Re: Bar

The bar abuts a couple of angle-brackets and is secured with a screw from topside.

Ideally, viewed from the rear and left to right ~ AC/DC a prompt ~ propellers rotate anti-clockwise and clockwise.

In theory this means that if more power is applied to the port motor then the torque reaction will unload that same ski and produce more drag on the opposite, assisting a turn to starboard.

May or may not be the case, but as Tesco supermarket says: every little helps?

The speed-controllers may yet be mounted on the bar instead of the superstructure, but that's a story for another day, isn't it?

Good-night everybody!

Being pushers I've paid less attention to securing the motors, which are more likely to stay in place than when pulling the craft. I knew a man who took off in an aircraft called an ARV, whose propeller parted company soon afterward.

Bar Flies

With the bar centralised at the rear of the boat, I've marked the places where those mighty three-millimetre bolts will be craned into place in support of the motors. The best way to do this is to 3-D render and subsequently print a pattern from T-motor technical drawings, but I used guesswork, wood and a bradawl called Brad Pitt.

The larger recess is to allow for the axle of the motor, which T-motor has extended to the rear by a mil or two for the same reason Bosch fits push-buttons to coffee-makers... that life sucks.

Barring Accidents

As the eyes of the world turn back toward the first prototype, briefly distracted by the other moonshot, we remind ourselves that this is the one to validate the planing on water rather than hovering above it as people sometimes do on operating tables.

You'll recall that although I'm a man who loves to see an electrical motor parked at the rear of a boom, it appears altogether better placed on a bar spanning the width of the craft and more.

We had a competition to choose the ideal name for it, and despite my suggestions viz. sound-bar, power-bank, common-rail the winning entry went to 'piece of wood' which I view as repeating the effort to call the Sir David Attenborough 'Boaty McBoatface' by common consent.

There are many and various reasons however for mounting the motors on one such bar, some of which will be familiar to Airbus and some ~ like the craft having to fit through a doorway ~ are less likely to be.

These are as follows:

(1) Greater flexibility on the number and size of motors and propellers fitted thereto

(2) Easily removable for testing, transport, maintenance and storage

(3) Able to be set on the window-ledge on a pair of stands like a Ninja's sword

(4) It marks the extent of the propellers, which are barely visible once spinning

(5) It protects the propellers from inadvertent damage going (literally) forwards

(6) It allows for the easiest possible fitment of each motor back-plate to the bar

(7) It allows different 'rigs' to be swapped out to suit various operational needs

Not least it means the boat can be stood upright so its foot-print is minimised... something IKEA have told me is a must-have beside it doubling as a clothes-drier.

The bar itself is half the length of the 21x21x2400mm timber itself, which is likely to give you a warm feeling inside as it did me.

Bring it on!

Ed. Technically, put it on?

Space, the Final IKEA.

Open the staff suggestion-box and beside the many that read 'fuck you' is one that recommends removing the dining-table from Assembly Hall #2; weekends involving maritime drones instead of feeding ingrates.

Delighted to discover it was me who popped this one in the box, and do not hesitate  to make myself 'Employee of the Month' for April... which comes with a dough-nut.

Kofi Anon

Many of you recall my trials with the coffee-machine, and my efforts to sue George Clooney for mis-representing the ease with which it turns a pod into a latte.

Long story short, it had a push-button on the side that turned green when the (Bosch) machine was good to go... except the switch failed in short order.

I tried and failed to circumvent this by liberating the switch with an angle-grinder in an effort to hard-wire it, but this did nothing for the machine's looks and less for its operation.

Enter DeLonghi's replacement and it's a joy to use... slide the pod-tray back and the light on the side illuminates red and then when ready, green.

Then flick the switch and before you know it you've emailed Clooney's people to say you're sorry for suggesting he pop his pods up his ass!

Arty... mis

A former habitué of their facility at Ames in California, I am indebted to NASA for this most spectacular image of the far side of the Moon.

Ed. He's also indebted to Google for generating dirty pictures.

Levelling With You

Having assembled the quad ready for wiring, I contact he who last wired, tuned and flew the last drone (which took the form of a sort of phone-booth levitated by quads top and bottom ~ so technically an octo). The good news is he'd love to, albeit that could be interpreted as a brush-off, but he's booked into June. Much of that will be aerial filming or survey; an increasing element likely related to ongoing experiments with cargo or military drones under development.

This is basically because there is too little expertise to go around in the UK, where it is almost exclusively drawn from radio-control hobbyists who ~ once seen as nerds ~ find themselves to be masters of the universe. One such master for instance films  Heathcliff riding atop the moors on his stallion in the 2026 version of the tale. You'll find that he was provided by the Helicopter Girls, whom I've met in passing, and if you look at their website you'll realise where the money lies: in entertainment, with war moving up rapidly on the outside though less so in places like the UK.

But although this plunged me into the Slough of Despond (now known as the Slough of Berkshire), I've a cunning plan. For thinking about this, there is actually nothing special about a boat that can fly like a drone, per se. In fact two German brothers famously managed to fit motors to a bath-tub and fly down the street in it 'til wings were clipped by the Polizei... and in fact they could technically claim to have flown the world's first self-launching boat. Only problem being, not much of a boat really.

It had occurred to me however that all that we have to achieve is getting the cat off the ground, where it can be steered from land to water by the rear-mounted cruise motors. This is at the same time sub-optimal, but again eminently practical because as we've seen hereabouts and not least in Morecambe Bay or the Mersey Estuary, we've very large stretches of sand from whence to manoeuvre from the dry to wet.

The only problem being that whereas quads can be flown with pinpoint accuracy from A to B, like off the back of a flat-bed over the levee and into the river, what will effectively be a hovercraft requires much more of a launch-pad in view of the fact the lift-motors will be providing for elevation... but not direction.

In the days when people experimented with vehicles instead of buying jelly-mould EVs from China because it is altogether easier, there was a move to get us all in a personal hovercraft in order to travel from the suburbs into work. The problem was, it turned out, was that hovercraft (and uncommanded quads) find their own level in ground-effect; but that applied to levels that sloped. That, incidentally, something roads have done since Roman times so as not to get flooded.

Accordingly, hovercraft merely slid off the side of the road from the get-go. Back to the cat with four uncommanded lift motors, however, the last time I checked both sea and foreshore were flat and this means there is altogether less of an issue?

The few remaining nations using the hovercraft in anger include the US, China and Russia. Canadians use them as ice-breakers to clear the St Lawrence and perhaps predictably, we use them to travel to the Isle of Wight for a plate of fish and chips... guilty, m' lord.

Nonetheless with the LCAC appearing below (and that's Landing Craft, Air Cushion am guessing the way military inventory is listed backwards to sort alphabetically), the US claims that only 15% of the world's coastlines are accessible by conventional landing craft: as against 70% using the LCAC. I'd like to make that 100% with the drone, but Rome wasn't built in a day, was it Gromit?

Thing to note about the LCAC is they are using, beside the cruise fans and rudders at the rear, exhaust efflux that can be directed by swivelling those outlets out front. These act in much the way that side-thrusters do on ships, in providing a modicum of control ~ when compared to a drone ~ when it comes to moving sideways and arresting for instance that tendency to roll virtually down slopes.

So your mission, Colin, should you choose to accept it is to get the lift-motors acting to produce identical measures of thrust in order to get the cat off the ground, from whence it can be steered toward the sea and back following successful splash-down.

This blog will self-destruct in ten seconds.

Sandhopper

I break from the build so as to collect furniture as a favour from the farthest side of Morecambe Bay. This is an area of tidal flats so hazardous that it has warranted an official guide ~ by royal appointment ~ since 1548. Before that time, it was monks at Cartmel Priory who'd guide travellers across these sands by way of a short-cut. In fact where I sketched the route ~ a distance of over ten miles ~ there used to be a horse-drawn carriage service whose schedule was dictated by the tides.

Otherwise you cross these tidal flats at considerable risk, and especially so in fog or encroaching darkness: circs that accounted for two-dozen cockle-pickers as recently as 2004.

Nonetheless the inset provides the sheer acreage unavailable to boats, depending on the state of the tide and its associated currents. As this is replicated in endless locations around the UK, which has the longest coastline in Europe, that's one giant mis-step for boats for humankind.

Which is why admiring the view seaward along this estuary and on to the bay as I drove west of Grange-Upon-Sands, it struck me a boat that might be impervious to the whims of the tide ~ never to be left high and dry on some or other sandbank ~ must surely be of use to someone, somewhere?

Holy Trinity

During suspension I pig out on Netflix docs, which are invariably about murders in the US of which there appear to be several. Like this caff though and ~ travelling Route 66 on a Harley ~ what else do you need?

Accident Investigation

Naturally I've been suspended from the proj and all related driving duties whilst the AAIB investigate the recent incident. Meantimes I content myself with the fact that (a) I'm still a member of the pilot's union and (b) I carried out the POWER PLANT: FIRE, SEVERE DAMAGE OR SEPARATION checklist to the letter, with an emergency landing on Blaguegate Lane as soon as it was apparent the motor was attached by one remaining bolt... and barely millimetres of that.

These props are not cheap, but they do come by the (CW and CCW) pair in view of the fact you're expected to fit them to quadcopters as a bare minimum. This suits a catamaran too, it using even in the most rudimentary form two cruise motors.

But in fact among the reasons I steered myself from airborne toward a waterborne drone was precisely because a fall from say two feet is altogether more acceptable to hearts and minds than one from two hundred. It is also because whilst the people who fly radio-controlled aircraft were once seen as sad middle-age men in anoraks, they are now viewed as fundamentalists intent on destroying our way of life.

In previous consultations with people co-opted to produce the prototypical drones I made in the past, the merest nick in a carbon-fibre propeller was viewed as reason to discard it all together.

My opinion on this changed somewhat watching YouTube vids of people messing around with drone-builds, almost invariably sourced in the US where they are a good deal more adventurous than us here, whilst having more space to experiment. In brief, however, with one drone stuck up a tree another was sent up to release it by using its carbon-fibre propeller blades as an expensive form of strimmer.

Accordingly the timber boom here will be rounded down with sandpaper in the time-worn method that has served alloy and wooden aircraft since the dawn of time, and the propeller will be pampered with sellotape either side and told to shape up and get back to front-line duties.

Looking at the woodwork though, which looks like its been on the end of some of my work with a mallet and chisel, you get a notion of just how fast these things are windmilling even in a breeze of twenty knots or less. In fact it occurred to me that we could harness the electricity produced to recharge the car's battery, something for which our Minister for Environment would provide a grant of millions.

Ed. As the AAIB conclude, the propeller was running backwards with the air flowing in the wrong direction ~ leading to its trailing edge and not leading doing the chiseling. 

Life on the Edge

Day of mixed fortunes because enroute to the photo-shoot the car sounds at under 30 m.p.h. like it is about to take off: oddly the prop at right of the inset windmilling to such an extent that the motor works loose and the prop takes a slice out of the boom, which hurts its carbon-fibre rather more than it does the timber. The fact it windmills an the other none at all I can only attribute to the fact it is the CW prop and not the CCW?

I've pulled alongside three workmen who are renovating a house and besides being decidedly impressed with the drone, provide cable-ties to do what should have been done at the get-go.

Nonetheless the finished article is a great improvement on the picture that formerly featured on the website, so Gromit and I feel we deserve a tea and a hot-cross bun.

Cubist Movement

A significant milestone as conservatory doors are swung open ~ their tops shrouded in mist ~ and the craft is restored horizontal to be manoeuvred into Assembly Hall #3, which many of the staff simply refer to as 'the lounge'.

Here Pixhawk's mighty flight-controller is installed to supply flight management and guidance; similar to one currently guiding Artemis to the Moon, in that parts are black and others orange.

As lives depend on this tiny orange cube, I plan to be nowhere near the launch-site.

View to rear of craft, which scientists believe features not planet Earth but the door-mat.

Band of Rubbers

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been on at me again to reduce my use of cable-ties and so I have reverted to the age-old RC modellers method of securing things (like wings in their case) with rubber-bands.

Did you ever wonder why so many model aircraft had (a) high wings and (b) bands to secure them? Well principally so they can be added as a unitary part in a place clear of undercarriage and so forth, and where they're less likely to snap during crashes that regularly feature.

Airliners don't have wings attached with rubber-bands, but did you ever wonder why so few of them feature high-mounted wings aside from the (defunct) Bae 146?

Well wings are cantilevered around the edges of a big box (called the wing-box) that ideally fits under the cabin floor, where it is used to store fuel and provide support for the landing gear.

Trying to include it at ceiling-height in an airliner, a space devoted to (a) your head as you walk the aisle and (b) cabin-baggage lockers, is set to fail from the get-go. Both turbo-props I flew had high-mounted wings, so neither needed much in the way of undercarriage; but none of the jets.

That is not a consideration with jet airliners, that require long legs for the clearance required of turbofans and to allow for rotation around their middle for take-off and landing... especially as they keep stretching them.

Who knew that stretched bands and stretched fuselages had so much in common?

Can you see the rubber-band, children?

Thanks to the Co-Op round the corner for providing the rubber-bands for free... they also serve who only stand and wait behind the counter.

Plying Their Trade

... and nor is Airbus averse to using plywood when it comes to modelling drones.

Elevated Thinking

Is it that people interested in vertical flight have wider preoccupations, or just that people with wider preoccupations are often interested in vertical flight?

Da Vinci's helicopter may yet be used in drones, its airscrew apparently quieter and more efficient than what is generally used. He was known though to dabble in paint, medicine and siege-engines for warring city-states beside much else.

Wittgenstein, seen here flying experimental kites in the hills around the university in Manchester were he was based, patented a tip-jet helicopter before moving onward to philosophical contemplations.

Tesla final patent refers to a combination helicopter/airplane, whose use of a turbine to power it pre-dates the actual patenting of the device by Frank Whittle some years later... but it didn't stop him dreaming of it, beside much else in the modern world.

And Arthur Young's experiments with model helicopters persuaded Bell to take him on to develop the Model 30, pre-cursor to the fabulously successful MASH model 47 that I used to watch spraying crops (and me) on the South West Lancashire plain.

Don't begin to compare myself to any of the above ~ I considering my own efforts as being no more than dandruff on the shoulders of giants.

Belt and Braces

Think you can see where we're going with this one and as a drone prototyper you'll be going through more cable-ties and duck-tape than a Taylor Swift roadie.

But I don't trust that Velcro further than I can throw it ~ and that's from someone who placed in the UK's annual Velcro-throwing festival in the West Country.

I've installed edge-protectors to protect the laminate, a trick I've learned strapping steel-plate to flat-beds, from the time it killed that motorist.

Sadly the cable-tie isn't long enough, so I'm going to give Velcro the chance to step up to the plate on the photo-shoot and show us what it can do.

As Pete Hegseth* said on 'Thought for the Day' this morning: FUCK YEAH!!!

Top tip: as gravity is working against you here the angle-alloy (plastic here) has to be held in place the way your dentist does while a crown sets for example.

You may find it helpful during this process to ask the drone how the family's doing, or if it has plans for the holiday weekend.

Ed. Pete Hegseth of Cockermouth, UK, not to be confused with any Secretary for War.

Hook, Line and Velcro

Each of the battery-trays is inlaid with a strip of Velcro, in an exercise of medieval marquetry the master-builders of Notre Dame would have been proud of.

It does mean the question of which side of the Velcro to use raises its ugly head, although therapists agree that ~ like the way you drape a toilet roll ~ you needn't read too much into it.

I've always been a draw-it-over-the-top man when it comes to toilet-roll (at risk of sounding like Alan Partridge), for then each square* puts itself out there loud and proud.

Accordingly I've gone for a conventional hook-and-drone methodology, leaving the battery-pack snug as a bug with the wooly side; again a product of experience, my once having taken a quarter-hour to remove one from a trouser-pocket.

Velcro was invented in the 1940s by a Swiss guy out hunting with his dog, intrigued by the way its jaws were seemingly clamped around a passer-by's crotch.

Ed. Technically a rectangle, so lay off the keyboard*

A Patchy Longbow

Meantimes I've had to patch the hole I'd previously cut in the underside in order to mount the cat directly on the spare-wheel fixture ~ I mean, what was I thinking?

Had to be done, as I'll want to demo it alighting on water and taking off afterward in search, say, of a Pizza Hut. Accordingly I don't want it to go down like Titanic on its maiden voyage.

That said, few if any icebergs are reported around Ross on Wye at this time of year.

Assault and Battery

I still have the 3-D printed battery-trays from the last drone that flew back in the day, and it seems only right that they should be re-used here. I've parked them at the foot of each ESC on the head-board and tail-board, and as can be seen below the terminals will remain clear of the waterline throughout.

One reason that I like individual batteries to address the related speed-controllers is that it avoids connection errors in the field that short the packs out with a big BANG and leave you looking like Tom the cat in the cartoon after his house has exploded.

Another operational concern stemming from prior experience is that you want to be nowhere near the propellers at the point when batteries are connected, for obvious reasons ~ and with the boat stood on end like this, much of the deployment can be effected with the craft stood on its end... also good, in my case, for back and knees.

An additional advantage lies incidentally in the fact that the packs positioned where they are will lower the centre of gravity: with boats, as shopping, every little helps.

The white plug is used to charge the pack, one wire allocated to each cell, whilst the business end is the orange... which has the benefit of being able to be connected in one way only in order to avoid blowing up in your face.

Easter Address

Celebrating Easter-tide at the local Church of England hereabouts, much like you as I gazed at the cross I couldn't help wondering how Romans made them... fresh as I was from my efforts at wood-work on the drone.

Crucifixion was nothing new and also used widely ~ we've all seen Spartacus ~ by Romans, as by any number of peoples before them.

Digging a little deeper though and working from left to right and top to bottom, the 15th-century depiction shows what I think is a simple butt-joint and a cantilevered pair of arms that, frankly, seems unlikely. Without a joist-bracket at the rear (and stores would have been closed at the weekend), this would produce a saggy set of cantilevers and Romans didn't do saggy.

The next depicts something similar if the grain is to be believed, and would have to be hewn from a single block ~ which is getting expensive ~ or cast as a mono-bloc in bronze, which they generally saved for helmets.

More practical is the next, which features a transverse attached to an upright, but I feel that the Romans would not have liked the fact it didn't fit flush. To make it do so requires a lap-joint, which you'd not want to be messing around with on the day.

Though apparently Romans re-used the upright, with only the transverse needing to be provided for the occasion... in which event it may have come with a built-in joint. Images of the cross being carried all appear to use an element of artistic licence, as this would normally have been done with only the transverse for that reason.

It begs the question of how you got people up there, tho' a painting in the church in Leuven suggests it was done prone, with the whole assembly raised afterward and presumably dropped in a hole at the same time to secure... the sort of stands used for Christmas trees not having been invented yet.

The more likely construction appears in the last illustration, a straightforward cross-piece parked on an upright, tho' again you'd wonder how it stayed there... albeit  among your least concerns at the time. It does also provide space for a plaque, as seen in the pic, for premium subscribers.

In the event we shall likely never know as, me aside, few people wonder how the coffin was put together at a funeral. In the event Christians would adopt the outline so in evidence today, not least because it would be hard to build a religion on the back of a letter 'T'.

Anyhow, I'm off upstairs now to deliver this from the balcony. But before I go, who's the guy in the suit at top left? A medieval Where's Wally?

Ed. After delivering one funeral oration, the author was asked if he did stand-up?

Dead Calm

An exchange on the VFS forum as to whether air taxis will ~ literally ~ take off has prompted me to point out that in some cases there is no no better way to travel to, for instance, places like the Scilly Isles than a helicopter or electrical its equivalent. The one time I did so the train from London stopped at Penzance, a short walk to the heliport in the shadow of St Michael's Mount; whilst the aircraft arrived after a relatively short flight on the lawn outside Tresco Abbey, a short walk or taxi ride to the hotel.

The debate unearthed the picture-postcard image above, the route operated by BA 'til a helicopter like this crashed in poor visibility into the sea in continuous descent, killing nineteen passengers along with the cabin attendant.

The accident report published two years later runs to thirty-four pages and like so many, includes granular detail whilst at the same time being able to avoid elephants in the room. On balance however you have to consider it worthy and best that could be done in the circs... pilots and investigators have a trammelled view of flying that sometimes means they miss either the obvious or the extenuating.

For instance BA mandated a requirement for 900m visibility during the approach to the island, during which the crew figured they had settled at around 250 feet and 90 knots, or a hundred miles an hour. In conditions of calm sea and haze, or low-lying mist prone to form above a calm sea... in the absence of a visible horizon and any texture on the water's surface, how does anyone possibly estimate visibility given it is generally done with reference to fixed points on land?

Visibility as against RVR or runway visual range, which is instrumented, has always been left to pilot judgement and had been optimistically estimated since the days of the Wright Brothers, leading to innumerable collisions with the ground, or sea.

In this case it would be fair to say the captain would be flying on instruments for a knowledge of any horizon whatsoever, whilst winging the visibility in a way we'd all done at one time or another. For example too, any ship was supposed to be avoided by 500 feet whether vertically or laterally, and this would surely have been done on the basis "There's not normally anyone there..." as much as anything, as we are all aware of how much ground for instance a car covers at 100 m.p.h. each second and even if that is whilst looking out the window (which here was only an intermittent activity on the half of both crew).

The report essentially says that the captain was using the instruments primarily to judge the power and pitch adjustments required of reducing forward speed, whilst the co-pilot was glued to the Decca Navigation system and/or weather radar so as to confirm the final navigation toward St Mary's airfield. This would involve each of them looking out front either intermittently or not at all, and overlooking continued descent toward the surface.

Here's the thing though that the report does not really emphasise: in circumstances like these, the appearance of sea and sky blends into what is called in photographic studios (and I've used them often) an 'infinity wall' where the estimation of horizon, range, speed and even which way up you are becomes impossible absent the use of instruments that provide such information.

In Alaska, in such weather and for landings on or around snow, pilots would drop three bin-bags out the door prior to an approach to provide a visual reference as to all these vital criteria: three elements being the key to triangulation and much else.

It was on a trip to Innsbruck organised for the entire company by Titan Airways that I found myself up a mountain on a ski-run in an accumulating fog that forced me to a halt. And here's the thing ~ standing upright I still had no notion of whether I was slowly sliding forwards, or backwards or sideways in the absence of any reference at all, the snow having merged seamlessly with the weather.

We've only limited means of a sense of self in such conditions, one being the weight felt on whichever part of the body; another acceleration (though not velocity) by the inner ear; and crucially what we can discern from our purview that gives us cues as to how we are oriented, in which direction we are headed and at what speed.

In truth, all of this was likely missing in that helicopter in 'similar but different' circs, and most of the people on board ~ yet ironically, not the pilots in the line of fire ~ would have born the brunt of what in fairness were meteorological conditions of the sort that were ill-defined by the airline at the time.

Which in fairness, was more used to airliners than helicopters: the hierarchy at the time would have been drawn from the RAF, to which I had a brief exposure myself. The best-performing during training were streamed onto fast jets, the median lot on to transports and the 'could do betters' on to helicopters.

This despite, from what I saw of it in a Bell 205 simulator, it being in many ways the more difficult to master.

The author passed both pilot and navigator aptitude at the RAF's selection centre at Biggin Hill, but failed overall in view of the fact his A-level results were shit and he'd an ambiguous attitude toward killing people... even from a distance.

Wired for Ground...

...effect?

Recommend you leave the craft upright as I've done here to incorporate ESCs viz. speed controllers, this being proof-of-concept and not a 'forever' drone. 

No special measures therefore, just a couple of squirts of filler/adhesive and left to set overnight... which is why it's standing like this, so gravity can do its thing.

If you look closely you can see tooth-picks I used to mark the position of each ESC, as I've yet to fix them in place.

Cabling is wrapped round booms and bed-posts here, while the aft starboard motor is yet to be connected as it includes a pick-off for powering the voltage-sender.

This is a bit of telemetry that transmits the voltage of the battery that will be fitted here, on the assumption the others will likely be in much the same state of charge.

We'll need to monitor this during test-flights to ensure batteries do not drop below a threshold at which they would become scrap. Those in an EV have the same issues, and are controlled by a computer instead of ~ as in our case ~ an RC test-pilot.

In a perfect world wiring would be routed through tubing and not wrapped around timbers, and the electrical components would be located (suitably) in the black box.

Don't forget propellers as fitted from top left working clockwise: clock and anti, clock and anti.

Standing Orders

And here we see the advantage of mounting those rear motors so that propellers spin clear of the end of each boom. The carbon-fibre tube, as you may recall, I have included because unlike the wooden skis the uPVC laminates seen here are that bit more flexible... and when this thing flies I want it standing straight to look the world right in the eye.

Ed. Because that's what momma told him, when his drone was about knee-high.  

Motive Powers

By far the easiest way to mount the motor is to stand the cat on its end. You may find as I did that with these stock eight-foot craft this is not possible in the garage given the height of the ceiling, tho' it is practical if transferred to the conservatory (or as I call it, Assembly Hall #2).

If you don't have a conservatory, you might want to consider building one in order to complete this phase of the boat's development?

Ed. Design by Hilton, flowers by IKEA.

Toe Hold

Time was used to be the US or UK you'd look to for innovation in aviation, but now as often as not it's coming out of China... as with this here. Any guesses? Well like the flat-cat we're building it has four motors to sustain flight and two optimised for forward thrust.

'Sky Tow' is touted as the world's first uncrewed glider-tug. Not raising conventional sailplanes into the air, it is designed as a launch-method for the likes of paragliders and hang-gliders. It is thus operated remotely by a separate pilot, allowing take-offs from the smallest possible space principally because unlike a conventional glider-tug it is up in the air already.

In fact watching the video it's barely visible and said take-offs look AI-generated; except they're not. Accordingly despite the $45,000 price-tag the Shenzen company has had enquiries from around the world... except in most places it is going to take some time for the regulations to catch up in order to legalise the operation.

$45,000 tho' ~ as with all things drone ~ is way cheaper than the alternatives when it comes to capital and operating costs. Conventionally gliders are launched by either a powered winch on the ground, or an aeroplane with a modified propeller designed for pulling power at low speed... plus its pilot. Even worse, paragliders have to walk up a hillside or face a long lift up winding roads to a cliff-top: unless they are fortunate to live near Alpine ski-resorts where the lifts can operate throughout the year for this reason if none other so that everyone's a winner.

(Grim) Reaper

Costing $30 million apiece, the US has reportedly lost a dozen in the Gulf and one of these apparently to friendly fire. Beside which, its remote pilots are throwing sickies due the mental strain involved in watching individuals go about their daily business before literally raining Hellfire down on them.

Apparently not fighting fair is bad for your wellbeing as well as theirs, and so trends are toward drones that (a) are cheaper (b) can be swarmed and (c) use AI instead of remote pilots.

The Reaper was developed as a replacement for the Predator, originally developed by someone known as the father of UAV (or drone) technology. And he began it with colleagues ~ in the style of Jobs and Wozniak ~ in a garage in California. Specifically Abraham Karen teamed up with a fellow engineer and a pre-med student that he met at an aero-modelling meet.

Bankrupted, they were bought out (and taken on) by General Atomics ~ the world never really having been the same since. The reason the contractor took them on was because they'd been struggling with developing a UAV themselves... the advantage of working in a garage ever being the focus imminent penury provides.

Bar Wars

Devil is as ever in the detail and figuring out how to prevent the boat sliding out of its moorings and bouncing down the motorway takes me most of the morning and a lot of head-scratching. In the end I'd a pair of 'Tudor' style cup-hooks that I drive in either side, making a quick-release handle from a length of doweling that's a perfect fit; albeit secured by cable-ties to prevent it from popping out of place.

For the snuggest possible fit too I've glued a patch of rubber foam on the topside of the drone to prevent it from rattling around. I drive it up and down the road at upto 35 m.p.h. on what I'd consider to be taxi-trials, and job's a good 'un. My spec calls for sustained speeds of 50 m.p.h. as a reasonable minimum on motorways, beside a dash capability of 70 m.p.h. should people in Ormskirk ever launch a missile attack.

The second prototype was used throughout for this exercise, it being the one to be relocated elsewhere for wiring up and flying with four lift-motors... all being well, as the person set to be tasked with this has yet to learn about it.

As a consequence it has lost two of its 'tuna-tin' motors, and so I make an executive decision to go full speed ahead and install the regular motors prior to the PR shot.

A second consideration is that there is little but cheese in the fridge, and thus one of the tins has gone towards a tuna-cheese toastie for the 'mission director'.

Spare Keel

Already out there on the aftermarket, you simply have to pop the spare off in order to mount a maritime drone on your wheels. Now available on our merch page, enter your model number and click on 'SAW YOU COMING' for pricing.

It's already been for a drive up the motorway to see if I've torqued the 19mm nuts sufficiently, and at the service station was lucky enough to spot a couple of traffic officers.

I was thus able to enquire whether, unladen, it met applicable regs and they were kind enough to threaten me with a ticket for wasting their time.

Ed. Note how Dilbert drilled holes in the wrong place and try not be equally stupid.

Boxing Clever

Wander out to the garage in my dressing-gown to see how the tail-gate adapter is shaping up... encourage all the staff to come in night-wear on dress-down Fridays.

Nice thing is it can be checked for fit, "Suits you, Sir!", whilst still off the vehicle: handy on bank holidays if you don't want neighbours wondering why a man in his jim-jams is wrestling with a boat at the backside of an RV.

Looking at it though I realise that once its days are done hauling maritime drones it will make the ideal nesting box for the tits I'm always watching out for upstairs with my binos?

And now if you'll excuse me there's a double-bill of Frasier I have to study...

Scrap Book

Introduced in the same year as that Mini, ferry Royal Iris is set to be scrapped after having sent some seventeen million passengers on their way. I'd have used it any number of times as a teenager, when we'd travel across the river to pass the time of day... tickets were only required upon arrival and so if you returned to the pier above at Liverpool the ride came for free. This landing stage was a floating pier and rose and fell with the tide; still does, albeit on a smaller scale altogether. Main pic is courtesy of Bernard Rose, who like me appears still to be alive.

Ed. And the couple in the foreground could have stepped right out of a Mini...