Building continues

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Over the weekend, I managed quite a lot. I bought a sheet of aluminum and made a hood for the front of the trike. Put the hinges so the hood could be easily opened, fork and the front wheel could be reached if necessary. As fasteners of the bottom of the hood used belts like old cars. Visually, I like this decision most of all, but the straps turned out to be flimsy and torn as soon as I could just pull them. In general, I had to put on bolts. It does not look good, but it keeps well. On top of that, I painted the hood with black paint. The paint was only matte and does not look very good with a glossy casing, but in general it is satisfactory, then I can varnish it and it will be ok.

One of my good friends Irena decided to help me and brought a whole package of all sorts of interesting things. Various rivets, belts, handbags, decorative carnations and scraps of different fabrics. Among other things, there was also a good piece of black dermantine to which I covered the hastily made of plywood and foam rubber seat. It turned out very well. However, in the cockpit it became a little cramped and there was nowhere to pull the legs. But even the pedals need to be put somewhere. At the moment this is my main problem and next week I hope to solve it.

Unfortunately, the rear axles and braces for the brakes are still unprepared, and it makes me angry and brakes the whole project. If I welded the axles, I could put the wheels and brakes. After that, you can mount the motor and take over the fence and there is already the final straight and sun-drenched beach on which I will rush on my hot rod-aerotrayke, I do not even know what else it can be called. While I’m happy with everything in the design. Everything within my picture, but still a lot of work if only it was unnecessary to be distracted by the earnings, I would have built a whole fleet of cars that could be safely taken and removed in the sequel of the Mad Max …

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I continue building. The frame is welded and painted with black primer. The frame was too heavy and without shock absorbers. But for now I’ll leave it as it is. It is necessary to try to put a trike on the wheels and then it will become clear what went well and what was bad. It will still be necessary to cut and digest the frame in the course of testing, and then I will insert the shock absorbers, if necessary. The idea is that the wheels will amortize the frame itself too. This trike is intended solely for driving along the beach and on a specific route (more on this later).

At the weekend I screwed the fiberglass body to the frame and made the floor of plywood. Still installed the front fork and wheel. He welded the steering spider and connected it to the steering wheel. The next thing I plan to do is complete the management system, adjust everything and finally fix it. Then I think to do the interior. The rear suspension is not ready yet. It is necessary to wait for one master to make on the axis milling cutter and a couple of parts for the brakes, then it will be possible to put everything together. Well, we are waiting for the next weekend to resume interesting work again.

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A new turn

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It’s been more than a year since the first and only flight of the Dreamfighter trike. And this year was difficult for me and for my project. Continue or not, that is the question! In the end, having changed a lot of options, I came to the conclusion that a trike with a front engine is not needed by anyone. I built my own, flew and enough. If there were enough resources, one could certainly build an outstanding thing, but it’s difficult to climb this mountain alone without the means. In the end, as an artist, I am interested in the process of creating unusual devices, and the machines themselves interest me more from the outside than from the practical.

So, when I expressed my thoughts about the Dreamfighter, it’s time to say about the Dreamfighter snowmobile. Since the case even cracked, I decided to give him a second life in a different quality and guise, the more that I have one idea that reminds me of myself every time, when I go to the coast of the Baltic Sea. In general, there is an idea, there is a broken body, three good wheels and even a motor, although not very powerful. I had to sell my Thor 130, but in the winter I had a Rocket 120. Although it is weak, but able to push the snowmobile with wheels on an even surface. I started to make wheeled snowmobile Dreamfighter, but this time the motor will be behind them. Outwardly they become like an old racing car or plane. I must say that this project attracted me and already something began to loom. At first I cut off the bottom of the case and welded a metal frame. I also made the steering wheel and the front fork. It remains to understand the motor and the axes for the rear wheels and then it will be possible to slowly collect the device. Since I can work with it only on weekends, the project is moving rather slowly. But at the same time he brings me a lot of joy and again I see the meaning in the creativity that I do!

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Little development

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I thought about how to remake the device available to me to do without unnecessary costs. And here it is – little bit another version. It is necessary to cut off the lower part, where there was a front wheel, and make a more streamlined nose. Install a pair of small wings with ailerons that will compensate for the torque from the screw and give it an interesting look and of course the transition from the three rings to the four. This will provide the paratrike with better stability and it will be possible to abandon brackets with small wheels that kept the device from turning over (it showed itself very well on tests and really saved the device from turning in one of the starts). Such a device turned  like from cartoon, just what I like – unusual and very attractive.

Reflections on the possibilities of a paraglider

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Ten years I worked in the cinema as a decorator. We had to do a lot of interesting things (I mean in historical movies). Ordinary modern melodramas are the ones that are most in demand, from the point of view of the decorator, films are not interesting. Another thing is the historical films about the war well or fantasy in which, unfortunately, I never had the chance to work. Why am I saying all this? Once I worked on the historical film The Defenders of Riga. A film about the events unfolding in Latvia after the end of the first world war. The Russian prince Bermond Avalov, in alliance with some surviving German divisions, decided to take Riga as a result of which the local population rose up against the interventionists, was able to reorganize and form a competitive resistance. That’s about that long war and filmed that movie and there was an episode in which German planes fly to bomb Riga. Well, not only were there more scenes at the airfield, etc. In general, the budget for the movie was quite decent and specifically for the filming was built a whole movie town, streets, houses and a church. Also five cars of that era and there were talks that it would be necessary to build a Focker D-7 aircraft if I’m not mistaken. We wanted to make a replica that could ride on its own on the field well, and episodes in the sky would be finished by the craftsmen on the computer. I really, really expected this. I wanted to participate in the construction of the aircraft but director decided to cut some scenes from the airfield and episodes of bombing were made digitally. Money was not enough and it was easier. Of course, I could not influence their decision because he was just one of the employees of the art department and regretted to do his job. However, a little later when I turned my gaze on the paraglider and realized the opportunity to rise to the sky myself, I came up with the idea of how to solve the problem of a small budget in a movie about old aircraft.

The idea is very simple, We build from aluminum and fabric, a replica of the aircraft, perhaps a little smaller scale but so that it was not very obvious. We install the motor in the front, whichever rotax 447 we carefully mask under the original details of the engine of the aircraft. We connect all this apparatus to a tandem paraglider and launch into the sky. I think that with a little skill, such a device will be able to fly quite well. I’m not saying that you have to decide things like lifting the wing with the long tail of the aircraft and the stability of the chassis and control, etc. But in the end we get an inexpensive aircraft that can cheerfully run around the green and if you need to fly. Shooting from inside the cabin is almost without problems, shooting the aircraft and its spans are removed as usual and then the video is processed and the paraglider is erased from the frame and there is a bookcase flying over the field. It is possible to lift anything into the sky, for example, in Disneyland, thus a fire-breathing dragon flies with a large wingspan and tail, which proves the vitality of my idea.

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Honestly, I think if you make a paratrike, even if in a classic scheme with a motor behind it, but make it an excellent cabin like a World War I aircraft, so that when you fly it feels like you’re flying an old plane, that feeling of flight on such an apparatus would be more saturated than then you experience flying on a stool which forms are not graceful.

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