How large can they get?

Stopping, turning etc. will be horrendous in enclosed spaces! OP have you Youtube'd/ever seen a hovercraft in motion? Them's difficult not to slide everywhere!
 
Griffo said:
Stopping, turning etc. will be horrendous in enclosed spaces! OP have you Youtube'd/ever seen a hovercraft in motion? Them's difficult not to slide everywhere!
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I've built and piloted them before, but obviously on a much smaller scale. There are ways to reduce slip, which I will not go into detail yet as the patent filed for it by my superior has not yet come through.
When being pulled over, could you not drive straight over the police car, the same as you would a large speed bump?
To clarify, this will not have a huge fan on the back, but various air jets with adjustable flow to increase maneuverability, we could conceivably add jets at the front as well as an air brake to slow down, stop, or reverse the craft.
 
I have a mad idea, something I wanted to do for a long time.:eek:
Drive from JohnO'Groats to Lands End by hovercraft.:D

Don't think it's ever been done.
 
I've got an idea how you could make a hovercraft work better on road. To reduce 'slip' and improve cornering, you could add some circular rubber elements to the design. I'm going to patent these under the name 'rotating road grippers'.

Seriously, you think a hovercraft big enough to live in, is going to be a viable road vehicle. You do realise that bombing around a field is nothing like driving on a road? And floating over a police car? The physics of doing that aside, the notion doesn't warrant a grown up reply.

If you want to be different and ridiculous, get something like a road legal buggy.
 
AshD93 said:
Stopping distance is brilliant for a hovercraft.

Just turn it off ;)
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That doesn't actually stop them very well as the hull just skids over the road surface. Also no steering whatsoever in that case.

How would you to creep slowly down a steep hill in traffic, or make an emergency manoeuvre to avoid e.g. a pedestrian? What will happen when you try to drive it in strong, gusty winds? How are you going to fix the problem of rapid skirt wear due to camber?

This idea really is a non-starter.
 
You talk like you are employed by a company working on hovercraft design.

But then you come out with stuff like:

Dayzed&Confused said:
what sort of height could we make it without it falling over, if we keep the centre of mavity as low as possible?
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Dayzed&Confused said:
Thinking about it, the controls are so different, what kind of license am I (and the others) going to need? For the insurance, wouldn't the premiums be lower because if you hit someone you would just bounce off the air cushion?
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Dayzed&Confused said:
When being pulled over, could you not drive straight over the police car, the same as you would a large speed bump?
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Which then just baffles me as to how you got employed by this company.

Most of your posts read like a 8 year old's thought process.

What on earth made you think that the width of the vehicle was going to be the important factor in this 'plan'?
 
Don't worry. When I was 12 I invented a perpetual motion machine based on a flawed understanding of physics.

Fortunately, I kept my ideas to myself.
 
div0 said:
You talk like you are employed by a company working on hovercraft design.

But then you come out with stuff like:







Which then just baffles me as to how you got employed by this company.

Most of your posts read like a 8 year old's thought process.

What on earth made you think that the width of the vehicle was going to be the important factor in this 'plan'?
Click to expand...

Its a "super-secret" project ;)
 
Dayzed&Confused said:
I've built and piloted them before, but obviously on a much smaller scale. There are ways to reduce slip, which I will not go into detail yet as the patent filed for it by my superior has not yet come through.
When being pulled over, could you not drive straight over the police car, the same as you would a large speed bump?
To clarify, this will not have a huge fan on the back, but various air jets with adjustable flow to increase maneuverability, we could conceivably add jets at the front as well as an air brake to slow down, stop, or reverse the craft.
Click to expand...

Build a working (radio controlled) scale model first. Then you can get a feel for how the jets work. I created something similar many years ago and it was still pretty tricky, though I was harvesting maneuver thrust from the main lift fan. These days you could probably make use of an Arduino and some gyro/accel bits and bobs to create auto-stabilisation.

You know, or get a camper van.
 
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