3 Successful Business Models I've Seen Lately

Bozo,

Thanks for revealing more Lever stuff.

They are quite Ingenious when you see how some Mechanisms are put together.

Take for example... a Quick Release Door - where the Door itself releases from the hinges. Such a door is used on a Helicopter Crash Simulator I've been working with this week - putting the Infantry guys through their Water Ditching Training.



We first ditch them without the doors on the Chopper and upright. Then without the doors but with the Simulator Spinning underwater until they are upside down. Then put the front doors back on - the back ones just slide.

The hinge on the door is a Pin which fits through a bit of tube steel on the door and on the Simulator's body. There is one pin which goes Up and one which goes down - while one goes up the other goes down.

This is achieved by having each Pin attached to a Rod via a hinge. Those rods are then attached to a triangular piece of metal at top and bottom corner - with the third corner attached to a handle - a triangle is attached to the machine between the top and bottom corner.

When you operate the handle it causes the Triangle to move. One corner goes Out and Down while the other comes In and Up. The rod's follow along and the Pins are moved in turn.

The same Principles are used in older machinery - stuff that doesn't rely on pneumatics to work. They usually work with hinged rods attached to cams of different shapes. Even having some cams with hills and valleys on the outer surface and a Track on the inner flat surface which other rods follow along. Thus giving vertical and horizontal movement with the additional aid of rods attached to other levers and Mechanisms in various configurations.

Out on the farms you can usually find drop-down fencing and drop-down gates. Which stay erect until you need them dropped. At which point, a Handle which is attached to a bit of wire running through the main supporting fence post and then Around the Drop Fence Post, release the drop fence and down it comes.

The handle gives you Leverage to Pull the Drop Fence tight to the Supporting post - the tension enables the drop fence to remain upright.

On the one I made for a property I lived on, the main supporting post was secured into the ground without concrete. By backfilling gradually and Compacting the backfill as I went.

Michael Ross

P.S. If you are able to manufacture a Simulator like pictured, and have the know-how of what's involved in the training, there is no reason this couldn't be a business. The people we did it for used the swimming pool at the local police academy - but they do use other more Public pools in other cities - they Hired the divers (from a learn to dive school) which stay under and Help any of the Students who get into trouble while upside down under water, and they Hired the crane people (us) to lift the Simulator in and out of the water. They Outsourced Everything.

Their Market is... the military and journalists who ride around in helicopters. With the Rates they were charging $277 per person for 36 people spread over two sessions of 18 during the day, they have found themselves quite a money spinner. A money spinner without any competition I am aware of.