What makes a good hovercraft

It also means that the handling is defined not by the carved control of direct contact between hull and water but by the extravagant slides that come from channelling the direction of the air. Now while the models of old were often noisy, heavy, cramped, underpowered, limited in range, stylistically inept and robustly unsophisticated, the last 15 years have seen some marked improvements. Better materials have produced reductions in weight and increases in internal space; more advanced engines have generated surges in power, refinement and efficiency; and greater commercial viability has encouraged slicker designs, cleaner build quality, higher grade fixtures and in some cases more sophisticated driver interfaces.

While plenty of commercial models could now happily double as leisure craft not least, the aluminium TD from Griffon the following five leisure boats look particularly well suited to family recreation Hoverjet GT. Hov Pod SPX. Hovertrek 6. Then a magazine was published called Hovercraft World. I collected as many as I could and from the library took out Janes Surface Skimmers many times and any other books on Hovercraft that I could get.

I plan to use my hovercraft mostly to explore and enjoy the Platte and its tributary, the Loup River, with friends and relatives. And your reverse thrust system — you need that kind of control. I want to push the usefulness of this amazing machine in all situations. I went to Terre Haute and took hovercraft training with Chris Fitzgerald and was sold on its potential after that!

What an awesome machine! I thoroughly enjoyed the process of assembling the hovercraft and learned a few things along the way, too.

The cool thing was flying over floating logs and vegetation - try doing that in a boat! Landing on shore was just cool - no more dragging my boat up the shore, knee deep in mud. I also wanted to go with their partially assembled hovercraft kit and assemble it myself so that I could get a better understanding of its assembly and parts.

I took the new and empty hovercraft hull to a local company that stripes and marks all of our patrol vehicles. The first hurdle to jump in this project was getting the right hovercraft.

I searched for years, until finalizing a deal a few months ago in Oregon. Here are pictures from picking the craft up. It is a Neoteric Model , which is approximately 12' long and 6. It has side by side seating for four, although it will now be used primarily as a two-seater…. It really was fun — challenging, but fun. Air can have tremendous lift. In fact, moving air is what allows large planes to get off the ground. When you power on the blower, it forces air out the holes of the tarp and towards the edge of the hovercraft.

While you might think it would be difficult for a small blower to lift over pounds, it is not. Since the large volume of moving air is spread out over a relatively thin area, it has a surprising amount of lift. The layer of air greatly reduces friction allowing you to glide on a cushion of air. Turn the prop over slowly by hand. You can adjust by putting small shims under the motor mounts if needed. The purpose of the air chamber is to divide the air flow between lift and thrust.

The picture doesn't show it in it's proper place. Slide the three sided chamber in place and glue or fiberglass in place. I prefer to use fiberglass when ever possible. When the bond is set install the top of the box. You will probably have to put a weight on the rear to hold it tightly to the bottom frame. When it is dry fiber glass the edges and you are done with the air box.

The rudders are cut from 1" foam. Drill holes in the top and bottom to fit dowel pins. Glue the dowel pin in the bottom. The top pin just drops in to allow for removal of the rudder. Don't make them too thin. Cover the rudders with one layer of fiberglass to give them strength. Glue small drilled blocks at the top of the duct, and the air chamber to receive the dowel pins.

Connect the two rudders together at the bottom dowel pin with a short length of aluminum or wood stock. This is where the steering cables are attached. Run the cables through the air box and route them through eyelets to the control stick.

Don't terminate them yet until you build the body. We used a 2' long piece of of 1" PVC for a control stick. Fit a 2 x 4 between the sides to form a dash board.

This is a good time to attach the throttle cable to either the dash or the side strips. Later on we put a lanyard connected to the kill switch in the dash. This is a requirement if you want to run it in any sanctioned races. Cover the top with a plywood sheet and fit some scrap foam to form the nose piece.

Run the steering cables through the sides and attach them to the stick. Make a little seat that feels comfortable. We padded ours with some foam and scrap vinyl.

Paint the whole craft with a couple coats of any paint you may have laying around. We chose white because it stays cool even in direct sunlight. A little trim color makes it unique to you and really makes it stand out. Now that it is painted is a good time to add a screen to stop wayward hands and arms from geting into the prop area. That could ruin a good day. We had some left over wire fencing and fashioned a guard from that. We also added four lifting handles in the corners to aid in lifting it on and off a trailer.

I am sorry that I didn't take pictures of the skirt installation but the plans go into great detail on this step. I put the craft up on horses to make it easy to get at the inside attachment. The key to a good skirt is in the corners. They are over lapped and glued with the special glue tat is supplied by Universal Hovercraft. The skirt is held in place by stainless screws and washers. The only tricky part is the screws around the rear of the air box. The skirt is very rugged and we have not had any trouble with it.

The first thing we did was to drag it outside and start it up to check on how it hovered. The skirt filled up with air at a little more than idle and we could push it around easily. We gave it more throttle and it began to move forward.