Breakthrough in vehicles for aerobatic flying and aerial sports (Phase #2,3)
Breakthrough in aerial choreography, live arts (Phase #3)
Breakthrough in structure, safety, concept for aerial vehicles (Phase #4)
Spin off aerial vehicles (WAV) for the recreational/sport market (Phase #4)
Research & Development in bio-engineering, man-machine integration (Phase #2,3,4)
Prestige, Testimonial vehicle (Phase #3)
Costs per hour flown
Bioengineering and Contemporary Art / Design

• Masterblaster is a pilot-centered design, where vehicle control is achieved by realizing an integral motion relationship between pilot’s body and aerodynamic shell. Outcome design is a compact and sharp mix between human and aircraft topology, character and behaviour. A technological aerial creature
  
• Masterblaster synthetizes arts and technicalities from freestyle skydiving, plain aerobatic flying, ice figure skating, gymnastics, into a deliberately carved and designed aerial vehicle, addressing a new way to feel your body and perform in sky. Aerobatic behaviour is over-unlimited compared to current standards
  
• The contraption is flown as an extension of the pilot's body, allowing a full immersion into the dynamics and the energy of flying

• Formally, the Masterblaster prototype is a single place ULM as far as weight and stall speed are concerned. This lightens regulations and operations for this strongly unconventional aerial vehicle.
  
• Costs per hour flown are on the ULM range: approx 50 to 70 euro per hour flown including fuel, maintenance & spare parts. This allows to practice aerobatics on the top ever available aerobatic vehicle at a fraction cost of the state-of-the-art-aerobatic vehicles

• Aerobatics and expressivity performed through the Masterblaster has nothing to do with the "squared" performance of present-time aerobatics vehicles . On the Masterblaster you dance with your body in sky
  
• Vehicle design and "sky presence" is no more a flying machine but it is a technological creature
  
• Operating a Masterblaster or even a team of Masterblasters is a straightforward advantage with respect to any other existing available option

Masterblaster performance is outstanding compared to state of the art aerobatic aircrafts on the unlimited category.

Beside a "technological creature" design, Masterblaster acts as a creature too: with 6DOF and full motorial/sensorial correlation between pilot's body and vehicle structure, the pilot is dancing with her/his own body in sky, in a mix of skydiving freestyle, aerial gymnastics and plain aerobatic style. From the pilot's point, visual and acoustical reference is excellent, control action is magnificent, and complex choreographies can and will be set up. The link between dance, live arts and aerial expression is achieved.

Training on the masterblaster costs on the 50-70 euro figure per hour flown all expenses included (see link below). At this cost, maintaining such top performing and outstanding "flock of birds" is within the reach of a medium sponsor enterprise. Single performers can train on a very limited budget too. This opens a new era on the top end of sport flying.

An official "Masterblaster Choreography Unit" will be set up (phase #3), it will be a sort of Music Conservatory where instruments are Masterblasters and people will experience complete involvment in this new live art.

• Beside a resident BRS system, pilot interface and structural strapping method is absolutely innovative, and allows for a natural protection of pilot's limbs and body.
• Control surface articulation features an innovative design, taking a direct advantage out of integral design in composite structure layout

Other main explicit or subtle design issues that cannot be disclosed here

Concepts, design approach and solutions, technology experimented on the masterblaster will be downrated to open a way for a new class of "Wearable Aerial Vehicles" for the microlight/ULM market. These vehicles will allow to fly and take advantage of the aerial environment on a much more personal and integral vision.

State of the art in vehicles allowing some common issues are complex machines, relatively dangerous ones or non autonomous ones, most of them featuring limited if not marginal safety, bulky flight techniques and hydiosyncrasias, extreme sensibility to environmental conditions, low deplacement speeds but still complex takeoff and landing techniques.... not to mention the "giants" ULM/microlight which today, with the exception of trikes and gyroplanes, are practically synonyms of general aviation airplanes. On the other end, to really embrace and live the sky environment, skydiving seems the only available option, unfortunately featuring an almost vertical top-down sky approach :-)

Actual characterisitc of a WAV vehicle cannot be disclosed here

R&D Concept and topics

Masterblaster is an action/sensor exoskeleton, providing 6 DOF articulations and visual, auditive and tactile artificial feedback, IN SKY. Pilot's sensorial and action involvment into the aerial environment is global.

Masterblaster is basically a pilot's second body. Any sort of direct issues concerning bioengineering, technological prothesis, or direct monitoring of comportamental/psychological issues related to dense immersion in extreme sports, augmented reality environments, etc, can be developed now within the aerial environment and the Masterblaster.
Proprioceptive functions and notions transform themselves into a mix of pilot's physical body and Masterblaster body. You can read something about this in what I call "fast interfaces" on the download section.

The sensorial homunculus transposition -from pilot's body to aircraft shell- is one of the R&D topics developed on the Masterblaster in conjunction with the Aerodynamic Smart Skin System (AS3)

R&D State of the art

Today, there is NOT A SINGLE VEHICLE allowing this immersion, and there is NOT A SINGLE (public known) PROJECT being developed on this. There is:

• NO vehicle from NASA "Aerospace Vehicle Systems Technology Office" or other NASA agencies
• NO (known) R&D initiative from ANY of the main aircraft companies concerning RPV, drones, aircrafts and flying contraptions
• NO civil or military agencies devoted to R&D in Man Machine Interface (like DARPA and any others)
• NO Bio-engineering, exoskeletons, sensorial transposition R&D activity from:
  • Berkeley (the Berkeley Robotics Laboratory)
  • MIT (the Biomechatronics Group)
  • Honda, Toyota and other commercial groups investing in humanoid research
  • or whatever other main academic/R&D industrial hub all over the world
  • and, I wish to add, some equipes from the DEA in Cognitive Science I followed in Paris during 2002-2003 (ENS, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris V and VI, EHESS), to whom I proposed to develop AS3 as my stage/memory work, and didn't either bother to take me seriously or have a small effort at understanding what I was talking about. (I ended up in delivering a fully abstract work with Prof Giuseppe Longo, ENS, who gave me some credit)

granting SUCH a vision, and POTENTIALITY.

A Factual Note: I contacted these kind of organisms several times (i've evaluated my total e-mail amount in about 1.000 -ONE THOUSAND- personalized emails sent (e.g. not SPAM-LIKE emailing) along the years) proposing my projects and ideas and a will to enter in a joint R&D initiative, or I simply didn't send anything because their policies EXPLICITLY EXCLUDED THE SUBMISSION OF UNSOLICITED IDEAS.
Well, never got a single reply from most of them (just to mention one, the NASA Aerospace Vehicle Systems Technology Office) or, if there has been any reply, it ended up on somebody's desktop somewhere or -top ever- I even received emails to "do not disturb" them.
Being into the university at a master-degree level, visiting laboratories, talking with people on the industries during my work days in robot prototyping, I am not astonished to face such a "bouncing back" environment as most people into there are too busy with basic inner coordination problems, self-esteem concerns, judging you superficially and by appearences and above all, "they cannot see further away than the choices they can understand"... and that limit is often a bit too short, for being them on the R&D front.

Not to mention the travelling, money and time i've spent from Oct 2004 to Jun 2005 to actually visit and talk in first person to some of these institutions, design and engineering bureaus, industries.

Costs

Masterblaster will cost 50 to 70 euros per hour flown, including fuel, maintenance and main overhauls. If your team wishes to enter into a scientific program concerning MMI studies of this sort, this is the money it will costs to send someone upstairs to acquire data (data recordering technologies are on your budget).
Now go to NASA, Berkeley or any other of those big guys and ask for how much will you need to pay to do something not even comparable to what the masterblaster does.

Bioengineering and Contemporary Art / Design

The Masterblaster is a technological flying creature. As said, i cannot release the geometry here but it is just a piece of carbon fiber art and a flying action sculpture. If anything you can imagine about the Masterblaster, being a sort of technological creature, a mix of human and aircraft topology, or whatever... well you're allowed to, because it is.

And it is my intention not to stop with the Masterblaster design only

Whoever participates in the prototyping venture and the Masterblaster Choreography Unit can benefit of the Vision this adventure is holding. Just peek around on this page and you will realize that whoever sustains, sponsors and contributes the initiative demonstrates an outstanding Vision that can be a testimonial and a materialisation of their own Vision

XMB-01 Masterblaster (phase #2), MB-NG (phase #3) and WAVs (phase #4) will cost

50 to 70 euros per hour flown, including fuel, maintenance, hangarage and main overhauls

This is because the concept is designed to fit typical ULM servicing specifications, though the performance and capabilities have nothing to share with ULM, aircrafts, and all that sort of things

• If your team wishes to enter into a scientific program concerning MMI studies of this sort, this is the money it will cost to send someone upstairs to acquire data (data recordering technologies are on your budget). Now go to NASA, Berkeley or any other of those big guys and ask for how much will you need to pay to do something not even comparable to what the masterblaster does.
• If you wish to sponsor the Masterblaster Choreography Unit (MCU, Phase #3) this is the live money it will cost you to keep 'em flying, per unit. Now go to ANY other civilian or military display team -which are doing things not even comparable to what the MCU will do- and ask for how much does it cost to keep the flying up on practising days. For less the same money, you will get people who are just living and training in sky 24h per day
• If you wish to develop a WAV featuring above mentioned WAV's capabilities, this is how much your customers will expect to pay to fly your product. At the same costs of a state-of-the-art ULM, they will get the WAV capabilities

The Masterblaster is a technological flying creature. As said, i cannot release the geometry here but it is just a piece of carbon fiber art and a flying action sculpture. If anything you can imagine about the Masterblaster, being a sort of technological creature, a mix of human and aircraft topology, or whatever... well you're allowed to, because it is.

And it is my intention not to stop with the Masterblaster design only