It’s possible that some of you will have thought about making a custom camper for yourselves. Some of you may even have gone as far as to build a teardrop caravan. It’s very unlikely though that you’ll have gone as far as [Steve Jones] though, who took an outer engine nacelle from a retired ex-RAF VC-10 airliner and converted it into a camper that is truly one of a kind.
On the face of it a jet engine nacelle should be an easy shell for such a project, but such a simplified view perhaps doesn’t account for the many vents, pipes, and hatches required by the engine in flight. Turning it into a waterproof housing for a camper was a significant job, which he has managed to do while leaving one set of engine access doors available as a large opening for a room with a view.
The nacelle is mounted on a narrowed former caravan chassis, and with an eye-catching window created from its former air intake and a very well executed interior fit-out it makes for a camper that many of us would relish trying for ourselves. You can see a video of it below the break, and we wish we could be lucky enough to encounter it in a campsite one summer.
We’ve shown you our share of campers over the years, but perhaps this 3D printed one has most appeal.
Nice! I love articles which are actually in the reach of mere mortals ☺️
Finally a jet engine that a person can go through and survive. Excellent health and safety effort here.
He hasn’t included any covering for that huge window… if it were mine I’d be trying to get an iris in there.
Circular windows on boats sometimes use a covered foam “bung” maybe they’ve got one we’re not seeing.
Aircraft jet engines have covers for storage, and he has the cover for this one. I like the idea of an iris though!
Or how about a set of circular Ventian blinds that look like a turbine when halfway open?
Now that’s an awesome project! Near as I could tell from the video, he did a great job with it.
It also reminds me of the Holmes 747 Jetmobile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_SiHqc2Buc
Hackaday readers in the UK may have already seen this build on the latest season of “George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces”, on Channel 4
Yes! We thought it was amazing! Great to see it on here
Funny enough we watched that just last night. Nice build so long as you’re not over 6ft.
And if anyone missed it, the episode is available here: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/george-clarkes-amazing-spaces/on-demand/69776-003
Breathless commentary and music of wonderment – has he cured cancer? No he’s glued some ugly carpet to the inside of a cylinder. Ok then.
I LOVE this! Pretty darn small but that thing has breathed enough air for a million lifetimes. (Googled a bit) saying 150kg/s (cruise 100kg/s) on average and a nacelle lifetime of 100,000 hrs (3*tbo for nacelle) and humans breathing 265,000,000 litres a lifetime. Means this thing has breathed 54000000000/265000000 = 203.7 lifetimes
Aghhh, why’d he use facebook for the build log!
Yeah, it’s a damn shame. It would have been good to read, but not enough to log in to Facebook.
It looks like a great project, well done!
A kilogram of air is different from a liter of air! Wolfram Alpha tells me that 265,000,000l of air weight 340,000kg. So it comes out to ~160,000 lifetimes.
Hahahaha it seemed so obviously wrong but I didn’t think. It’s hot here, thanks for correcting me :)
If a kilogram of air was the same as a litre of air, we would all be very flat :D
We would all be underwater!
Heh, you conserved the volume of the atmosphere in your imagination and made us flat. I conserved the mass and imagined swimming in the sky.
You all are forgetting the critical question- how much did it cost- and where do you go to buy one???
I like the idea of taking a more trashed one and making a huge BBQ or smoker out of it, or the most awesome fire pit ring ever
Like this one? (https://laughingsquid.com/757-jet-engine-barbecue-grill/)
https://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jet-Engine-Barbecue.jpg
Like this? laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Jet-Engine-Barbecue.jpg
Yes!! That is EPIC. I love it!
Where the hell do you get these things? I want one so bad now… that one in pic is huge too.
Also, I never knew there was a special word for the hull of the engine, so I learned a new word today
You can get airplanes parts from a plane bone yard. Mythbusters got there stuff from Mojave Air & Space Port, in Mojave, Calif
With its flat front facing face, the drag coefficient of this thing must be terrible. I wouldn’t want to pay the fuel bill towing this on a motorway.
All the more opportunity for him to mold a rocket-like nose one that goes on the front and pops off on arrival, he could make it convert into a table or chair or something with the right parts swinging out.
Wouldn’t the car keep most of the airflow away? Especially a tall one like an SUV.
I was hoping the trailing end would be pointy.
That is not as aerodynamic if it is shaped that way- the wind would follow that area, and create more drag.
With a pointy front end, and its current rear, it would approximate more of a bullet shape which is designed for minimum drag.
Although I should reason that as something literally designed to go through the air as efficiently as possible, it might not be much of a drag already, but that would be ignoring the changed laminar airflow from not sucking in air at the front anymore
It is a *trailer*, so at least part of the front is in the slipstream.
Tow it with a box truck… problem solved.
I wonder if the USAF is still scrapping C-141s the nacelles from one of those might make a good trailer. If not in 20 or 30 more years. Now if you could only find one from a Convair 990 then you would have something.
Definitely a bit on the cozy side, and sadly no afterburner.
Be funny to fit a piece in the back end, that looks like a huge gas stove igniter, or BBQ lighter, and you can turn it on to get a spark flashing, when you’ve got a tailgater, so he thinks you’re trying to light it up and stands on the brakes.
Supersizing the LED rings that ducted fan R/C models use would do it. Video projection for extra points though.
Hmmm wonder if you can make an almost exact cone out of glycol/water vapour and a blower, then back project a contour mapped flame on it.
I like those standing wave patterns (shock diamond) off a real afterburner.
It does have afterburner, but only when he has Indian food.
By the way, there’s also pics around of the front of a 727 and DC3 converted to motorhomes, but there’s not really any good sites to link the pics from, so just google image search if you wanna see.
Never heard of that but I found them and they’re so cool!!
Too bad this kind of thing would never fly with the road authorities in Europe :(
You should be ok if you use the chassis from an already certified vehicle.
It looks a bit small to camp in, A 777 engine would be better I think. Those are huge. However I suppose it wouldn’t be allowed on the road.
Still, really cool.
A convex front cap that can lift up to be an awning would help with the aerodynamics.
Howabout a welsh coracle to go paddling in, for the contrast between stone age and jet age :-D
You could stand one on end and upgrade the little shack out back. Or make a real woofer unlike the other 3 inch woofer featured here.
If a single engine is big enough to become a trailer, then surely FOUR engines and an X-wing design give you a small home with a Star Wars theme?