Our featured sponsor this week is Profile Design! Profile Design (www.profile-design.com) makes high-performance bicycle components, as well as apparel and accessories for triathletes. The company was kind enough to donate a pair of handlebars and a wheelset to our team!
The handlebars will be used as the base for the pilot controls, and also serve as an important anchor point for the pilot’s body (for optimum power output). The particular model is the Cobra Wing Base Bar, one of the lightest composite aero base bars on the market. The lightweight construction and form factor of this bar make it ideal for our purposes! We’ll be using one bar to prototype the control system, and the second for installation on the helicopter itself.
The wheelset will be used for our flywheel system, to store rotational inertia. This smoothes out the forces from the pilot’s varying pedal stroke, resulting in a higher-efficiency drive system. The Armada 30 wheelset is very light and well-made, thus easily adaptable to our purposes.
Cobra Wing Base Bar (Photo Courtesy of Profile Design)
Armada 30 Wheelset (Photo Courtesy of Profile Design)