SimonBurchell
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2001
- Messages
- 2,724
- Location
- Somewhere in the labyrinth
Unusual one for me last night, in that it wasn't as surreal as usual. I was taking part in a competition in Chichester, which was a bit like those Red Bull Birdman competitions, except this one was called Victory (spelt out on huge glittering banners hung across the streets). You basically had to pilot a hand-built flying machine from the flat top of a non-existent building on the east side of South Street to a non-existent building on the other side of South Street. Both buildings looked like university buildings, but were taller than anything actually in Chichester city centre, not outrageously so, maybe twice as high, eight or nine stories. The competition was known for being dangerous, with fatalities not uncommon. People were building machines that looked like early attempts at powered flight, with multiple stacked wings etc. I borrowed an idea from someone I knew, and filled an inflatable mattress with helium. I then had problems, because I was going to use an electric fan heater as a propeller, but between it and the power supply, it was too heavy to fly. Instead I built a wooden frame around the mattress and attached four amateur rockets to it (the kind enthusiasts launch to impressive heights), pointing out diagonally from the sides, two per side. I then lay on the mattress, lit up the rockets and flew from one side of the street to land on the other building, using some king of rudder to guide my direction, and letting out helium to land on the flat roof. I won the competition! At the massive meal in a hall with trestle tables, I gave due credit to the guy who had the idea of a helium-filled mattress, and he wasn't bothered at all that I had used his idea, but I felt oddly guilty. As a note, I am not an inventor (I have knocked up the odd contraption for work purposes, but not very often).