The time has come: this Monday we'll be moving up to Tottenham to begin construction on the helicopter!
Our goal going into the summer was to have the rotors fully-designed so that the team could immediately begin what will become an assembly line of massive lightweight blades. The design of the rotors has been done with custom aerodynamic and structural optimizer. The model takes into account the weight, stiffness and failure properties of the primary structural elements when finding an optimum solution.
Of course, a bigger helicopter is aerodynamically more efficient, but structure is substantially heavier. The image below shows a typical output from the optimization program, where aerodynamic forces, structural loads and failure properties are plotted over the length of the rotor.
Output from the custom design and optimization program used to design the Atlas.
We're happy to report that the rotor design is very near completion and by the end of the week we should be producing some of the final helicopter parts. Wish us luck with the move on Monday!