1974 1 man flying machine - Hovercraft

[Trev]

Anyone ever seen this before

http://www.wimp.com/flyingmachine/

Trev

[Al]

I want one.
 
It would be a bit of a bu**er if you ran out of fuel 50 foot up as that will hurt as you make a crater when hitting the earth .  It will hurt the poor sod it falls on as well.  That is the biggest draw back I can see with this sort of thing except limited fuel, imagine it falling from a great height onto a housing estate or built up area.

[Ian Brooks]

I worked for a company that made a similar thing back in the early '90's. We called it the flying rucksac, consisted of a jet engine attached to a racksac frame with a pair of nozzles at head height. It achieved tethered flight.

One of the issues was safety - to make the thing work, the turbine was running very fast, very hot and had a very short design life. It wasn't 45 minutes for a fuel load so much as 45 minutes per engine!

We used to design engines for Williams - although that would have been before my time at the company.

Ian

[Gordon McDill]

Isn't it amazing the things you forget about??  I remember seeing that in a presentation during my RAF apprenticeship but never seen it since.  I wonder how the stability was designed, it says that control was by weight shift of the pilot.
 
The F 107 engine is a small turbo fan engine that's used in Tomahawk missiles, amongst other things I guess.  So I doubt it has any 'significant' life expectations !!!  Probably enough bits of them laying around Tripoli at the moment to build one up??
 
I nearly bought a polouste years ago to use its engine as a powerplant for a hovercraft but common sense intervened - unfortunately, with hindsight!!
 
Gordon

[Brian.G.Reynolds]

Isn't it amazing the things you forget about??
 
I nearly bought a polouste years ago to use its engine Gordon

Hey I remember the polouste (if that is how it is spelt?) used to use these to start the Gnat engine (original Dead Sparrow Aircraft) in training! Only time I ever saw one....
 
B.

[Trev]

Like this ??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlr9vUwJTes

[Brian.G.Reynolds]

That looks a lot bigger than I remember.....
 
As a technician I also had to undertake runway snow clearing during winter, we had to sit in a cabin down between 2 jet engines and run them whilst attached to the front of a fuel bowser....
 
I never did it in anger, only training, but the story went, run the engines till destruction.... a bit worrying due to the seating position of between both engines... not to mention the bowser behind you...
 
I was also told that they can/do melt the runway if not carefull...
 
Comments Gordon?
 
B.

[Gordon McDill]

Thats right sitting between two RR Derwent engines, of dubious heritage running at full chat, with 5000 gallons of jet fuel behind you, never thought of it as dangerous at the time!  The idea was to blow the snow away rather than melt it but the exhaust would melt the tarmac if the engines were not throttled back when the ensemble was at a halt.  Despite being an engine man I didnt ever get to have a go in one.
 
The Palouste engine itself was bigger than might be imagined from the box it sat in but a big part of it was the compressor section that provide the air start umph.
 
Gordon
 
 
 

[Brian.G.Reynolds]

I never knew what engines they were....
 
Its funny looking back, you do not think of the dangers at the time, ish, only afterwards!
 
There was some sort of cover between you and the engines but I wonder what would have happened IF one blew.... the top part of your body was above their height.
 
Does the engine casing itself contain and "loose" blades?
 
B.

[Sterlingjob]

There is a palouste engine down at shoreham college we used to run, it was used for air starts and on the back of a trailer! Think they came out of buccaneers  as APU's.