Post by David Bosworth-- Look below
From the rocky shores of the Skykomish river
David Bosworth
http://www.premier1.net/~daveb/hovercrafts.html
Post by Ken Robertsgee thanks, david!
more importantly on the 10f is learning to drive a hovercraft on something
that
Post by Ken Robertswon't kill him if he messes up. the 15p is a righteously fast machine. i
can't
Post by Ken Robertsremember exactly what john had on his when i drove it, it was either 60 or
80 hp
Post by Ken Robertsif i remember correctly. acceleration was pretty good even with both john
and
I guess I can understand that point, I built using just the 10hp thrust for
that reason. I will have to add that there have been times in my hover
learning curve that I really wished I had more power to use for avoiding
various things. There is the wind factor too where power is a must. To me
more power is more options, sharper turning and to an arguable degree much
safer if used wisely.
To do it over I would go for the horse power and try to keep my finger off
the throttle for awhile. ya right! Hey! you started with a 98hp craft and
your still alive after all. I'm quite sure I'm preaching to the quire here.
Yes, to a point. I started with 45 hp and it was a poorly running engine. It
was very quick if it ran, but I never knew if it would die before the next
corner. Based on that information I drove like a coward while I had that
engine. Nonetheless, I managed to smack it up pretty bad the first time I took
it out on a real river, bad enough that everyone who saw it thought it was
totalled.
Learning on a craft with small engines, you can easily overguess your turning
ability and you can smack into something. But you won't be going 70 mph when
you do it, and you'll have quite some time to realize that you misjudged your
craft or your abilities, and a similarly long time to try to figure out what to
do about it. When the inevitable moment of impact comes, you will probably have
bled off some of that non-lethal speed anyway, and you'll have a bit of fixing
to do on your craft and time to meditate on what you should have done
differently.
What's more, you'll learn about conservation of momentum and best use of thrust,
which is something I never had to learn and still don't have all that well. As
long as I've had reliable thrust, I've had 98 hp on a fairly light craft.
That's enough thrust to get out of anything you can react to almost. Why bother
with thrust strategy when all you gotta do is squeeze harder on the throttle?
Given somebody who knows how to drive, extra horsepower can only help if weight
and fuel consumption remain unchanged, within all realistic limits and even
beyond them a bit. Why else would all the F1 guys have the biggest engines they
can get over in the UK?
As a realistic limit to two stroke power though, my craft when left barely on
the pipe will haul down the river at a sickening speed. If I had a few more
horses here I might just get to a blowover speed trying to reach my top
efficiency. That would effectively draw the line between a recreational toy and
a pure racer. My craft still qualifies as a really good time on a river, but if
I upgraded to, say, an 800 rotax, I would have a pure racer.
Getting back to the point, learning on my craft without training wheels of some
sort or a skilled copilot would get you hurt. It's really easy to creep up to a
speed where your reaction time is slow compared to the speed obstacles are
coming into view, and that's at relatively low throttle settings. Also given
that a two stroke will load up and foul plugs if you don't get on the pipe every
couple minutes, you have to spend a lot of time "watching the ears" on my craft
or you'll regret it.
There are a few people I know who drive slower crafts that I would gladly let
drive mine though. I've offered to a few of them, and they've almost all turned
me down. The craft isn't really that much harder to control than, say, a stock
uh-13p. There are things you must watch, but it's not that hard to drive at
speeds other crafts go. Under 35 or so gets to be a damp pain, but most folks I
cruise with go quite a bit faster than that.
Post by David BosworthPost by Ken Robertsby the way, my 12r did well enough with both me and a guy that weighed 280
or
Post by Ken Robertsso. that's technically over the max even before you count gas and tools
and
Post by Ken Robertswhatever else was in the cockpit. ben was so nervous i couldn't really
get it
Post by Ken Robertsmoving (he had just wrecked his craft) so it was a bit sluggish running
slow
heheh sorry if I hit a button :-) but you did mention it.
No, not getting defensive about it at all. My stomach has been the first part
of my anatomy to arrive for some time now. Just pointing out to those who might
not know about carrying capacities of crafts.
Post by David BosworthPost by Ken Robertsjust got a compressor up and going this weekend, and borrowed a heater for
a
Post by Ken Robertswhile. maybe i can get the garage cleaned up and then start working on
that 18.
Cleaned up? I thought you just bought that place!. Here I had you pictured
the young single guy, (maybe a little skinnier) with a new house, garage
with hovers handy, maybe some rudders and props hap hazardly stored about
the living and dining room, prop hub candle holders, quick sammitch for
dinner then off to the hover shop/garage to work with no nagging
wife,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I will have to find some one else to live
vicariously through. :-(
I DID just buy that place. Try a 39-year-old single guy, young to some but not
to others. And I'm 6'4", so the 240 lbs isn't that far overweight. It's just
all in the middle.
New (100 year old) house is true, the garage with hovers handy is true. No full
sized hovercraft parts in the house though! I gotta sell this house some day
and I want to have something someone will actually buy. No nagging wife but a
nagging cat takes her place for that part of it.
The cleaning up part is from having too many irons in the fire. I can keep
organized for one or two projects, but I had about four going for several
months. Tools became scattered, parts lost and trash evenly distributed
throughout the garage. I have a functional 12r now, the compressor is set up
enough to work, and all the other stuff I was doing is done except the 18sp and
the garage improvement dreams. That's one project actually started. I'll clean
the place up and organize my stuff again, and then I'll get to work on that big
thing so I can still hover after my 12r refuses to carry my massive rear.