Builds from the Past: RC Hovercraft
Builds from the Past yo! In this installment I will be sharing the RC hovercraft I build in high school.
Let us start off with the fact that I LOVE hovercrafts! They are such an awesome form of transportation. I love how much the Europeans (especially the British) have embraced the hovercraft. The racing league they have over there is basically what got me hooked. They really know how to build them over there. Here in America all you see are triangle or rectangle shaped crafts with lame skirts.
The first craft I built was just a simple tethered craft. It had a single fan directing air down into the skirt and underneath the craft. It was a good experiment and I learned the basics of hovercrafts from it. My next hover was built from from plans during my middle school years. I went through two small glow engines trying to get that thing to run. I'm pretty the engine placement (straight up) was not ideal for the small engines. When it did run it was slow and boring. However I built it very nicely and it was a good learning experience it model building.
Let's face it, I wanted something fast like the racing hovers I had seen on the internet. So I designed one up and began building it out model plane plywood. I began by building the hull, which was built in various stages.
With the engine and rudders mounted I routed the servo linkages. I am especially proud of the seat console which houses the servos and the receiver. For the skirt, I drew and cut out all the panels and then had my mother sew it up for me. The skirt was attached to the hull with velco.
It was a blast to drive around. It couldn't handle grass but it was amazing on water or parking lots. I'm bummed that I don't have any videos of it going. I didn't get to drive it a lot because the nitro engine I had was always a little finicky. I could only ever get it to run for one tank of gas. After that I could not get it to start again until the next day or the next time I drove it. My friend's RC car was the same way. We could never tune em right to get them to run constantly. I just got fed up with it and shelved it.
And thats where it remains, on my shelf collecting dust. Now I'm interested in making a version two. It will be electric since I don't want to deal with nitro engines and RC electric stuff is super cheap from HobbyKing. I'm also thinking about make the hull out of fiberglass.
The first craft I built was just a simple tethered craft. It had a single fan directing air down into the skirt and underneath the craft. It was a good experiment and I learned the basics of hovercrafts from it. My next hover was built from from plans during my middle school years. I went through two small glow engines trying to get that thing to run. I'm pretty the engine placement (straight up) was not ideal for the small engines. When it did run it was slow and boring. However I built it very nicely and it was a good learning experience it model building.
Let's face it, I wanted something fast like the racing hovers I had seen on the internet. So I designed one up and began building it out model plane plywood. I began by building the hull, which was built in various stages.
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| Yeah my parents let me build stuff in the living room. |
When the hull was finished I added the duct. The RC nitro engine was mounted in the duct. The rudder was added on soon after that. I started off with a single rudder but I later learned that that wasn't enough. So I added a second rudder, which improved the performance by a lot.
And thats where it remains, on my shelf collecting dust. Now I'm interested in making a version two. It will be electric since I don't want to deal with nitro engines and RC electric stuff is super cheap from HobbyKing. I'm also thinking about make the hull out of fiberglass.
