff on the shoulders of giants as I am ~ and that is the fact that when confronted with fitting two engines in place of one, we both came up with the same solution viz. if you're mounting motors in a co-axial configuration it is easier to do so front-to-front than back-to-back.

Whilst on the subject of design too, the gyrocopter is an object lesson in why ~ as in my beloved flat-cat ~ centres of thrust are ideally aligned with those of gravity and drag. In many gyrocopters (autogyros) the thrust-line is higher than the latter and whilst it tends to push the nose down, it is prevented from doing so by lift from the rotor that pulls the nose up.

If the rotor fails in this task ~ due lack of airspeed or negative g-force ~ the engine wins out and drives the aircraft into a powered dive of the sort that has killed any number of pilots.

But don't let that put you off.

I recall seeing three aircraft crash with fatal results at flying shows, one involving a gyrocopter... all aircraft bite, which is why I do boats.

Back to the Future #7

I replace the 12" struts with 18", which proves surprisingly easy in that it involved the release of two pairs of fasteners apiece... untroubled by any adhesive.

This itself prompts me to consider that at any point these struts could be swapped out in support for instance of larger motors and propellers requiring more clearance.

For what we are doing here effectively is deconstructing the boat, and separating its elements viz. buoyancy, planing surfaces, hull, fuel, motors: in the way the likes of Rogers and Piano (those legendary songwriters) did with the Lloyds headquarters in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Jaques Derrida would be delighted, wouldn't he?

Ed. Not really, no.

Olympix

More on the drones touched upon recently that have been chasing athletes around at the Winter Olympics: made and operated by the modestly-named Dutch Drone Gods. They've been doing this sort of thing from the outset of drone-racing, which has always required custom-built aircraft in the way I have suggested that mirrors the evolution of personal computers (and thus eventually smartphones).

They appear to have cornered he market and a lucrative one I would suggest given the global audience and the fact they charge €15,000 for each of these drones. The work that goes into this enterprise is on a par with that of the athletes, however, the pilots practising upto sixty times prior each 'run' down the slopes in pursuit of one or other athlete.

Interestingly they struggled given the broadcast quality of the equipment to sustain a weight for each drone below the limit of 250 grams, beyond which they should not fly within fifty metres of anyone not directly involved ~ which presumably includes competitors who've almost literally had a close shave during filming.

Clearly however like the Olympics they're here to stay?

How Airports Die

It is easy to forget that warring states were the norm in Europe, and may be getting back to that state of affairs unless we destroy the planet prior. Commentary for the Winter Olympics this week even touches on the various states competitors are there to represent, describing how one used to belong to Germany or another to Austria... reminding us that borders on the continent were ever based upon shifting sands.

Accordingly most cities in Northern Europe and beyond began as fortified citadels to which everyone could retreat in the event of invasion; and within easy access to the river that was the only reliable means of moving goods in particular. Here then how Munich in Germany began, and a place I choose having frequented both its old and new airports:

At some stage early in the last century, the outskirts ~ which being on a flood-plain were generally flat and grassy ~ became home to a variety of airfields:

To a great extent in Europe in particular these would complement and in many ways as is the case with newer tech, the establishment of railway termini like that which approaches from the west of the town:

Note too that as late as WW2 and beyond, airfields ~ and the clue is in the name ~ comprised a circular field of grass, which was cheaper altogether than infrastructure like terminal buildings and runways and allowed for take-off or landing in whichever direction... seen nonetheless being bombed here for its hangars by US forces during that same conflict:

Eventually though these facilities would include a concrete runway and terminal building, each still relatively quiet when we dropped in back in the early 1980s:

As os of 1992 however in search of a bigger airport and requiring more room for expansion altogether, Munich's airport would be supplanted and the space it once occupied be unrecognisable... having been wholly devoted to construction of a new suburb:

And look where they put the new one? In fact Munich is in some ways the exception in that some cities have seen airports rebuilt successive times beyond what were once the city limits:

Why bring this up now though? Well because the world's largest international airport in the form of DXB or Dubai is running out of room to build more runways in order to accommodate ever more take-off and landing slots; even though the domestic airline boasts a fleet of the very biggest airliners more numerous than any other. Here is how it looked in the early 1990s and note how those runways could, if not be multiplied in number, have been extended into the desert beyond:

But now look. Airports attract people for the business they provide, which leads to them being surrounded by new-builds and no country as yet has had the foresight to reserve land around them at the get-go... which is very much the human MO:

As a consequence the Emirates are relocating the international airport to one they started and got to thinking they would never really need, but it turns out they do now that they figure they could provide 400 gates servicing an annual passenger throughput of over a quarter billion passengers: it is (still) called DWC.

What is interesting is that it ~ along with the US president's declaration on climate change just yesterday ~ it signals the fact that the post-Covid rebound in passenger numbers that has gone way beyond what it ever had been: is here to stay.

Three things strike a chord with that regard, the first that Exxon's own scientists said back in the 1970s that carbon dioxide levels would go up and would continue to increase planetary temperatures. One interviewed recently said quite rightly that the root cause has been an ever-expanding population with ever-expanding ability to purchase cars and airline tickets.

Secondly thought how we stopped talking about 'global warming' and began bigging up 'climate change' instead. I think for two reasons: because the odd cold spell did allow the alt-right end of the political spectrum to call it fake news, but as regards us generally because we're off the hook because climate change sounds less like something we initiated and pursued enthusiastically and could be laid at our door.

Thirdly, my guiding light in all of this is the planet Venus, which has an atmosphere that is 96.5% carbon dioxide... and a temperature of around 900° Fahrenheit.

Cosy, and still too simple for us to grasp.

Back to the Future #6

Take time out to see how I'm doing, and realising when I refer to the 'back of the cigarette packet' sketch that the legs are too short at 12" and should have been 18" instead. Unforgivable in view of the fact the sketch appears on the laptop ~ as the world's saddest wallpaper ~ and reluctantly have to tell myself I'm fired.

It's not the end of the world, however, as there'll still be sufficient clearance for the props once on the plane, and will make for entertaining YouTube footage if not. So we crack on regardless, as the plan is to build three proofs-of-concept: one to demo displacement in and planing on water; another to demonstrate a hover from land over to sea by way of launch; and one configured to fly above surfaces of one sort or another in ground-effect.

Those lengths of stripwood down the sides incidentally are set to stiffen the skis as and when they are fitted to the centre-section and flexed upward at the front end. This coincides with the 2026 Winter Olympics, and you like me will have been most interested not on what the athletes are doing, but by the fact that snowboards too are stiffened down their central-section. Exciting, and consider offering my services as sports commentator.

Back to the Future #5

Working to each material's strengths ~ and with clamps not so tight as to squeeze out all the adhesive ~ I've driven self-tappers through each stripwood beside the foam laminate too.

Don't drill all the way through both spars, as you'll want the fasteners to take best hold of each side. I've also used over-long screws because (a) I've a box of them and (b) the ends can be taken off with an angle-grinder, making me look like a real man in the eyes of Shania Twain.

Back to the Future #4

Moving on I've set a clamp here because the depth of foam laminate is slightly less than that of those uprights. Not working to nanometers here, are we Gromit?

Back to the Future #3

Slip those babies on and park the assembly like so with the adhesive yet to cure, so that the brackets don't droop prior our next step.

Back to the Future #2

Now we park the module on a block of water to raise it up, not so much so that it can stand on mountains as to keep the floor from getting adhesive all over it. This done I've applied a squirt to either side of each end-cap, like so.

Back to the Future #1

What I've done this morning ~ the first in the UK in the last forty days in which it has not poured with rain and soaked the garage floor ~ is to create those brackets which will fit the legs to each corner of the centre-body.

To do that I ran the design through a 3-D render program and ported it into another to optimise the aerodynamics. Afterwards I uploaded the files into my 3-D printer to produce these fabulous looking units...and like you, I'm stoked 👏💃👽🍆 !

Ed. What he actually did was saunter into the garage in a dressing-gown, annoyed at no longer having an excuse not to, and kicked a few pieces of timber prior to screwing them together.

Fat Cat

Before we recommence building our tiny flat-cat, a look at the world's biggest and fastest ferry, which is destined to go back and forth across the River Plate in as little as eight feet of water but to do so carrying thousands of passengers and hundreds of cars off the back of 24,000 HP of electrical motors driving eight jet-pumps.

What destroyed the cross-Channel hovercraft in the UK was the above: aluminium wave-piercing catamaran hulls that could travel not much slower, but carry rather more and at much less cost. It was pioneered ~ and still run ~ by Robert Clifford from around 1972 on, who was lucky enough to live on an island (Tasmania) whose connection with the Australian mainland was severed by a bridge collapse: following which he transported nine million passengers in his earlier and more rudimentary craft by way of proof-of-concept.

It looks like a trimaran, incidentally, but isn't... the centre-hull is an effort to reduce the wave-slamming that cats can be prone to and which is not the most comfortable for passengers.

The takeaway for ourselves are the facts that for many applications you cannot beat a cat, and for an increasing number you cannot beat electrical motive power either.

The latter too in this case is provided by a Finnish company that specialises in such drive-trains. The Finns, who live in a cold and inhospitable part of Northern Europe and have among he highest living costs in the world, nonetheless produce all sorts of weird shit. I move containers around a lot, and to pick them off semi-trailers and drop them elsewhere requires a whole lot of mobile crane or 'heavy-lifter'. And who makes them, as per the above, almost exclusively?

Finns. Who like Tasmanians rather put us to shame. You could say the US is expert at shuffling electrons (via the 'net), the likes of these people are experts at moving molecules (via hulls and cranes) whilst the Brits excel at moving things via chemical connections in the brain: music, media, medicine, law, and AI. And sport, principally the watching of.

It's why our economy survives ~ just ~ long after we stopped making things.

Let Us (Lam) Prey

"We'll be suing for intellectual property theft."

A concept from Lockheed Martin that's triggered a class action from the lamprey community, along with those of Remora and Pilot Fish: the defence contractor's MMAUV named after said eel for its ability to hitch a ride on the hull of naval vessels before sinking (as opposed to eating) them. Devilishly clever, and it does appear that multi-modular maritime vessels of all kinds are becoming a must-have product for navies everywhere. This a 'Multi Mode Autonomous Undersea Vessel' by the way.

Lukus Maximus

The real name Luke Maximo Bell, but the titular one here more fittingly gladiatorial for someone who beside building one of the three contenders for the recent drone speed records, has also won awards for drone photography, movies and music vids: such people make me sick. He studied mechatronic engineering in his home country of South Africa; a benefit compared to Britain in view of the weather, its wide open spaces and pride in what he is doing (as against an arrest for innovating in public, as would happen here).

The record for how long drones can fly for tho' previously belonged to a commercial quad at 03:12 (hours and mins) and involved a deal of forward motion. Seems drones ~ like helicopters ~ do benefit hugely from even the slowest forward motion in flight and I recall one pilot saying it was worth an extra inch of manifold pressure, a notion doubtless foreign to Gen Zee'ers.

Immediately obvious from the video is how much computing power goes in to every stage of the design and build, and not least for the 3-D printed parts. It is why my 'suck it and see' approach is destined to go the way of the dinosaurs, with no need for a meteor.

Despite the meticulousness of the preparation, Luke declined the witness from the Guinness Book of Records, not wanting to drag one out for the four or five hours it would likely take without any guarantee of success. He need not have worried, with the quad flying for around 03:31 with the great majority of that being achieved in the hover.

With the amount of research going into electrical power-trains ~ the Chinese auto-maker BYD claiming to employ over 100,000 technicians and researchers ~ things can only really get better when it comes to range, speed and endurance of drones whether in the air, on land or at sea.

And it's been a three-part evolution. The first was DJIs mastery of stable flight by use of computer, the second the use of that stability to extend videography into three dimensions and thirdly the increasing coupling to AI that enables platforms to track targets on the ground at speed... whether downhill skiers or soldiers.

Frightening... pass me that blue pill, if you would?

Civil Aviation Authoritarianism

I'm a follower of YouTubers in the US, in the main, who experiment with the means by which new methods and materials (principally electric) enable all sorts of outlines that might have been tried and subsequently discarded in the past due infeasibility. Note however in so doing they would have to break all six UK CAA stipulations to do so.

As influencer Katie Hopkins has pointed out, the one person least likely to follow the rules is the one most likely to be using drones for illicit purposes like ferrying drugs into prisons. There are though two more, that being casual users who might otherwise be flying drones; and innovators experimenting with them in the way that Frank Wang did by way of going on to supply 90% of the global market.

Regardless of the fact that the military in the UK forewarn of a critical lack of people ~ generally young white men, despite how distasteful that would appear ~ able to operate drones in the way Ukrainians do in order to eliminate up to 50,000 enemy combatants each month.

The pic below illustrates the effect the CAA has, like most other UK organisations, in crushing entrepreneurial endeavour from the get-go. The team is rightly proud of their ongoing efforts to break an existing world record relating to radio-control aircraft... except for the pilot, who they have had to anonymise in case men in black descend from Gatwick to arrest them for Loitering with Intent:

Cor... tina!

Stars of the show at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo and elsewhere have to include the three dozen drones tasked with providing first-person-view footage at speeds of upto eighty miles per hour: the one up top not a spider but a quad that is about to track a man on a luge. With the exception of more leisurely sports such as curling, they are following everything else at close quarters.

The last time the Winter Olympics took place here there were ten cameras, but now eight hundred follow proceedings. The broadcaster discourages equipment providers from advertising their wares, so we'll never know whose they are... those developed for tracking FI cars recently at Silverstone were custom-built and based on those that are currently breaking speed records.

A mention meantimes for one of Great Britain's Womens Skeleton team, one of whom [inset] in the form of Laura Deas opened our local branch of Aldi, instead of a baldy mayor. Actually he was there, but it was less obvious why Laura should have left off training in Gloucestershire to visit our humble ~ and fairly shitty ~ town. The answer was that Aldi sponsor Team GB, and provide an Olympian for every opening.

A lovely girl whom I offered a bag of greens, provided free to the store's first twenty customers.

Laboured

If you want a guide to the British class system, this week has been as good a guide as any. Top, the arrest of Lucy Letby, a nurse who had already emailed Cheshire's constabulary offering to assist.

MO in this case (as she's working class and living with her parents):

Body cams, handcuffs, stab vests will be required. As large a team as poss please on the day. Park well away and rush around in order to alert all of the neighbours and provide the best poss footage on Netflix. Apprehend suspect in bed, ideally, for dramatic effect. Repeat, three times in all, using same technique, especially as she has offered no resistance whatsoever. Consider use of taser.

And in contrast, the apprehension of one of those elected to 'represent' the working class (living with his husband in Camden Town when not weekending in the country house instead):

Allow three days prior at least in order to facilitate shredding of documents and removal of electronic devices. Arrive discretely in black limousines so that it looks like a regular collection for business at Westminster. Provide door-step 'bobby' to reassure the international press that we do things properly and in a civilised manner here in the UK. Dress code formal, ideally dark grey suits please? Knock and wait for the butler before presenting ID and asking if it suits the lord if you pop in for a moment, with the proviso we can come back later if staff are shredding.

Out-ranking Netflix's viewing stats on Nurse Letby tho' are the Crewkerne Gazette's with its refreshing use of AI to bring politicians to account... as they're no good at doing so themselves [inset].

In contrast to Lord Mandelson's, Letby's guilt looks less certain each passing week, and despite the case being the most confounding you could imagine deliberating as a juror I'm guided by the fact that we're still great at miscarriages of justice.

But at least we can still get up on our digital soap-boxes and complain at this sort of thing... which is why I am happy to stay here and enjoy the Marmite.

Ed. He's not, he just left it too late to live anywhere else.

3/8ths Cirrus

A photo of the Cirrus of a post or two ago, and clearly taken by someone with more than a phone in their pocket; from which it appears more than 50% of the airframe is missing, along with fibreglass fairings around each of the wheels. In contrast the undercarriage appears largely intact, although the tyres seem to have been charred. It is possible that they have been involved in the discharge of electrical current, the high-tension cables that may have been a factor conducting upto 400,000 volts.

I Can't Believe It's Not Beta

Beta's Alia aircraft appear to have flown more electrical air miles than anything else out there, and to the stable they added a version stripped of all four lift motors so as to retain only the cruise motor at the rear: apparently it's called an 'airplane' if you do this. But 'one airframe, two configurations' is an ingenious economic model and one that is encouraging should we be able to evaluate two forms of catamaran, which in one case is only able to cruise on water and in another is able to hover and fly in ground-effect by adding as few as two lift motors.

8/8ths Cirrus

I do this because (a) views spiked when I commented on the Air India crash and my gut instinct that it was a pre-meditated suicide ~ if only as I know from experience that life as an airline pilot is not all the cakes and ale it appears to be and (b) I once applied to join the Air Accidents Investigation Branch... a club I would never join if it would have the likes of me as a member.

But air crashes don't really jibe with the TikTok generation (us), who want answers same day, or at least prior our mid-morning cappuccino on the next. And so I shall throw my deer-stalker hat into the ring, if I may, because the above report from the most reliable of sources as this stage of the game suggests the accident happened after the emergency parachute was deployed. And here it is:

Note that it's on the ventral upper side, and unseen here once deployed it suspends the aircraft level using one cable as shown and a pair attached each side of the fire-wall ahead of the occupants.

Moving on to weather (a) the visibility was decidedly poor and driving thereabouts in a truck at the same time I was happy to be there and not in a light aircraft, for I've spent many hours negotiating murk in those circs and ~ not knowing whether or not you might be dead in the next ~ it was never pleasant. And (b) it was very windy, as the suspension of those heavy steel cables shows (and it helps to have spent teenage years living a stone's throw from one such pylon; they crackle a lot in fine rain too):

It was thus, as Poirot would say during the mise-en-scene, a decidedly grim day to have chosen to fly if ~ as is so often the case ~ it was to be pursued by determined efforts to stay in visual contact with the ground. Next to the route:

What would be really useful knowing is where the two on board were headed, if at all. If you're headed for some place north of here and have begun to have second thoughts then there is Leeds off to the north-east closest, and of course Manchester to the southwest... although both are largely devoted to commercial traffic, so that airports like Manchester's Barton would appear a safer harbour altogether.

The area though is key, and if you want to see the remains of a B-29 then these are the moors to visit. Any number of airliners in the past came to grief descending for either Manchester or Burtonwood, as you can see these two airliners doing prior to a left turn to line up with the south-westerly runway at the former. I've done so more than a few hundred times and it's invariably a bit of a butt-clencher watching that radio altimeter sprung into life by the high ground beneath.

More to the point though is the fact (a) just about where the aircraft is, is signed as being the highest motorway in England at 1220 feet: a regular pub-quiz question. And (b), that M62 appears on the left of the aircraft as it flies west, presumably in search of clearer weather (but not necessarily so, until we know more). All aircraft are piloted principally from the left seat ~ though helicopters the right, but they've always been on the spectrum ~ which is where you want to put any reliable means of finding your way around. To the extent the joke was IFR meant not Instrument Flight Rules, but 'I Follow Roads'.

Turning to the scene of the accident...

...it caught my eye principally for those drapes, which look like those the police use to shield cameras, except that in this case it appeared to have blown away. But no, mes amis, it is the deployable parachute of which we spoke. And so my first thought was maybe the aircraft had collided with the pylon itself? It appeared undamaged however, and the utility company reported no disruption to electrical supplies. Let us turn then to the aircraft itself:

I've seen lots of these and you can on what remains of that B-29 nearby: a blade of the (alloy) propeller contorted in a way that suggests it was running and possibly so at cruise RPM at point of impact. It's one for slo-motion analysis that we're unlikely ever to see, few people being as weirdly curious as me; but if as the report above suggests they merely dropped from the albeit uncomfortable height of a half-pylon, you'd think that the pilot might by then have silenced the engine. In that case, you'd see a blade simply bent backward like one of Uri Geller's spoons.

I don't want to go there, but life's not a box of kittens, and from this scant evidence it would appear that beside the empennage (tail feathers, effectively) missing, most of the upper part of the fuselage would appear to be too; although it may simply be crushed. Cirrus recommend anyway that parachutes be used only in extremis, viz. engine failure or uncontrollable flight, ideally from above 2000' to allow sufficient time for deployment.

We've nothing from Air Traffic Control to corroborate; but declaring an emergency if flying through murk perilously close to high ground is recommended by everyone but practised by few. Consider it a form of mental health for aviators: few want to admit to the issue, but many die as a consequence.

Given the evidence I'd suggest Colonel Collision, with the Cable, in the Mountains?

I mean, WTF? Well it's a cable-cutter, and fitted often to both top and bottom sides of helicopters precisely because of the number of times they've come to grief flying in such conditions as those on the Pennine hills yesterday morning. Few helo pilots have or require an instrument rating, which is why (a) they creep alongside roads in bad weather and (b) they kill celebrities who view them as safe*.

At speed cables make a clean cut... as hopefully do cable-cutters. Again however this is idle speculation in tragic circs, though as and when I pass myself you'd all be welcome to dance on my grave (see Ticketmaster) for all it matters. I do though want the AAIB to read this and beat their breasts for having lost one of the more entertaining air-crash investigators out there.

And if you like it, don't put a ring on it, but forward it to someone you love... it was Marcel Proust who said there was nothing so enjoyable as settling down to a coffee and sponge-cake with a newspaper and reading about death and destruction beyond the fragrant flower-beds of his garden in Paris.

* I was once tasked with flying Stevie Wonder in a turbo-prop from Heathrow to I remember not where. Suspicious of any aircraft with propellers instead of jets, he declined the charter at the last moment. "So who told him?" I demanded of the dispatcher.