Flying Machines

Introduction

Redstone contraptions that are capable of moving themselves are often called "flying machines". They are usually constructed out of slime blocks, observers, and a combination of sticky and non-sticky pistons. However, it is possible to create flying machines without observers, which was the only way of building them before the addition of observers in Java Edition 1.11 (more on that below). Flying machines have many useful applications and can be easily fitted to work in almost any situation.

Flying Mechanism

All flying machines require at least one engine. An engine always consists of at least 2 pistons (one sticky and one not), 2 slime blocks, 2 observers and/or 1 redstone block arranged in such a way so that the engine operates in a closed loop; i.e. a piston pushes a block, which updates an observer, which powers a sticky piston that pulls a block towards it, which updates an observer, which powers the first piston and the cycle repeats. The net effect is that at the end of every engine cycle, the entire engine and anything attached to it has moved one block in the direction of the initial push.

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