Picture Post

Limited in what I can do here, but after yesterday's excitement it's nice to turn to less contentious matters, isn't it? Here's my take on how the middle of the airframe is set to look, and tailored to my own proportions. Like building your own coffin for standing up in, and it's doing these things makes you realise why they're the shape they are.

Uncivil Matters

Redacted to protect the innocent, correspondence arriving via notification in the form of email, which advises me to open an online case file relating to Universal Credit (not sufficiently universal however to stretch to correspondence abroad).

With my legal hat on, I would query the lack of date... something every child is taught to begin a letter with whilst at primary school (beside the punctuation in the opening line). Interestingly though it's digital communication so as to reduce headcount, which in turn increased the potential for fraud, the parlay is somewhat one-way. The journal itself that comprise the case file is closed for communication, as are email and text message.

There is the opportunity to phone (by yesterday's deadline), or to post a letter within the UK, a place that has effectively closed to its own citizens who find themselves in a proscribed country on its pandemic 'red-list'. Alternatively there is the facility to make a conventional international phone call, cost of which they won't be refunding.

They are however in error, and despite the threats and insinuations I am altogether in a position to defend myself in court. The last (and only) time I had reason to a query a decision of this kind involved a tribunal at a court in Liverpool on a date when I was otherwise disposed: having flown from there to Tokyo at my expense in pursuit of a job. Naturally on the occasion I lost the case, but bear in mind you and I are paying for these people in wigs to sit in judgement upon farce of this kind.

Although most people are intimidated by court surroundings, I'd relish the chance to expose the theatre of the absurd that is a DWP fashioned in public schoolboys' image, not least that of Dominic Cummings (one time adviser to fellow public schoolboys in the shape of the PM and Michael Gove). On the few days I was sick from school, I'd sit in bed watching episodes of Crown Court and hoping one day to be a barrister.

I never got to those Inns of Court, but I have won the only two cases I've been involved with, beside supplying witness testimony against a couple of repeat offenders I'd seen walk away from a building site with a power tool. Had I known the foreman couldn't give a fuck either, however, I wish I hadn't bothered. Actually I don't, it being an education in itself.

Plus a mess ~ read Fake Law by the anonymous barrister in London. The one thing that amazed me beside the realisation that the CPS were effectively failed lawyers, was how the people you were about to accuse in court on behalf of the prosecution were sat there opposite me in the ante-room. Not like I'd been raped even, but merely suffered damage to my Vauxhall Cavalier.

The case file as I peruse it is peppered with procedural and factual errors, and I look forward to donning my own powdered wig and entering court with a flourish and one of ethos rolled up folios with a red ribbon. I'm disputatious, contentious, floating like a butterfly around the dock and stinging like a witty bee.

And you're all invited. I shall bring the drone as exhibit Number One and upon which I have spent £18,000 in the last year alone, and sit back twiddling that silly black tie as those arraigning me endeavour to prove that I'm a n'ere-do-well without any intention in life beside defrauding HM government... as if the banks themselves and politicians were incapable.

News this same day that Afghans fleeing the monumental fuck-up the establishment made of that country (and any other not aligned with our morally-superior beliefs and lifestyles) are entitled to welfare. Born in the UK and married ten years to a Turk, ironic that she is not entitled to any form of welfare whilst the pittance afforded me they hope to reclaim.

All claimants though must use my approved communication means of communication.

Carrier pigeon.

This Time Next Year, Rod...

Before my wings were clipped by the 2.60 metre dimension set by the GoFly challenge rules, there was no hell below us and above us only drones. And we'll be revisiting this one in the new-build. Having established the layout of the lower end, we've now to build upward as we reach for the sky.

This little chap, Rod, is a metre tall and one thing I discovered just over two years ago when this was taken was that with columns passed through a flight-control 'console', the box containing the operator can be reduced in height to around the 16" mark too.

Those are 5mm threaded rods as I recall, and over twenty kilos up top... not a weight they would have supported without a brace of this sort. The device slides, too, but so what? Well since then I've looked at quite how to squeeze myself in from every angle, and lower limbs being smaller in outline than my waist, we can reduce the footprint of the centre-section of the base to suit.

The box at foot-level will therefore fulfil three principal functions: it will protect the shins from blade-strike, root the superstructure and remind people that one day, a phone-box might yet fly.

Global War... ning

What's my view of eVTOL development and the electrification of our homes and cars? I view it as a concerted global effort at rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and Earth the Titanic. Moral of the story, Titanic's still there on the sea-bed, surviving its passengers. Or in conclusion, we're fucked.

Well I'm not personally, having like most people I imagine viewed the current state of affairs as a sort of pool-party that we'll all be paying for later once we wake up. By way of illustration, what connects the two traffic jams above? One is a China-funded effort in Kenya to expand the use of airliners and cars in and around Nairobi and the other is people in Louisiana trying to escape the knock-on effect.

I emerged from university having learned nothing except maybe the feeling that Hitler had it right about the uselessness of academics, despite having got it wrong about all else. One thing I do recall however from a glancing study of Geology and Geography is that unlike our modern selves, the world is decidedly binary: it flips from one state to another by a series of positive feedback loops if we piss it off sufficiently.

Which we've done. I imagine that realistically we would have to forego the use of cars, aeroplanes and the internet right now to have even a hope of averting a hell-hole of a future, and that's not going to happen, for as the Taliban have shown we lack the moral authority and our politicians are all exemplars of its lack.

How's it connect to Istanbul here? Well it's where Dan Brown's book Inferno ends, whose anti-hero an academic who intends to release a pathogen because his opinion is that the world is doomed by over-population... pointing out as he goes that the Great Plague which eliminated half of Europe invigorated its culture and led to a renaissance and scientific method that improved our lot in the long run. (He wrote this prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, incidentally. Perhaps that's where they got the idea?).

Which brings us back to oil, and the fact three of Exxon's retired scientists explained how the oil business itself knew of the global-warming effects of using hydrocarbons as far back as the 1960s. One explained he'd always believed over-population was at the root of the problem, or specifically our over-consumption... its high-priest a brat on YouTube opening endless boxes of toys.

Our billionaire astronauts believe the solution lies in exporting civilisation beyond the planet... like having to rebuild the Titanic from within the rowing-boat you escaped on.

Fear not, however, lighter arrangements of deck-chair due here soon...

p.s. probably sounds really bad, but I've always wanted to experience a hurricane.

Back to the Future

Although an 'H' configuration is quite amenable, there's been much to commend this layout as the literal basis for renewed work on the prototype, which promises a return to my GoFly challenge roots viz. accommodation box, no matter how tight the confines and with which to contain an upright operator equipped with a quadcopter above and below.

What you see is very much what you'll get (except it'll be scaled a little to support an adult, although this should lift a mannekin based upon past flight experience). With Rome not having been built in a day, the lower quadcopter layout that this represents is dedicated to lift alone, or 'collective' in helicopter parlance. That way it is decidedly easier to configure, requiring only a conventional transmitter and receiver.

We're (who am I kidding, "I'm") betting the farm on this working out of the box so long as the upper quad proves to be independently stable. Can't be sure of course, though nothing ventured as ever is nothing gained and I shall furnish the website accordingly so that anyone can join in. This one I've posted as a technical disclosure, not least as the UK Patent Office rather cocked up my last design submission and 'cause it's free.

It's also something I can do myself: the philosophy from henceforth being if it cannot be done by a suitably-trained chimpanzee then it shouldn't be done at all. I have from time to time emailed YouTubers to see if they'd be interested in a 'collab' as the young are wont to say, but never get a reply. The last I contacted is managed by an agency in LA, who doubtless screen the spoilt brat's correspondence. Emails are so trite a form of communication nowadays ~ a little like saying 'hello' to a stranger in the street ~ it's no surprise that they rarely occasion a rejoinder.

Fuck you tubers anyway, however.

Okay Man

Guy's still in the eVTOL game, albeit in the form of his corporation. Jeff Bezos worries Amazon might not outlast the thirty years expected of companies in our EVERYTHING NOW! generation.

Charles Kaman lived to ninety-one besides inventing the Ovation guitar of my teens, along with the inter-meshing helicopters and much else besides.

Don't build them like that any more... men, that is.

Reboot

Been given the chance here (without the option to do otherwise because of the travel restrictions due the recurring nightmare that is the Covid-19 pandemic) to review the situation, as Ron Moody was wont to do. These are as follows:

(a)    a design for a surface-skimmer that might be literally be electrified.

(b)    a patent application for a tilting wing that might extend the range of eVTOLs.

(c)    a patent application for a unique means of launching a tail-sitting aeroplane.

(d)    sticking to the knitting.

As ever in aviation multiple-choice questions, the answer is most likely to be (d). Ever wonder why, incidentally? Well if the correct option was invariably the first or second, then the exam would be over that much quicker and they'd have to have thought of so many more questions, wouldn't they?

Actually it will look more like a cross between what appears above in patent form and what was built and subsequently tested, looking more like this:

https://www.instagram.com/p/COfDf9fHBuH/

But let's start at the very beginning, because it's a very good place to start. Ever since the days I'd sit in the now-defunct science reference library in Holborn avidly leafing through the equally-defunct Jane's Surface Skimmers, I've had a secret vice in the form of a passion for what are known to most of us (and who do I think I'm kidding except myself) as 'ekranoplans'. Foremost requirement for experimentation with which however is a large body of water... people on the Everglades don't know they're born.

Common to (a) in many ways however is (b), in that experiments rarely come cheap or easy. It's no excuse not to endeavour, but you have to recognise that while Edison prospered mightily by it, the countless likes of Tesla, Brunel and Trevithick came to an altogether stickier end. In other words, it costs in more ways than one, which is why like training for the Olympics most people take a pass on it.

Like all of my inventions, which I view as fondly as children, I like (b) a lot however and see only Vimana out there (https://vimana.global/vtolaav) using anything similar. Take a look at the video however and see if you don't agree with me that the bulk of eVTOLs out there are powered by little more than hot air? Anyway I emailed the (Bulgarian and Russian inventors) and they've yet to get back to me, so what I shall likely do is roll it over for twelve months and then decide: in IP trade they're called 'submarine patents'  because they bite you just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

Ditto (c), although whilst the propeller plus free-wing combination used in (b) could be controlled by stock drone avionics, it requires the control-surfaces used by airplanes. These are things I ran a mile from at school, settling instead for whirling Airfix models around my head instead. Although all the SPACs out there are currently funding what in many cases are mere pictures of extended-range eVTOL types sporting fixed wings and traditional controls, to all intents and purposes multicopters remain the vehicles of choice for the cheapest and shortest-range options... of which there will be many.

(d) is therefore the Weetabix with hot milk that you keep coming back to. Although I'd visions of being 'teleported' in lookalike phone-boxes with helis above and below, this was scotched early on by being too big to meet the rules of the GoFly challenge. This has to be credited for advancing the art, and in fact has recently been extended into 2022, way beyond the original remit and a reflection on how hard vertical flight can be. Plus, the above design still fits the criteria and may yet make an appearance however and wherever that may be.

But I can attest to the fact, having built one and stood in it, that it's ergonomically the most comfortable option, is one-size-fits-all and can be escaped with a parachute. It needs improving from the standpoint of construction, undercarriage, means of entry and protection from its uppermost quad... but all of these I know now how to address.

More importantly, beside meeting the terms of the original patent it is different from every other air vehicle out there, and as such is inspiring (inspiration being what I get up each day for). It was probably YouTube's HeroFlyer that made me watch and think "I want one of those..." that inspired me to work at it for so long as I have, and so long as I will. Talking to Morty we decided that ~ like Lilienthal ~ he likely died in its pursuit.

Of course he (she or they) might actually be a dummy, but if that's so then the editing is as nifty as the flying machine. If you're watching in the office ~ as you should if you've any sense ~ then do mute it prior:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k73DM95hTtc

Finally though, we all put a lot into it... it's in our DNA.