Five Helicopters

Designer: Tibor Mikloš

This puzzle measures: 205 mm x 111 mm x 7 mm

Material: Purpleheart, Am. Walnut, Wenge, Zebrano, Movingui

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:
“Amongst this release are a few tray packing puzzles which is one of the less common types for Pelikan to release. Of course, they won’t do one with plastic pieces, they make theirs out of an assortment of rather lovely woods which have been laser cut and a wooden tray as well. This one was designed by Tibor Mikloš who was last featured on this blog and from Pelikan back in December 2023 with a padlock burr – that one was a very nice design and this also doesn’t disappoint. 
 
Usually, I am terrible at this sort of puzzle – I find that I spend most of my time performing lots of random trial and error packings and can’t keep track of what I have attempted. This means I go round and round in circles before giving up in disgust at how rubbish I am. I have many many puzzles from Mine that I haven’t managed to solve for this reason.
 
In this one there’s a lovely large space to fill and 5 identical helicopters to place it it. The thing about this challenge is that the helicopters, with their blades and tails are very spiky and take up a large space and don’t seem to interlock together in any intuitive ways. I played with the pieces outside the tray for a while and found a nice way to put 3 together which didn’t leave a lot of space between them. Maybe there would be a fun mathematical tiling to use? I placed them in the tray and picked up my 4th piece only to find that if I tried to continue the logical sequence, it wouldn’t fit. I tried the same thing many times and singularly failed. maybe it’s not a mathematical solution? I then looked at the pattern on the side of the tray to see if I could place some pieces closer to the edge and make more space as a result. This was a key thought! Unusual for me to have thoughts but I had better make the most of it. After another 30-40 minutes of playing I had a major breakthrough and had my 5 helicopters in the tray and a photo taken. Hooray! Ive solved a packing puzzle without just trying random things! It’s pretty good this one – perfect for a beginner or an expert!”