hovercraft
Vehicles
For Sale: Military Assault Hovercraft, Weapons Included
2:40AM Jesus Diaz | Attention all nutters! Now you can buy your very own 55-metre Excelsior-class military assault hovercraft for just $US69 million, fully armed, and with plenty of space to carry 140 rangers and three T-80 heavy soviet tanks. She’s such a beauty. More »
Vehicles
Make Your Own R/C Hovercraft Out of Old Junk
8:40AM Sean Fallon | My guess is that most of the guys out there would love their own R/C hovercraft, but the bottom line is that not everyone can afford a fancy commercial version. Well, if you have some junk lying around the house, some time on your hands, and you don’t mind a hovercraft that is butt friggin’ ugly, you can build your own R/C model for under US$50 (depending on what kind of junk you have lying around) and the instructions from Project Hovercraft. More »
Toys
Axon Anti-Gravity RC Racer Hovers Past the Competition at 80 KPH
11:00AM Sean Fallon | The problem with wheels is that contact with the ground generates drag. So, a simple solution would be to develop an anti-gravity car. No sweat–one already exists. Sure it’s only a few inches tall but hey, this thing could give your action figures the ride of their tiny plastic lives. Thanks to dual ducted fans and a brushless motor, the Axon can hover above the ground and hit speeds of 40kph almost instantly–and a dual brushless motor upgrade will bring it up to 80 kph. More »
Vehicles
German University Students Design Air Thrust Hovercraft
7:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | In a move that will cheer up lovers of vehicles that can travel on both water and (very flat) land, students at a German engineering university have built a one-person hovercraft that uses an air thrust system to move and steer. More »
Science
Plasma-Powered Hovercraft Patent
9:30AM Adrian Covert | The patent shown is for an aircraft to be powered off the ground using a plasma technology. Subrata Roy, a University of Florida aerospace engineer, proposes the existing technique of passing a magnetic wave through a conducting fluid can produce a force strong enough to lift an aircraft off the ground. Granted, the example in the patent is only 15 cm, and attempts by others haven’t gone particularly well. But with phrases like magnetohydrodynamics being thrown around, I keep flashing back to the space travel scene in Contact and getting excited. Subrata Roy must be a poet. [WIPO via Ubergizmo] More »
Vehicles
Russia’s Zubr Hovercraft May Finally Justify Use Of “Xtreme”
12:00AM Mark Wilson | This admittedly isn’t the newest military tech on the block, but The History Channel in us just couldn’t help writing it up. Russia makes the world’s largest military hovercraft dubbed the “Zubr.” It displaces 621 tons and can haul twice the payload of similar boats from the US Navy (somewhere around 150 tons). More »
Science
Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering
3:40AM Adam Frucci | Cornell researchers are working on a way to make hovering vehicles a reality. By pairing superconductors with permanent magnets, they’ve figured out a way to get objects to hover with complete stability without any power necessary. More »
Vehicles
Ice Hovercraft School Bus Is Coolest, Worst News for Students Ever
10:34PM Jesus Diaz | This ice hovercraft school bus has to be the coolest and worst news ever to descend upon children all over the world. I mean, I would have loved to go to school in one of these spiffy snowspeeders powered by dual fan engines. More »
Vehicles
Flying Boat; You Will Get Wet
7:50AM Haroon Malik | Rudy Heeman was meant for greater things, as is obvious by his superhero last name, Heeman. The lunatic mechanic from New Zealand has spent the last 11 years constructing a flying boat / hovercraft. Is there any better way to spend 11 years? We think not. We can only imagine what Mr. Heeman’s telephone conversations entail: More »
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