Nano Hectaplane
Built by Ralph Laughton in June 2011
If it had eight gondolas, this fairground ride would be called an Octopus. As it only has six arms, no gondolas, but single-seat aeroplanes, it must be a Hectaplane…
After building the Nano Roundabout in 2010 and taking it to a few meetings, it was dismantled. No sooner had we done so than people kept asking us about it. As the theme at Meccanuity 2011 was fairground models, we decided to rebuild it along with a couple of other models. One being the small Ferris wheel and the other the Hectoplane.
We managed to get the roundabout rebuilt and the Ferris wheel finished, but could not get this model completed in time. It is amazing how time-consuming these small models can be.
Two motors power the model. One controls the rotation of the aeroplanes and the other powers the contra-rotating rise and fall mechanism. Lacing cord and heat-shrink tube is used to connect the aeroplanes to the rise and fall.