Page One
The Initial idea and Concept Page
onto First Set-up of the Left/Right Line
onto Pics of the Prototype Testing
and onto Final Design used Halloween 2005

Video Page of the Flying Ghost
This how-to is intended for private
individuals to make and use at their
home or haunt and not for making
and selling of this author's design.
I had been tinkering around with the idea of making Phantasm's coordinate ghost system more
simple (ie: cheaper) for the standard home haunt.  This system though would not be able to support
an FCG as their indoor system could.  So, this is my page on how-to make a flying ghost though an
axworthy system would be much simpler.

After modeling a few different ideas, it came apparent that the best, cheapest way would end up
using a triangle shape for the flying area.  The downside, well only half the area of a square area.
The triangle area provides these advantages:
  • Provides X and Y flying paths
  • The above paths would require only 2 lines
  • The above lines would require only 2 motors
As you can see, the green shaded area is the
ghost's room to fly around in.

I tried to figure out a method to make a square
flying area, but decided to use the Keep It
Simple Stupid technique.
Some preliminary specs:

Pulleys
  • 12" - 16" in diameter for the drives
Motor
  • decent flying speed, so would like 200 rpms or better.  Ideally, I would like to hit 15
    feet per second at full speed which would be zooming along pretty good.  Well, that
    was a good idea I thought, but ended up slowing it down more to make it more
    controllable.
I decided on this motor from Surplus Center.  Will report on whether it was a good choice
or not.
Got the motor in 12-10-04.  The torque with a 12" pulley seems fine by applying 'palm
pressure' to it.  The motor noise is acceptable to me as it doesn't get the 'geary' sound.  It
just sounds more like a louder Dayton motor.

It changes direction directions nicely and with good torque during that too.
onto First Set-up of the Left/Right Line
Hope you enjoyed the annoying little flying ghost.  


My preliminary sketch of the pulley system for the
controlled ghost flying.  The left/right line has limit stops for
end of movement.  The in/out line connected to the
left/right line has a slip mechanism for the ghost when it
gets to the end of its movement.

As you can see, it does use some aspects of the Axworthy
flying ghost system, but provides more than just a single
path to follow.

The tensioner shown here is just something to put on
paper, so this could change when I get around to building
this.
Motor specs: