Building a hovercraft?

Question

I just built a hovercraft, it's circular with a bag skirt and supports around 80lbs.

Sooo, I started to construct a new one, it's much larger and uses a new leaf blower instead of a shopvac..

The leafblower puts out 165mph winds, or 400 something CFM, would this be enough to support around ~200lbs and the leaf blower itself, with a thrust fan? (Two kids)

Also, how would I go about making the fan for thrust...? It doesen't need to be gas powered, I'm planning on using electricity.

Would a normal box fan from the store work?

Also, if I bought two box fans from a store, and used one for thrust and the other to help the air in the skirt, would that help?

And... what would be the best skirt type.. I was considering either bag skirt or finger skirt.. thanks.

BTW, the hovercraft is around 2,5yards long and 1 yard wide.

Answer 1

You might want two leaf blowers, and try going for at least 600cfm for hover strangth. The other leaf blower for great thrust. You may want to look into E-sized rocket engines for a turbo boost (found at most large hardware stores). They can put out over 150 pounds of thrust or more. But seriously, how the h**l can you afford all this? Lucky.... BTW, remember your quaestions on moving mulch? Well it turns out I have to do the same thing, but with half the mulch you did.... LOL.

Answer 2

forget the box fans, they have no usable thrust.Gas powered is best-no cord.Mythbusters did this on TV. Look them up on the net.

Answer 3

Cord = bad.

Go cordless. Or, if you are like me and want the speed and power and every thing else that comes with it to be right there when you need/want it, go with a nice, 200mph gas powered one. Remember, you only have to use the  full thrust when you want to. As for the thrust fan, you won't need much if the leaf blower is doing the job; the whole craft will be close to neutral boyancy if the leaf blower is doing its job right. So I would go with a battery powered leaf blower. A box fans thrust would be to spread out to move the craft.

As for the skirt, it depends on what you will using the craft on. In a smooth surface you want something that will hold air and glide smoothly over the surface. So on a smooth surface of something relatively smooth, go with bag type.

Have fun.

Answer 4

I'd use two cordless leaf blowers,

One for hover capabilities,

and one for thrust. Just turn it off when

you are up to speed. Then you just live

with the available thrust on that device.

Not very much force but, oh well.

Note! There could be a dangerous safty problems.

Make sure you can stop the hover quickly

so you can brake with contact to ground,

maybe with 4 ground contact rubber pads.

If you keep it light weight and small

it might be acceptable, 280 lbs seems a lot.

I'd make it lighter or you'll need two

blowers just for thrust to get it moving.

You might need maybe 300 watts of power

to do anything reasonable.

Iteresting project...be careful with it.

Answer 5

Recommend using a gas motor and a small airplane propeller.

As for the skirt, the best design, for efficiency and durability is a rubber/fabric material like that of rain suits. The shape of the skirt is a hemi-circle which curves out. The bottom edge of the skirt must be very durable or it will tear under stress.

Junkyard wars had two teams compete building these. The above notes were from the team that was successful.