George Parks – The Robot Group, Inc.

Commander Salamander

The Robot Group is extending its experience with indoor blimps to the great outdoors.

Using a surplus envelope for the Mark IV and adding hot model airplane competition motors spec’d by guru George Parks, plus a video link and possible GPS unit we could demonstrate many new mission capabilities. Tom Davidson is designing and implementing the spread spectrum over the horizon video/data link.

Wish list :

1) mini GPS w/ serial port. I ‘m callin’ Trimble right now.

2) Balloonet system enabling stratospheric missions.

Missions will include sports events, natural disaster scouting, and environmental monitoring.

The Captain Salamander name was derived from local biologist’s (Jim Collett) concept for a Barton Creek inspection blimp.

Progress report by David Santos May 1996.

Generic Intellectual Property Statement- Patents mostly pending. Designs protected by copyright. Free noncommercial personal and educational use encouraged.

Flying Sphere

Model aviation guru, George Parks, built the Flying Sphere aircraft in collaboration with aviation artist, Dave Santos.

George selected a thick slow speed NASA airfoil for the RC prototype.

The overall impression of the Flying Sphere design was that it flew about as well as conventional designs. It had interesting structural and aerodynamic qualities due to its relative absence of wingtip vortices, its spread mass, and its peculiar “rolling ball” landing style.

Flying Sphere detail — At left is the wreckage from an early crash. The center photo, by Karen Pittman, shows the repaired aircraft. At right are various small prototypes by Santos. One version, a sort of “pendulum kite” on a monofilament and bamboo pole was a mind-bender at Austin raves in the late eighties.

This project was one of several designed by David Santos to demonstrate far-fetched concepts. Others were a boat that sails directly into the wind, a rain-powered vehicle, the ProtoAndroid, and the Bipedal Ornithopter, a flapping-wing flying machine that runs on legs to take off.

Intellectual property statement – Patents pending. Designs protected by copyright. Noncommercial personal and educational use encouraged.

The background material for this page is derived from an archived page on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Some links may have been added, removed, or updated.

Bipedal Ornithopter

This project was one of several developed by David Santos.

“It runs on two legs, flaps wings to take flight, and flies nimbly about the nooks and crannies of urban landscapes.”
description from an early web site

Collage of parts of the Bipedal Ornithopter

The blimp was a 12-foot-long airship with running legs (lower left) and insect-like wings (lower right).

It was one of The Robot Group’s most popular projects and had been featured on the Discovery Channel’s Invention Series, on ABC’s Good Morning America, and in Newsweek magazine.