Flying Pig

AlfredJWheeler_Wiki

This wiki page is about Flying Motorcycles. Possibly, more accurately, a flying motorcycle. The goal is to describe, and possibly document, the design and prototyping of a flying motorcycle, a winged iron horse, an iron pegasus, or maybe just a flying pig... Of course, there won't be too much iron in it. More likely, it will consist of a lot of aircraft aluminum and possibly some more exotic material such as carbon fiber. Certainly, it will contain of a little iron, though. Like the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz”, flying motorcycles cannot be good, but what a cool idea!

Topics will probably change over time. I will try to maintain some history and clarity in logical progression, but no promises.

How would this "Flying Pig/Monkey" be useful? It would have application for pure fun, I'm pretty sure... Also, I think it would be useful for ranches and forestry, like horses and ATVs are useful.

Designs | Testing | Materials | Engines and Motors | Electronics | Mockup | Costs | Market and Breakeven Analysis | Progress | Bibliography | Ad hoc Notes | Licensing

Initial concepts:

Here’s an informational page and photo for a reasonable appearing one (The url and text say there’s a video, but I couldn’t find it–just Google, I’m sure it’s video is actually on YouTube…).

http://ultimatemotorcycling.com/2011hover-bike-a-flying-motorcycle-video/

I think a better design would have four fans like the little toy quad-copters.

http://hackaday.com/2013/03/19/diy-arduino-pro-mini-quadcopter/

except instead of an X design, the frame should be a couple of angle brackets joined to a hyphen with a fan housing at each end of the angle bracket arms, basically. Here is a concept graphic constructed using “Wings 3D”, which I downloaded from SourceForge and learned a very little about over the last few hours.



That way you don’t have a fan in front of you obstructing your forward vision. Each fan should have its own little engine for maybe a few reasons, relating to redundancy and safety. The rider should at least have a birdcage (because, let’s face it, somebody’s gonna roll it too close to the ground…) and a really good seatbelt… Standard helicopter landing skids and water-plane pontoons might be reasonable accessories. Add an ultralight bubble to keep the bugs out of your teeth

http://safarihelicopter.com/

and you’ll have one screaming banshee of a joy toy from hell,

or perhaps an express ticket to get there…

So maybe it needs some of Google’s automatic driving and collision avoidance technology, too…

The idea is to start from a standard motorcycle frame and add on the needed structure and then skin. Basically, until it ever gets off the ground, it's a hobby horse with helicopter skids and four tennis rackets with fans in stead of netting in them...

It seems to me that this is an actionable achievable project that would need mechanical engineering, some aircraft materials salvage, aerodynamics design, team coordination, motivation, probably pizza (LOL), and possibly grant writing. I'm not sure I can deliver all that, but that's what I think it will take at this point in time.

This will no doubt become several pages. For now, I will focus on conceptual design and learning Wings 3D and similar and related tools.

Having watched a few more videos, it seems clear that I will need a wheeling machine, also known as an English Wheel, some slappers, various other kinds of hammers, metal bending tools and so on. I expect I can accomplish all or a lot with out the fancy schmancy expensive tools, but it remains to be seen...