The Cone's Tale

Delivering scrap metal to its final resting place I spot the above, the tail-cone from a CFM-56 turbofan. How could I mistake it, this thing I'd walked around a thousand times upon the pan?

"Alas, poor tail-cone." I said to a colleague, "I flew him, Horatio."

Ed. On no other VTOL blog do you get Shakespeare, methinks.

By the Shahed-Load

I got to wondering what the most successful aircraft has been, and setting aside the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 ~ each of which I flew at the time they achieved a rank of best-selling airliner ~ the answer if apparently the Cessna 172 above. Since its appearance in 1955 it has sold 44,000.

Now however it will have been supplanted by Iran's Shahed drone, of which they've 80,000 in stock and licensed versions of which are produced at rates of upto 500 per day by Russia, which launches as many as 5,000 monthly.

Costing $50,000 to make but selling for $200,000, then compared to the $400,000 required for a Cessna you do get more bangs for your buck*. Nonetheless if it's purely a numbers game the drone does have the advantage it is not intended to survive a single flight, whereas you'd like to think that your Cessna would do a little better.

Confusing the issue tho' as it will for you as it did for me, there is not just one type of Shahed drone but any number, the company itself bearing the name. This one tho' is the one I suspect the stats relate to, and does if nothing else demonstrate that if it is sheer volume you're set upon then foam and plywood go a long way to meet that goal.

But we knew that already, didn't we?

* Ed. with apologies to anyone on the wrong end of a guided missile. The phrase originated with the US military around the time the 172 was being developed, since entering common parlance as meaning 'value for money'.

Back to the Future #23

Much of what we see here has been influenced by my carting sub-scale personal air vehicles the length and breadth of the country, and what that means for practicality.

Among my first concerns was the exposure of the propeller blades, not so much as regards the limbs they might separate as to how they might be damaged or blood-stained.

Bear in mind that aircraft ~ and increasingly personal air vehicles ~ make no effort whatsoever to shield bystanders in this regard, which is why any number of people have died walking into propeller and rotor blades.

I think we can improve on that in the fulness of time, and principally I feel by using an array of sensors (as cars are festooned with nowadays) to shut motors down when anything with a pulse appears within the circle of operation.

Failing that, or as well as, it is about perspicuity and propellers once spinning have never been awfully good at this. Accordingly I shall set the power-units on a bar in order to 'outboard' them, viz. make them removable on demand in just a moment.

This has any number of benefits, not least the fact that the extent of the assembly (which I shall call the 'sound bar' or 'power bank' as it's my party) is obvious to a bystander. Besides that (a) it allows for rapid replacement or practical repairs in the field (b) it allows for removal for transport and storage and (c) it allows the craft to be stood on end for maintenance or storage without damaging its 'Achilles heels'.

It hurts that the axes of the motors are not aligned with the booms, but does mean the rig can be dropped into place on half-cent brackets. These being pusher-props too, under power the motors are trying to stay fixed rather than tear themselves from their mounts as would tractors.

Accordingly, as was the case of any number of the scale personal air vehicles which we flew, the motors will be mounted on the spar by just two bolts instead of four.

N.B. Blades swing outboard and downwards, CCW and CW viewed from rear. Power to the left motor applies differential thrust for a turn to the right, and shifts weight onto the right ski by torque reaction to supplement the effect.

One Shade of Grey

... and the only shade I'm getting nowadays. Tho' it is time to decide what colour to go with for prototype #001, and I have selected light grey because (a) it is standard for experimental aircraft (b) it is standard for naval craft and (c) I've an emulsion in the garage left over from decorating the hallway.

It's a shame in a way, because the laminated foam backer-board used for the shell comes in black, and despite me contacting the factory and requesting they switch to light grey during this time of national emergency, they suggested I do something to myself that frankly I'd rather not.

Black is the go-to colour for drones ~ as you've probably noticed ~ but usually this is because carbon-fibre and 3-D print cartridges come in the colour. Also, as drones generally struggle with weight, adding paint is considered surplus to requirements.

(It also looks cool and sexy, although that is beginning to change: the world's most successful personal electric air vehicle is sold by Pivotal, which used to be known as Blackfly because (a) it was black and (b) it flew. Now however it comes in a range of colours featuring a lot of white, for as boaters know white best protects against the debilitating effects of solar radiation.)

For the exercise you'll need a dust-sheet and step, because this is ideally done with the craft on its end. We're in good company here, because this is how Lockheed's famous skunk-works assembled the prototype F-117 as I recall. Although according to Wikipedia, it was not finished in washable vinyl matt.

Leonardo di Carpio

Problem with conventional design is the hammer viewing everything in life as a nail, and two European programs struggling with reality at present are Future Combat Air System ~ that bizarrely proposes a piloted jet fighter at a modest cost of some 100 billion dollars to take us to 2040 and beyond ~ and the New Medium Helicopter in the UK, for which there is only a single bidder in the shape of Leonardo in Yeovil.

They've been going for eighty years, which may not be much of an advantage the way eighty years of whale-bone corsets may not be the ideal way of inventing the Wonderbra.

If you take their autonomous helicopter Proteus, for example, it looks like any other they might have built but with the windows blanked off. Whereas the defence giant Anduril in the US ~ who've been going less than ten ~ produce one called the Ghost that looks altogether more like one should look.

For instance it replaces the gearbox and drive-shaft connecting a tail-rotor with a (Chinese) electric motor from hobby stores that meets the same end... it's what I was told at the outset of inventing was the 'not invented here' barrier to progress.

Is suspect the government ~ on whom Proteus, the NMH and the whole company appears to be relying on ~ has looked at what's happening in Ukraine and begun to get cold feet.

Proteus is advertised as something to go looking for submarines, without needing the crew. But it can only cover so much ground albeit less expensively; something that can do this less expensively again however is any number of drones operating over a network covering a greater expanse altogether.

Which may be why Anduril is heading up, and Leonardo down.

Or at least in the UK: successive governments policy of flogging off UK manufacture to foreign buyers for a short-term fix to save jobs reveals who has the swim-trunks when the tide is out.

Back to the Future #22

One of the things that has positively been hurting inside is that the efflux from each lift propeller is inhibited to some extent by its encounter with the topside of the ski.

I devised all sorts of workarounds for the skis themselves before realising that the most elegant solution was simply a deflector to direct the efflux largely clear of that surface. Whilst you can get 3-D modelling apps to visualise the airflow, I've always found it easier and healthier to walk around to the timber yard for a look-see.

This is a length of uPVC extrusion used for I don't know what, but will work here as required once a second length is fitted to the other side too.

P.S. I bottled out of reducing the struts from 16" to 12" because as no rabbi will ever admit, you can take it off but you can't put it back on; now they're 350mm (or 14") and set to remain so. 

Back to the Future #21

Time to flesh out where the lift motors are going, and as these are 22" props I pitch the axis 12" forward of the bulkhead and mark the tips forward and rear.

Looking from above and working clockwise from the foremost left prong, quad props rotate CW, CCW, CW and CCW. This means that the outboard blades will be creating most lift under forward motion (and the inboard at the rear).

Which is nice because credible three-wheelers all locate two wheels at the front for the widest stance and the best handling... what we are achieving virtually here too.

Pure serendipity I'll admit, but you only get to benefit from her ample gifts if you put yourself out there in the first place.

Chinese Whispers

Staggering to see the extent to which China ~ and to a similar extent the US ~ are powering ahead of Europe in the 'low altitude' economy.

In the Bay Area of the former, hundreds of such drones  ~ tho' we know about LIFT + CRUISE configurations too ~ shuttle parcels between cities at twice the speed it took in a van. Here in the UK in contrast the CAA has a wet dream whenever a drone makes it to the Isle of Wight with a box of pills.

Crucial to the venture according to the manufacturers are reliable navigation to fly from A to B, along with equally reliable flight-controllers and AI systems to optimise the network.

And it's not just cargo drones they're turning out in the hundreds and thousands but agricultural and fire-fighting drones that are up to fifty times more efficient than the manual labour that would otherwise be required.

And the principal export market for such products? Three quarters go to the Far and Middle East, where manufacture is not something parents steer kids away from because money lies in the talk-talk occupations from which our politicians emerged.

Progress Log

One of the things you'd do as an airline captain is keep a progress log as the flight unfolds, in order to establish (a) you're not lost (b) you're on time and crucially (c) you're not about to run out of fuel... and it pays to do something similar here as things begin to take shape.

We reduced the struts from 18" to 16" didn't we, and I do feel looking at this that we could go further and take off a couple of inches top and bottom? The 'drop' of each prop viz. the length of each blade is 11" and if motors are aligned with booms then that will leave sufficient clearance.

An argument for hi-rise struts like these would be to accommodate larger props, but we've only 24" spacing between the booms, so the argument is negated. I'll build a second prototype, which I could reduce in height ~ or alternatively do the same to this here before going further.

Needless to say this lands on my kitchen table, for as ever it's my cock on the block if it goes wrong*. The annoying thing is, should we drop the height then the skis will end up longer than the booms and will themselves need cutting back. 

Bugger.

*An expression once used in my place of work, sadly unlikely to be used ever again.

Back to the Future #20

I like to pop a rubber foot on the end of each boom so the craft can be stood on its end for storage purposes or to drain down. It stops barnacles from forming, though I will admit you don't see many of those around here.

I also like to keep an eye on gross weight, and this baby is weighing in at eleven and a half or twelve pounds depending on how the scales feel on the day:

Back to the Future #19

Pythagoras was on the phone and he warned me about this: thinking about how the skis were each a 'hypotenuse' as he sat in the bath. Turns out he was right and the booms are too long for the skis, and so I set about circumcising each as an excuse for a slap-up meal and a dance. One ski loses 4.0 inches, the other 4.5 and thus I remind myself there's beauty in asymmetry.

Back to the Future #19

I consider other ways of attaching the skis, but sheer laziness prompts me to revert to type. Recommend a domed screw here, along with a washer (that I forgot to fit) in order to spread the load. One day our lives may depend on the choice between a domed and countersunk fastener at this stage of the game.

Ed. but not mine.

Quantum of Solace

War has always been a numbers game, it's just that now the numbers got bigger: airframes having to be made in their millions as against hundreds or thousands. 

Thus Ukrainian company Frontline that manufactures the bomber seen in the inset has teamed up with German aerial-survey company Quantum to make guided missiles fitted with turbojets pioneered by another German company; from when they were only of interest to RC nerds.

Technically speaking it's the first time Germany is making a missile of the sort since the V1s it dropped on London by making them run out of fuel when they got there.

The 'Mosquito Squadron' I mentioned yesterday was about wooden WW2 bombers (among the fastest at that time) intercepting such weapons; wind the time machine on eighty years and bombers look more like the one up there ~ so too the missiles ~ whilst it'll be drones doing the intercepting too.

As they say in Disneyland, it's a small small small small world.

Back to the Future #18

Easiest way to stiffen the skis is to clamp laths down either side of each strut before applying a bead of silicone and filleting with a wet finger; the one I used in the previous post in fact, which is complaining it appears to be the only finger around here doing any work.

Benefits of these methods and means though are that (a) skis like the booms can be popped off and replaced rather than repaired and (b) whilst the silicone is setting I get to watch the actor* from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in a movie called 'Mosquito Squadron' that just showed up on TV.

Should probably have used adhesive instead of silicone, but this is what NASA calls 'suck it and see' methodology.

Ed. David Mc Callum, a.k.a. Illya Kuriyakin.

Back to the Future #17

Here at TELEDRONE we work to standards of precision Rolls-Royce aero-engines would be proud of: in this pic you can see how I centred the ski on the strut prior to screwing by using the lines on each first finger.

I had the prints read as well, and was forecast a life-changing drone ahead of me... although in fairness she'd read the blog, so it may not be fifty pounds well spent?

Back to the Future #16

Flipped the boat over here to tee up the skis, marking up an overhang so the tail-ends coincide with the booms: needed as a measure of protection for pusher-props.

Back to the Future #15

Eventually there'll be bindings to fit the skis ~ Rossignol preferably ~ but for now I shall run with decking-screws again. Notice however that in flexing the ski down to meet the front end of the boom that this produces an arc in between the two points at which the ski is fastened.

May have it's uses eventually especially as regards longitudinal pitch-control or trim, but for now it's not what we want in order for the craft to sit flat on the floor or else planing on water. The reason rigid inflatables are rigid is to reduce the drag in water (and they were invented by a naval retiree, his sea-cadets and a sheet of plywood).

The CEO at Wickes, albeit a Sunday afternoon, has called to say that if that logo's not centred by first thing Monday he'll put those decking-screws up my bottom one by one... harsh, but fair.

Back to the Future #14

Winter Olympic regulations in fact dictate that all skis fitted to drones of whichever type have to be rounded out, and to do this I thought about drafting a radius in my CAD program and using a CNC cutter; but in the end I found a rusty old tin of yacht varnish which worked just as well.

Get one from my merch page for just £69.99, including postage to the UK mainland.

Big Err

PR guys have been on again to say we're missing a trick, as at the Winter Olympics everyone awaiting the results from the ski and snowboard events are bigging up the make of their kit for the cameras. Accordingly they've run this by me and asked for a selfie, and I have to say it does have a Gen Zee vibe.

I've run it by Wickes, who've said it's positively 'sick' and promised me a free box of decking-screws next time I'm in... way to go!!!

Tho' Guy Martin's been on too and raging about me using his death's head ~ so I've had to tell him he needs to take that up with the Third SS Panzer Division?

That shut the loser up.

Back to the Future #13

Keeping it simple as ever, I fix the booms with fasteners. Message on the forum as to which, and I've gone here for rusty old decking-screws that were kicking around the garage like a bad smell (Ed. smells don't kick around). They're available from any of your local garden centres, tho' always remember to ask for 'aviation grade' decking-screws.

In order not to split the struts I've gone deep with a pilot-hole and backed that up with a squirt of WD-40 (and where's my sponsorship, grease-balls?). The advantage of decking-screws is they've a reduced shank at that top end: which makes timber less likely to split too.

Back to the Future #12

With struts pruned top and bottom we've to ask ourselves where exactly we should pitch the booms that will support each of the skis. I slid these 2400mm babies along the top of the centre-section until they pivoted near the front edge of the foremost strut... which naturally coincides with the mid-point at 1200mm (or four feet).

This provides sufficient room to swing a 22" prop at the rear, beside sufficient wood to mount the pusher-prop and motor. This is not a game-changer, as prototype 001 will merely be tested as a two-motored cat, with tuna-tin lift-motors, whilst 002 will be allocated four motors with which to demonstrate self-launch and hover.

With that done, means will be combined in order to test out the final mode of travel in the shape of flight in ground-effect, clear of whichever surface: whether snow, sand, ice, water or terrain of whichever sort.

Not going to be easy, is it Gromit?

Boeing, Boeing... Gone.

I'm watching a YouTube video about a doomsday prepper burying the hull of a 737 in his garden by way of a nuclear bunker, and who can blame him? But as I watch a sickening feeling comes over me and for the first time in over seven years I turn to my old flying logs: and there she is!

I resent the fact that Colin Furze ~ fellow influencer who never replies to emails ~ is at the interment and I'm not. And so I call the prepper to ask him, How could he really?

I took her to Cologne to buy her fragrance and to Rome to share pizza and fly along the shore with air traffic watching fondly. What was he thinking, committing her to her final resting place without the one who ~ above all others ~ handled her with such tenderness and finesse?

And so I call the guy. He's as upset as I am, and offers me a place come doomsday.

I can't remember who Curran was but hope he hasn't been buried in a back garden.

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.