Thrust-Vectoring Hovercraft On A Budget

February 13, 2014 by James Hobson 17 Comments

FANEWZ5HRH0XXYR.MEDIUM

Looking for a fun little experiment in thrust vectoring? [Saral Tayal] has come up with what he thinks is the first style of thrust vectoring hovercraft.

A typical hovercraft uses one or two drives, one to hover, one to direct movement — or one for both, diverted to the two outputs. [Saral’s] toy hovercraft uses two, but unlike traditional designs, instead of having a rudder on the back to direct the airflow for steering, he steers the entire fan assembly. On a full size hovercraft, this could be a lot of fun.

It’s a pretty simple project that you could quite easily build on a weekend — if you’ve got RC parts kicking around, even easier! He’s using two brushless motors with ESCs, a 9g servo, and a small RC transmitter/receiver. The props come from a regular RC plane — just pick one suitable for the motor being used. Depending on what you have on hand, this project will be under $100 to build. The rest is mostly foam-board, balsa wood, and glue.

Check out the following video to see how it hovers!

Continue reading “Thrust-Vectoring Hovercraft On A Budget” →

Hovercraft Plane?

October 10, 2013 by James Hobson 50 Comments

[Rudy Heeman] has been working in his garage on what we may consider a new class of vehicle. It’s a hovercraft — but it also has wings.

That’s right, you drive it on ground, water, and you can even take flight with it! However, it’s far from a new idea. After doing some digging it appears the first type of this vehicle was actually tested back in 1996 by Universal Hovercraft — a quick peruse of their site reveals you can even buy your own kits to make one! Regardless of where it came from, or who made one first, it’s a brilliantly fun concept, and would be a blast to fly. Oh and you don’t even need a pilot’s license, it’s considered a boat and follows the same rules and regulations for boating.

Stick around after the break to see one in action! Now all we need to do is figure out how to combine one of these with a Delorean Hovercraft!

Continue reading “Hovercraft Plane?” →

Screaming Fast RC Hovercraft

September 4, 2013 by Marsh 19 Comments

Of all the homemade RC Hovercraft floating around out there, this build is not only one of the better looking: it’s also unexpectedly quick. [ScratchBuiltAircraft] sourced foam board from the local dollar store to construct the hovercraft’s body and a heavy-duty garbage bag with a hole cut in the center for the skirt. Air reaches the skirt area from the hovercraft’s EDF (Electric Duct Fan — the big one on the back) which pumps the air through a rectangular hole in the base.

A servo mounted behind the fan controls the rudders, while the rest of the electronics and the battery are cleanly tucked away beneath foam body pieces. We’re not sure what kind of top speed the Turnigy motor provides, but it’s probably impressive assuming it can keep from flipping over. Watch it blast off with a bit too much lift in the video below.

For something a bit slower, there’s always the solar powered hovercraft from earlier this summer.

Continue reading “Screaming Fast RC Hovercraft” →

DeLorean Hovercraft

May 20, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

[Matthew Riese] got frustrated waiting for the future to arrive so he could have his flying car. He decided to take things into his own hands and construct the closest thing he could. This turned out to be a hovercraft. Not only that, but he thought that the most fitting shape for this thing would be a DeLorean. We can’t say that we disagree with him. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot of information on his build. There is this cool video on his kickstarter page (don’t worry, he got funded back in 2010). To make up for the fact that the build information is sparse, we’ve found you some plans to make your own hovercraft. Just add whatever shape body you want, though we have some suggestions.

[via Makezine]