THE HOWERCRAFT

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Autumn came, and I was a little sick. Spending a lot of time at home, I thought about my ekranoplan and read various articles about hovercraft. Remembering the feeling of how easily a 120-kilogram boat flies out of the water, when you give gas, I thought that it would be easy to make a hovercraft according to a scheme similar to my ekranoplan and no excess power would be needed. Since it is difficult to get a powerful engine with my budget, I decided to quickly design a hovercraft with a front-mounted engine that would work as a supercharger and as a sustained engine. No sooner said than done. First, I created a scale model using cardboard and hot glue. And with a vacuum cleaner in hand, he began to conduct tests. I was satisfied with the results and immediately began building a full-scale boat. The engine I used was an old Raket 120 Aero. The body was made of plywood and foam. And I made a skirt from an old banner that was lying around at work. I took the cockpit from the dreamfighter project, the fiberglass lightweight body was already becoming a lot. In general, pretty quickly I put it all together, even there was time to paint everything. The rudder had to be large enough for the boat to handle well, and I tried to make the rudder not only functional but also fit the shape of my entire structure. It worked out pretty well. Skirt pressurization tests were successful and now it was necessary to wait for the real winter. The fact is that going out on the water is always very difficult for me. Since I have to negotiate with very different people in order to take my product to the water, and then I decided to test everything right on the territory of the plant where my workshop is located. In short, last week it poured properly and on the weekend when there was no one in the territory of the plant, I pulled my boat out for testing. It rarely happens that everything turns out as desired, and this time everything happened exactly that way. My hovercraft works great. The cushion inflates and the boat picks up speed quickly. I quickly figured out the controls and got used to it in five minutes. On a relatively narrow road, I was able to easily maneuver and turn sharply. I am very happy and now I can start developing a more perfect apparatus on the same principles but with a more perfect body and with a different more powerful engine. I will not reveal all my secrets. I hope everything will come true. In the meantime, look at the photos and video reports of the tests ..

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Altering the ekranoplan

ekranoplan M3.9

Winter continues and I continue to prepare for spring. I redid the ekranoplan. He lengthened the front wing by 18 cm to get a little more lift and redesigned the cockpit. Moved the cockpit forward a little to move the center of gravity a little forward. I think this will solve some of the problems that arose at the maximum speed of the boat. I also hastily made a 3d model of the boat as I see it, ideally, and I want to make a new boat if the tests go well and the result satisfies me, then the next boat will be more licked and other materials will be used in it. But this is still only a dream, but for now I am looking for a more powerful motor for testing, if I cannot find it, then I will have to rent again the one that I took last time. Power is not enough for him, but I think it will do for the next experiment. Photos of the model and video of the alteration of the ekranoplan below.

The final test of the ekranoplan on the water in the 2020 season

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I’ll be brief. I finished with the ekranoplan. The water tests went well and now I have to return the motor to its owner, disassemble the boat and put it in a corner for the time being. This time everything was very fast. The weather was good, I quickly assembled the boat, sat at the helm and started off. With the Polini Thor 250, the boat immediately jumped into the water and glided along the surface. The front wing is always in the air at a speed of 35-40 km / h, the rear wing is also in the air and the boat is held by the water only with rubber strips that I screwed on before the last test. In general, at a speed of 50 km per hour, the boat flies very confidently, but at some point (I want to note that not always) the boat begins to sway and longitudinal instability arises. The first thought that came to my mind was that because the wings were too close to each other, it would be possible to lengthen the hull, or install a horizontal stabilizer to balance the boat in flight. I would also like to redo the motor mount again and reduce the motor angle by five degrees, plus raise it a little higher. Finally, you need to slightly reduce the angle of attack of the front wing by a few degrees. But this is all another time, I was exhausted during this season, there were so many alterations and visits. It is both physically and mentally difficult for one person to do more. Therefore, with a light heart, I postpone this project until modern times, what I wanted to do – lifted my boat into the air. Made my own small ekranoplan. Though not high, it flies. And it is also well managed. I didn’t make any extreme reversals so that some accident didn’t happen. Since the motor is not mine and I didn’t want to get a few thousand euros. Having made three high-speed races on the lake, I understood everything for myself and quickly disassembled the boat, washed off the lake until no one woke up in the vicinity. So now I am satisfied and can calmly engage in other projects that I am already doing in parallel. These will also be motor boats. One will be a two-seater motor boat which I am going to make according to the drawings of 1960 and the second one is a single-seat speedboat according to the drawings of 1941 which I am going to convert into an airboat with aviation styling. So what’s next is more. The video is as usual below.

Test with Polini Thor engine

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Polini Thor 250. This engine is what I need! I finally tried it out today. The propeller that I ordered a month ago came and this morning I tied the ekranoplan to the boxes at the entrance to the hangar where I work and started the engine. On the model, I already tested the method of binding the ekranoplan, so I knew how and in what places to bind it so that it could stand symmetrically in the air stream. In short, everything worked out for me. The boat flew up and stayed in the air while I held full throttle. I think that on the water I will give full throttle and immediately jump out of the water, and as the speed increases, I will slow down the throttle and get the right flight. I would very much like the rear wing to work correctly and the flight would turn out to be horizontally even, and not with a raised nose. The model flew smoothly and so far everything worked out just like on the model, so there is no reason to worry about the fact that the full-size device will carry itself any differently. It remains to wait for the weather and go to the water. Video from the tests below.

Airboat. The second test on the water

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So, briefly about the last test of the ekranoplan. The alteration turned out to be correct and the engine began to blow at the correct angle under the wing, which resulted in sufficient lift. In reality, if there were a dozen more horsepower in stock, or better, twenty, then the boat, like the model, would take off like a bullet and fly forward ten centimetres from the water. It’s amazing how a large boat, modeled after a small model, behaves the same way. We need more motor. There was a desire to put back the little motor I had left to add power, but I don’t know yet. The motor is very unreliable, and coming to the test is a whole test. You need to adjust the weather, you need to come to an agreement with a Friend who has a house on the shore of the lake within the city of Riga so easy to drive up to the water. You need to beg for a minibus at work and so that on a working day, because on weekends the lake is full of fishermen and in our business it is a hindrance and you need to have the time and energy to carry and assemble the boat from parts. And when things go wrong, it’s incredibly demoralizing. This summer I made only 4 trips to the water and was so exhausted with all the hassle that I decided to take a break before the time. As for the ekranoplan, a lot became clear to me, I know what work needs to be done. Silence about boats. We need a new propeller for the motor to accelerate the boat faster. I also think to put an ordinary 6 horsepower outboard motor on one of the boats and try to overclock it. And in the off-season, in addition to the modifications of the ekranoplan, I decided to build a new boat. Just taking a ride on the airboat with a motor in front, I experienced the unforgettable sensation of feeling like a fighter pilot and decided to make a more elegant boat based on this model. I have an old book from 1961 called boating. and there is a drawing of a sharp-nosed light planing boat and taking it as a basis as a base so as not to invent anything I will build an aero boat with a motor in front with a beautiful closed cockpit like on seaplanes of the Schneider trophy era. I use the engine that is on the ekranoplan and for the ekranoplan I hope to get hold of something more powerful. Photos and video of ekranoplan tests below and preliminary drawings of the next boat are also in the bargain.

 

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