This page describes design evolution of my mark 3 hovercraft.
The reason for Mark 3 is that Mark 2C had a centrifugal lift fan bodged into it. It worked very well, despite the hull not suiting it, so I decided I needed a hull which was intended for a centrifugal fan.
Currently, the design is purely on the drawing board and some scrappy sketches:
At the moment, it's planned to have the same general skirt shape as teh mark 2 hull, but it will be shorter and wider. It will be steered by differential thrust alone, with gyro stabilisation, which will be automatically tapered off depending upon flight condition, and also can be manually switched off from the transmitter. Centrifugal lift fan (obviously, that's its purpose). A single hull compartment for all batteries and receiver gear, and this time it will be big enough to take a standard 9.6V sub-C pack (the mark 2 hull is too narrow to take one across-ways).
I was a bit worried that it might look too short and stumpy, so 'built' a
prototype - just an outline of the proposed deck, folded from a sheet of paper
with a couple of mugs playing
teh part of ducted fans! I think it looks OK, so am proceeding with this
footprint (500mm long x 400mm wide). To the CAD..!
back to the top hovercraft page
back to Ian's contents page
back to www.astounding.org.uk top contents page
To comment on anything (please do) email ian@astounding.org.uk