Hi all,

I'm going to start by apologizing for the multitude of questions/ ignorance on pretty much all matters of hovercrafting.

That being said, my name is Justin and I am currently in my 5th year of college and decided, "hey I want to build a hovercraft this summer". So off I set researching as much as I could (still am). That being said I feel that I still know very little about how to build my own craft. I ideally would lie to build a 1 person, maybe 2, craft with 2 separate engines. Having no experience I ordered plans for the UH-12T4 to get a starting point. I later decided that the UH-13 looked a little more like the style I wanted and am considering ordering plans for that one to modify. I have also ordered a 6.75 HP brggs vertical shaft and a 5 hp honda horizontal shaft. 

Now for some questions:

1. I was thinking of making the craft a bit smaller, around 4x8', does this sound like it could be easily modified from the "13" plans to do?

2. Will those engines be enough hp for this to work? I'm not too concerned about speed at this point, just want it to work.

3. does the placement of the lift fan make much difference (front vs back)?

4. What is the big difference between lift and thrust fans? I know lift should produce high pressure and low velocity, I think, but how is this accomplished in terms of shape, pitch and number of blades, etc...

5. I would like to carve my own fans in the interest of money (I'm o a college student's budget and would like to try and keep costs under $600 if possible). I figure if my home carved lift fan doesn't work there is a Hascon as a backup. That being said the only fan carving guide I have found is from coffcraft.com. The thing is I don't know if that is for thrust props only or lift as well? I was looking at some of the posts on this site and I think I could follow along fairly well with the exception of having the lines to trace (templates) :(.

6. Thinking about using direct drive for both engines, is this a bad idea?

Again thank you in advance for any help guidance you are willing to provide it is greatly appreciated!

-Justin D.

A noisy craft is not only annoying, but in some areas it can even be illegal since there may be regulations in place that set decibel limits on vehicles. Have you ever wondered how noisy your craft is?

Well, believe it or not, "there's an app for that!" (Sound Meter Pro) If you have the right device you can use this little app to fairly accurately measure sound. How nifty is that? As an added bonus the "pro version" also comes with an integrated "vibrometer." So you can even measure how much your craft is vibrating when it's running. Has anybody tried these yet?

Guy  

Well after many many hours my Hoverwing is running. After setting for five years the subaru 2.2 wouldn't crank and I just figured the problem was in the wiring. My fuel pump was running and I assumed it should crank, so I took the whole wiring harness out and stripped it . After about 30 hours of comparing it to the original diagram I couldn't find anything wrong, so I re-installed the harness. Being a one man show I pulled one of the spark plugs out and tape my iPhone, with the video on to the side of the engine and proceeded to crank. The engine was firing so I knew it was a fuel problem. Turns out the injectors were stopped up, so I put some sea foam in the tank and in the intake. It cranked right up. This took about 3 or 4 times and it started running on two cylinders. Then finally all 4 and I'm relieved. 80 lbs of oil pressure sounds high to me but I guess that's a good thing since the engine is 18 years old. I've included a YouTube video, not great quality but I just wanted to share. 

http://youtu.be/eGVDdgEMEbA

On the trailer!

I'll address the trailer in another article. The bed rotates 360 degrees and tilts so you can drive on the rear turn and tilt drive off the rear!

 It is early March up here in Wisconsin and the conditions are perfect out on the river for running the ice. I recruited some help from my co-worker Kraig to load things up and give it a try. I now had some new gadgets installed, an airspeed indicator, and a Magnehelic gauge to measure bag and skirt pressure so I was interested to see these work.

 I have yet to build a ramp system to run off the front of the trailer so getting to the river we put the trailer tongue down and shoveled snow to make a ramp. The hover came off easily, Here she sits:

Composite propeller layup using diwinycell core,  multi-axial carbon fiber fabric (0-90/+-45 deg) and epoxy resin. Then finally vacuum bag it.

It is not easy to get a good quality upload of drawings, but it shows the idea of what and how I am planning to do it.