At the moment the lift system isnt connected so only the thrust fan is spinning; the idea being to work out all of the teething issues with that bit first. When it is time to connect it up a reduction gearbox takes power from the flywheel and into a shaft as on the previous craft. Before putting it onto the craft the carbon frame was ‘load tested’ by my Dad and I so we know it can handle at least 160kgs thrust:Although i expect the worst loads the frame will have to take will be due to the belt and its difficult to simulate these, so basically a case of suck it and see.

Heres some of the progress so far:

Thrust axle has been bonded into the duct

Engine electrics, fuel and cooling systems are mostly ready

Home stretch now, and then got to be ready to fix the things that dont work when i try it out…

Saturday was spent putting the craft back together after its winter service in horizontal rain, not the best conditions to be reinstalling fuel systems and electrics, but we got it together in the end. It has a new skirt, strengthened hull, refreshed transmission and a newly built engine.

However the sun came out on sunday-after readjusting the skirt the craft flew just like it did last year and i was keeping on the race pace without pushing the craft too much. There were the usual problems to be fixed as with any newly reassembled hovercraft such as various engine and skirt bits.

The new track layout for the world champs was slightly longer with an extra section of chicanes, fortunately the long water straight remains which the yellow craft loves, although i didnt open it up like i had been last year. I did get caught out by the wind a few times and might have slightly broken the rudder dragging it along the ground- sorry Dave! I wasnt the only one with Jess and most others doing some impressive aerial pirouettes and plently of red flags because people were going swimming…

All in all a great weekend which has spurred me on to finish the Orange craft after seeing Jamie’s new Honda RS powered Raptor and Rick’s superlight Venom.

Thanks to Rebecca at hovercraftvideo.co.uk for the great pics.

Underneath the seat has been filled with bouyancy foam and the final floor added meaning the hull is ready for skirt fitting, although fuel tanks and the lift gearbox mounting still need to be done.

On the top the mountings for the duct assembly and engine are done, and progress has been made on the handlebars, and other bits.

Zorst routing

Most of the transmission still needs to be made and the duct finished off, but the craft has to be put aside for a few weeks while there are university exams, so the hull is to be sent off to Reg for some shiny new zorsts to go with the Goosey silencers.

I hope to be racing at Towcester in the yellow craft which has been really well prepared by it’s new owner, with new skirt and strengthened hull.

We have been assembling the duct with its stiffening ring and flow straighteners, which are now on their way to being a complete unit. The honeycomb has come out very stiff and the stators have connected in nicely.

Mocking up the parts of the duct before its all vacced together

Next all of the attachment and mounting points need to be added.

Another Peril hull has been put together for Chris, Josh and Angus. Its slightly lighter than the orange hull and many times simpler (and a lot cheaper
!) to make- 17 man hours in total. Looking forward to seeing the craft put together to race in another formula.

Underneath showing all foam and balsa cores in the layup

We have been busy, too busy to post anything on here and its only going to get worse as we try to get it ready for the World champs in August!

New shiny duct, Feb '10

Here is a pic of the new duct with carbon guru Guillaume. Its 940mm duct which is slightly larger than the 920mm one used on the yellow craft as the fan arrangement will be slightly different.

It the first attempt at an all carbon-epoxy moulded part and has come out well. Thanks again to Wizz at MCMC for his tips and hints- they also do very reasonable polyester resins and glass cheaper than CFS and Glasplies. Without any kind of stiffening ring its already really stiff and is made using a mixture of unidirectional, biax and triax carbons, with some woven kevlar and diolen.

We also made the structural flow straightener vanes, these are foam cored with carbon skins and came out pretty well- its difficult to see from the picture how they add into the overall structure but should come clear soon.

Some of the first straightener vanes

We have managed to find some high quality epoxy resin thanks to MCMC in Bristol and also aerospace grade CF thanks to the University. Over the next few months we will be building and assembling all of the composite parts and also all of the remaining parts for transmissions and engines.

For 2010 we are building a prototype of an integrated GPS speedo and engine management/datalogger- including EGT and tacho- thanks to Husstech.

I wanted to get there ready for practice straight away as this was a new course.  The extra time put in was worth it as i managed to get plenty of practice on the new course, the craft lapped up the long lakes and was set up well for the first race.

Pete and Matt Gill let me have a few laps in their F1 number 20 which was something else! Id never experienced acceleration like that before on motorbikes or any other vehicle!

In race 1 started in 3rd on the grid and managed to get away into the lead straight away which was how it stayed all race! Even though i had pulled away from the rest of the field who were battling amongst themselves i still kept on full pace to keep as i had Jamie in the Storm RS in the back of my mind, who had taken away a few 1st places on the last corner before! It didn’t happen this time though!

For the second race i was on pole with Jamie next to me, this was going to be a tight battle, i knew he still had the edge but his engine oiled up on the line and he was left way behind in the field. So i managed to get away in 1st again and turned down the pace for most of this race- no point flipping the craft on the water exit jumps! I came through to win this race as well which was slightly boring not actually racing anyone, but still not complaining with a win! A few times i felt an intermittent bogging and fading problem that felt like it could have been worn bearings which was not good, i thought i might have fixed it so carried on in the open race.

I also went out in the open race at the end of the day which was great fun and i managed to get Dave Polfrey in his fast F2, although he was having problems on the water, just where my craft was loving it.

On the Sunday morning i went to start the engine which did first pull as usual, then stopped dead instantly and felt like it had seized. We checked over the engine and freed it up so it span as normal again. There was no visible problem in the engine so we suspected either dying main engine or transmission bearings. I tried to start it again for the first race in red mist mode but it seized permanently this time. The problem was the transmission block bearing which i planned to check on the Christmas overhaul (bottom of this page) but never did so they had been on the craft the whole time it has run. This meant i couldn’t compete in the Sunday races- so i took out Fran’s spare craft in the last race and had some fun, cheers Fran!

Overall i came 4th for the weekend giving me 3rd Place overall in the UK F3 championship! All in all a great season, cant wait for next years world champs!