In my continued efforts to develop an alternative method of flight, I recently ran into a setback involving my inability to construct an appropriate air-moving device using my go-to materials of foam-core and balsa wood. I created a spreadsheet to perform a sort of finite element analysis-slash-faux integration of my intended propulsion mechanism, the result of which indicated a frankly ridiculous amount of lift on a particular moving surface, enough lift that I must assume I made an error in my calculations, or perhaps the underlying assumptions, despite my inability to locate such an error.

These two events led me to pursue a different line of inquiry, using, rather than moving air, a moving surface. Construction is much simpler. However, I think my materials are still too heavy and my motor too weak.

Which leads me to another thing I don’t believe. I went to the local RC hobby store with a mind to finding both a better power to weight ratio and a hands-off control scheme. The man there told me that the little airplane motor he was bouncing in one hand was a 1 horsepower motor. To my mind, a 1 HP motor is about the size of my head and several times as heavy. I know it’s a neodymium motor, which needs much less magnet mass, but that just seems unreal.

Also, I have finally been able to define a psychological block within myself when it comes to the pursuit of cool things. The less sure I am that it’ll work, the more reluctant I am to spend money on it. This one factor explains much of the stress I feel and my desire to plan and/or calculate everything before I start anything. Maybe not a grand revelation, but personally quite interesting.

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