Highs and Lows

Hard to see how this is going to be pursued in the UK, where no avenue really exists for the sale of electrical multi-copters capable of lifting individuals, unlike in the US.

Nor is there an avenue for government-funding for garage-based developments, as once existed in the form of the (long-since privatised) BTG, or British Technology Group as was.

If though you can afford a staff dedicated to pursuit of the 'pork-barrel' however, you're quids in.

Thus Vertical Aerospace (whose owner is down to his last two-thirds of a billion) has just been granted a further £2.3 million by the taxpayer, whilst further funding has flown in Wingcopter's direction from the UK Space Agency.

Why would a UK space agency disburse revenue in this way? Apparently because the drone uses the US-developed GPS system... on which basis the guy delivering my pizzas qualifies for a grant. 

And don't be fooled by the Union Jack on the tail... it's about as British as Volkswagen.

Meanwhile regulation of the largest drones in the UK is suspended after a visit from Australia of Airspeeder's 'flying racing-car' which crashed during practise for ~ and again at ~ a public event.

This resulted in some 230 kilos falling from the sky, as any quadcopter would following a single failure of any of countless components.

Fact is, when Elon Musk said the US was the only place in the world where the future is realised, he wasn't far wrong. Nonetheless we have to work with what we've got, and as of tomorrow I'll make this venture fly by hook or by crook.

Meanwhile to cheer myself up I watch a Scandinavian noir-movie about an entrepreneur who's about to make it in Copenhagen, when he's dragged down by bureaucrats, estranged from his rich fiancé, fails at bringing up a family in Jutland and then dies of cancer.

Felt much better afterwards.

Who's the Dummy?

Spent more time and money clothes-shopping for this guy than I have for myself this year...

Lockdown

A day of mixed emotions, yesterday.

Between the three of us we fitted the propellers and got the telemetry configured, whilst that one of us who owned the barn insisted on a strap-down test prior to letting 'loose this dog of war'.

In this following scene, given a degree of freedom the vehicle strained like Frankenstein at the straps and lifted ninety pounds of timber like it wasn't there.

Given the constraints of the surrounds we were unable to go much beyond a temporary hover, which means that a test-flight in the open air awaits another day.

At around 50kg in weight, however, it has to be classed as an experimental aircraft in both the UK and US.

Ironically in the latter, were we to climb aboard with the transmitter in hand, we'd be good to go.

Bring Him Home

Dodging the showers I collect the prototype, whose avionics occupy the centre-section, power supply the lowermost drone and both GPS and compass feeds the upper.

Eventually I would like the drones working independently and yet in concert, a little like a duet. At present, wired (albeit beautifully) as they are, they are more like Siamese twins.

It would mean a hierarchical system of flight-control with separate processors top and bottom.

I'd a notion that the octopus has two brains (in fact it has nine) and wholly overlooked the fact that the average human has effectively two brains, albeit linked.

It's not a bad corollary for the logic of systemic redundancy however, as human beings thriving after the loss of one hemisphere of the brain are not unknown.

There's even a term for the deliberate removal of one half... hemispherectomy.

EHangups

I ask my eight year-old son whether he prefers EHang's drone to Daddy's and he laughs out loud. "What, yours instead of the one with Lamborghini seats?"

Kids can be so cruel at times...

Any Which Way

I file this gorgeous render by Richard Bache (https://carimet.com) as a registered design, which I do from time to time if only as the basis for the inevitable TED talks once I'm lauded to the tree-tops by the world of rotor-craft.

For a long time ~ principally before I realised my cousin was a dab-hand at SketchUp ~ the way we did this, and the way it's done it here is that a photo of a scale wooden model is photographed and used as a basis for drafting.

This has had the very obvious benefit of me having to produce the scale model, which is wholly instructive in itself by providing a 'look-and-feel' before scaling up to full size.

What this one tells us however is that these 'flying wheelie-bins' that I am currently in process of prototyping in flying form don't much care in which direction they're headed.

This will be of more consequence when it comes to extended boxes that you can sit in, but for now and for a variety of reasons the way it is oriented here...

http://teledrone.blogspot.com/2020/09/web-sight.html

... will do just nicely.

Open Letter to the UK CAA