Count the Cost

I thought I might share the costs of things that I've purchased so far for the hovercraft. That way you can see if this is a project you can afford. I'll keep updating it as I go. Here it is.

Building the Fan Enclusure

I'm almost done with the frame and the rest of the body, including the fan enclosure. Here's what I got so far...
The fan will be powered by a gas weed-eater that I attach a 24 in. model airplane propeller to. I ran it on my workbench and it put out a significant amount of air. It should be enough to at least get me going forward.And here's what it should kinda look like when I put it all together...

The Hoverdeck Works!

My Parents came into town to visit, so we fired up the hovercraft (what I have so far) and took it for a spin. My dad took a video of me scooting around in the garage.

Building the Hover Deck

I always thought a hovercraft skirt was like any girls skirt: a piece of fabric that hangs down to the ground all the way around the deck... So thats what I tried first to get me floating. That bombed, so next up on the drawing board was making a sort of air pillow as shown by the shovercraft dudes. So I bought a big piece of waterproof tent material and did some sewing. Now it works perfectly well - on pavement.

Here's the deck, its really just a big piece of plywood...

Designing the Craft

Google sketchup is a free drafting program that works great for designing a quick 3D project. You can even draw it to scale and then show measurements for when you start cutting out your actual pieces. Click here to download my model. I'm using a leaf blower to power the hover deck and an edge trimmer engine with a wood propeller to push the craft forward.