Four Ways to Fly a Disc

Each variant in depth: an animated flight sequence, the conceptual drawings behind its technology — including the electromagnetic rim gimbal — and the numbers it carries. The recessed rim control ring is standard on every variant for stability — 8 nozzles on the 36-inch, 12 on the 48, 16 on the 60, every port flush with the smooth hull — firing millisecond pulses whatever does the vectoring. Tank, valves and avionics are identical across all four.

first tether article

V-A · RINGFLAT — The simplest possible PD-1

No gimbal, no moving aerodynamic parts: a fixed duct lifts, and the recessed rim nozzles do everything else (8 ports on the 36-inch tether article, up to 16 on the 60) — attitude, yaw and even translation. It burns the most air of any variant, which is exactly why it flies first: every pulse teaches the flight policy what the pneumatics can really do. And small does not mean useless: the 36-inch Scout's modest carry is exactly a transceiver or locator beacon, dropped so the delivery party has comms up before the heavy lift arrives.

SCENE V-A · Pulse-walk. Translation without tilt: opposed rim nozzles fire in alternation and walk the craft sideways. The hull never banks — attitude and position are both pneumatic.

PD1-510 · Nozzle allocation map. Every motion is a different subset of the same recessed ring — drawn at the 36-inch count of eight; the 48 carries 12 ports, the 60 sixteen. Filled = firing. The flight policy composes these primitives at up to 50 pulses a second.

PD1-511 · Air budget per fill. Ringflat spends air on everything, so the budget is the design driver: it still holds a 14% reserve at touch-down.

Vectoring	none — fixed duct
Attitude	recessed nozzles do everything (8–16 by size)
Helium	no
Mass delta	−360 g (no gimbal)
Endurance	≈20 min

baseline · Phases 1–2

V-B · VECTOR — The baseline that flies Phases 1–2

The servo gimbal tilts the whole duct ±12° inside a level hull. Lift barely drops, a fifth of thrust becomes forward drive, and the rim ring is held back for what it is best at — millisecond gust response. Every part is a catalog item, which is what makes it the baseline.

SCENE V-B · Vector glide. The duct rocks ±12° inside a level hull; the horizontal component of lift (about a fifth of thrust) drives the craft. The ring only fires if a gust interrupts.

PD1-520 · Thrust vector geometry. A 12° tilt costs 2% of lift and buys 21% of thrust as forward drive — the whole case for vectoring instead of banking.

PD1-521 · Servo vector loop. The mechanical loop is honest but slow: 8–12 ms of servo lag is why the rim ring still owns the fast corrections.

Vectoring	servo gimbal ±12°
Attitude	ring assists
Helium	optional
Mass delta	baseline
Endurance	≈20 min

Phase-3 R&D

V-C · MAGRING — Electromagnetic vectoring — the new tech

The research concept from the design notes, drawn to be built: electromagnet quadrants on the duct wall act across a 3–5 mm air gap on a magnet ring around the non-spinning fan shroud. Differential quadrant current tilts the stack with zero backlash and no wear — at the price of an actively controlled gap and a 90° precession phase offset the controller must learn.

SCENE V-C · Field drive. No servos: coil quadrants fire in phase-offset waves and the shrouded stack leans on a magnetic bearing. Drive phase leads the desired tilt by 90° to beat gyroscopic precession.

PD1-530 · EM rim gimbal — quadrant ring. Twelve coils, four quadrant drivers. Differential current across opposing quadrants tilts the shroud; symmetric current centers it. No contact, no backlash, no wear.

PD1-531 · Air-gap control loop. The gap is unstable without control — thrust pulls the stack out of its pocket. A 2 kHz loop holds it, which is why Magring is R&D and not Phase 1.

PD1-532 · Gyroscopic precession offset. Push the top of a spinning disc and it leans sideways, not back. The ground-trained policy learns this offset in simulation before the hardware ever flies.

Vectoring	magnetic rim bearing
Attitude	ring assists
Helium	yes
Mass delta	+150 g coils, −360 g servos
Endurance	≈21 min (projected)

Phase-3 concept

V-D · CRUISER-60 — The flagship: EM gimbal + helium + payload

Sixty inches of hull, the full 400-liter helium annulus, and the EM rim gimbal carried over from Magring — on the Cruiser the helium margin pays for the coil mass, so the new tech earns its seat. A half-kilogram payload rides a drop line under the center: camera first, plasma coolers and rescue kit later. The flagship also carries the variable-pitch rotor hub — a Sikorsky-style collective that tilts the 24-inch blades to chop more or less air at constant RPM. Its real job is the failure case: the instant the flight computer sees pack voltage collapsing it flattens the blades into autorotation, the windmilling rotor back-drives the motors, and every remaining watt charges a supercapacitor bank. Baro, GPS and IMU telemetry time one discharge at flare height — cap into the motors, full collective bite — for a touchdown at minimum impact acceleration. Landing policy is payload-first: the glide steers to the safest reachable spot even when that is farther from the receiver, because payload survivability is the use case.

SCENE V-D · Endurance cruise. The 60-inch hull with the full helium annulus and the EM rim gimbal carried over from V-C. A camera rides the drop line; the ground scrolls by at a walking pace.

PD1-540 · Cruiser-60 integration section. The flagship pairing: Magring's electromagnetic gimbal carried onto the 60-inch hull, where the helium margin pays for the coil mass. Servo gimbal remains the fallback fit.

PD1-541 · Mission profile — endurance sortie. Drawn to scale from the power model: the helium annulus is worth roughly three extra minutes at cruise — the Cruiser's whole reason to exist.

Vectoring	EM rim gimbal (servo fallback)
Attitude	ring assists
Rotor hub	variable pitch — Sikorsky-style collective (Cruiser-60 only)
Emergency landing	autorotation + supercap discharge flare, telemetry-timed (baro · GPS · IMU)
Landing policy	payload-first — safest reachable spot over delivery proximity
Skin (concept)	perovskite-impregnated mylar — solar self-recharge; resume mission or RTB hours after an all-energy landing
Helium	full 400 L annulus
Payload	0.5 kg drop line
Endurance	≈28 min (projected)

PD-1 Variant Details

PLASMADRONE

Variant details · PD-1 · Rev A