New engine for the ekranoplan

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Everything is ready for the third test of the ekranoplan. True, autumn has come and the weather has deteriorated a lot, but still there is hope to go out on the water in September. In the meantime, I’ll tell you about what I managed to do. After the second test on the water, I realized that there was not enough power and for full satisfaction this season I need to drive the car again, but with more power. I figured out where I can get the engine. There were few options. The first is to sell what I have, to save up a little and buy the engine I need. And I need a Polini Thor 250 with a capacity of 36 horsepower and a thrust of one hundred kilograms. The weight of the engine is small, only 18 kg, but it is already liquid-cooled. In general, I will not be able to sell anything quickly, especially in a crisis that unexpectedly hit us with this virus, so I remembered who had such an engine and friends of paragliders. And I remembered that my old friend Alexander bought such an engine 3 years ago to build a trike. I turned to him with a request to provide me with the engine for testing. He calmly said – take it, test it but don’t drown it! If anything, you will have to reimburse the cost of the motor, which is 2500 euros. I understand that I am taking a risk, but still I took the motor because I want to find out how the ekranoplan will behave when the power increases to the calculated one. In general, with this engine, I am already approaching the border at which the boat may begin to “levitate”. He brought the engine to the workshop and, having remade the engine mount, installed it. Everything became as it should. He handed the jammer button and the engine crank rope into the cockpit. The only thing I don’t have yet is the propeller. I need a pulling one and I have already ordered it from the Skyruner company from Pskov. They sent it to me a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived yet. The Russian Post prepared the goods for shipment and took them to the border, and this is already 10 days ago. No more news yet. I hope it will come before the cold weather. At least test it on concrete in the hangar, I want to fix the boat and drive the motor. I also redid the front tail – I increased its area and screwed rubber along the sides so that you could crawl ashore and test on the asphalt without fear of erasing the bottom to the plywood. Here is the news. Photo as usual below.

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