So the big boss came to me and says, kind of in passing, that we need a new fuselage design for a new line of radio controlled acrobatic helicopters. He said the problem with his existing designs is that they had too much lift. In helicopter aerobatic design every move needs to be precise so when the controls are at neutral the aircraft flys neutral.

As the Art Director my responsibility was to make sure all of the promotional and marketing collateral looked good. Designing a fuselage was a whole other discipline. But I was up for the challenge and took the tools I knew and did my best. His modelers could take it from there.

I did however understand the dynamics of lift as well as the principles that aided and detracted it from it.

My theory was that the fuselage needed to part the air equal from top to bottom going both forward and backwards. The new design did just that. I also added break points in the design to keep the air from creating a suction effect around the fuselage.

The new fuselage was an astounding success. We ran a print ad on it headlining the words “Absolutely Insane”. We also created a POP shown below. Later the design was used on newer models of different fuel sources. As a result, it is the most popular helicopter fuselage from the brand to date.