A long winter has a way of making a lot of us northerners a little bit squirrly. In [Build N Pulsejets]’s case, squirly enough to mount a home-made propane-powered pulse-jet to a kids’ kick scooter and take to the frozen lake for a rip.
Okay, well, it started as a kid’s scooter, but after trying it on the ice sans pulsejet, [Build N] decided that his cabin fever wasn’t quite bad enough to risk using it in stock configuration. Before mounting the 180 lb thrust (800 N) pulse jet he’d built in a previous video, a few modifications would be needed. Namely, a trio of scrap metal skis and a goodly amount of metalwork to mount them, and the pulse jet. Even on ice, with relatively little friction, the mass of maker and a full propane tank meant the acceleration wasn’t great, but he did get it over 44 mph (77 km/h) on the snowmobile drag strip. (Yeah, snowmobile drag racing’s a thing in the frozen north. Those of you sipping mai tais in the tropics are probably pretty jealous right now, huh?)
These pages have been no stranger to pulse jets, given that they’re probably the easiest engine to build at home. We’ve seen them mounted on everything from go karts, to Swedish snomobiles, and even tea kettles. Actually, we’ve seen two of those. No points for guessing what nation the tea kettle builds hail from.
“Squirrly”?
“squirly”?
Not a northern hemispherian so I have no idea what this means.
It means crazy or unstable…
Mentally unstable, with a side of ‘too much energy, likely to get into trouble doing ill-advised activities to ward off boredom’. If you had our winters you’d know why we need such an idiom.
“… for a rip”, hope he is fine
I made it 😀🤔🤣
To go for a rip is apparently another regionalism. Primarily Canadian, but you might hear it in the Upper Midwestern US on occasion. It means taking a motor vehicle out at high speeds for purely recreational purposes.
I want one………..
Nothing like riding a hot throbbing pulse jet in the snow.
I’ve got plans for this engine on my website where you can build your own 😁
Pulsejet is double plus good.
But skis on ice?
Can’t he repurpose the blades off the neighbors ice sail thingy when they aren’t looking?
Use ‘shop at home’ samurai swords?
Use a dirtbike frame and shocks for the next version. Snowmobile front ski springs designed for much heavier vehicle.
I actually removed most of the leafs from the front ski to accommodate a lighter vehicle.
Man, pulsejets are a rabbit hole I’ve haven’t dug through in a while. There was a lot of hype around Boeing making a cargo aircraft with Pulse Ejector Thrust Augmenters (PETA) engines for VTOL capabilities in the early 2000s. Survival Research Labs did some cool art stuff with all kinds of pulse jets too.
I was sad when the New Zealand government shut down Bruce Simpson and his $5K cruise missile project. Not because I wanted a cruise missile, but I just liked the idea of an average joe making a project that made a government twitch that hard. Poor dude also has Parkinson’s, which is a real kick in the teeth. Lately he’s been running a youtube channel about drones and fighting off his local government’s petty leadership.
I followed him for a long time with the hopes of making a pulsejet powered ultralight using his improved X-Jet design. Maybe that’ll be a retirement project.
Man, pulsejets are a rabbit hole I’ve haven’t dug through in a while. There was a lot of hype around Boeing making a cargo aircraft with Pulse Ejector Thrust Augmenters (PETA) engines for VTOL capabilities in the early 2000s. Survival Research Labs did some cool art stuff with all kinds of pulse jets too.
I was sad when the New Zealand government shut down Bruce Simpson and his $5K cruise missile project. Not because I wanted a cruise missile, but I just liked the idea of an average joe making a project that made a government twitch that hard. Poor dude also has Parkinson’s, which is a real kick in the teeth. Lately he’s been running a youtube channel about drones and fighting off his local government’s petty leadership.
I followed him for a long time with the hopes of making a pulsejet powered ultralight using his improved X-Jet design. Maybe that’ll be a retirement project.
At our R/C flying field, a member fired up his small pulse jet on the bench years ago…. Loud! But neat! If I recall correctly he flew it at least once (I wasn’t there for the flight). You fly until the fuel runs out, then dead stick it back for a landing.
I wonder if a certain bathroom fixture could be hooked up to the intake making it louder whilst giving credence to the V1, what Brits called the farting furry.