Home Made Hovercraft with pictures...

[Grizzly Guy]

I must say you do some really fine looking work, You are an artist

[metalmeltr]

do you still have the hovercraft?

[monte55]

No. I sold it about a year after I made it. I really had no place to use it.
I'm working on a micro lite helicopter now.

[atomic.civic]

Nick,
After reading your posts for some time, you never cease to amaze me. You are quite talented!!!!
Becky

[monte55]

Thank you for the kind words.

[metalmeltr]

So you are still in the proscess o building the helicopter, me and one of my friends werelooking at building one that is in an ad in the back of poular science and were discusing difernt sources of information and I mentioned to him that you were building one anyway how much has it cost so far?

[monte55]

I haven't figured any cost yet. Most of the aluminum and steel I had already.
I also had the engine(which I hope has enough power to do the job). What has cost me so far is radial bearings, tapered bearings, centrifugal clutch,
drive chain and sprockets and lots of various quality bolts plus many hours of
my time. Helis are complicated. Even simple ones. If you plan to build one either have a lot of extra cash and buy a proven kit or if you plan to design and build, you better have the tools and knowledge to make the parts. If I didn't have a lathe and mill, this project wouldn't be happening. Go to youtube and see all the homebuilt helis that don't work. Start with "human powered helicopters". What are these people thinking? Oh well.

[mikeswelding]

RE: picture hovercraft5. I'll say you had a lot more hair then!

[monte55]

I don't get your post

[muskt]

Beta generally refers to "not going forward" thrust with a turboprop aircraft.
It is used a lot with aircraft that use the Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engines & some others.
I have several thousand hours in aircraft that use Garrett turboprop engines, & the term has relatively little meaning to them. The FAA requires that all turboprop aircraft have a Beta range in the power system. This is only a rudimentary description of the term; however, it should help a bit.

Some folks call "go forward" thrust "alpha".
They call "don't go forward" thrust "beta".
Then, of course, there is "reverse", which means that the pitch of the blades is reversed and the airflow goes the opposite direction than when flying forward such as braking during landing.

The previous description is extremely crude, & I have no (zero) intention of entering into an extended discussion concerning the finer points. My reply was to simply answer the question.

Jerry in Anchorage
(Temporarily in Kansas doing simulator training)