Jet Airliner Nacelle Becomes A Unique Camper

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.

47 thoughts on “Jet Airliner Nacelle Becomes A Unique Camper

  1. 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

  2. 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

      1. 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

    1. 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.

    1. 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

  3. 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.

    1. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

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