Building an ELECTRIC hovercraft 

Here's the model hovercraft plans you can buy and support me through. 😀Thanks for watching! store.projectair.co.uk/products/rc-hovercraft

ProjectAir + DIY Perks = Dream Team. Brilliant work!

The best thing about everything being hot glued together is that nothing ever breaks it just fall off 😂

Your dad shouting "BANG!" was a classic dad move 😂

When I was a teenager my dad bought a hovercraft that was 13ft long. It was an old fan boat that had been repurposed into a large hovercraft. The thing was a beast and fun to drive around. We brought it out on a lake several times. Good memories.

Your dad is a legend. He needs to be in more videos. Such dad energy, clearly an absolute 1st class chap. Also DIY perks!!! Best collaboration on RU-vid. Incredible scenes.

Brilliant as always👍!! We are sooooo proud to partner with you, James!

Your dad has only spoken a few sentences, but I already really like him

As a man about the same age as your dad, I remember the hovercraft plans that they used to sell in the back of comic books and kids magazines. The expression on his face truly tells that story. I have driven 180 miles per hour, flown airplanes, repelled out of helicopters and other cool stuff; but I known I would grin ears wide on that DIY hovercraft!

I love it! I grew up drooling over the hovercraft plans advertised in the back of Boy's Life magazine. I bought them and built one, but the 1980's requirement of using a vacuum cleaner motor plugged into a wall outlet made me dream of making a cordless one.

Takes me back to my year 11 at high school days. Was doing a project on hovercrafts for physics. I made a 8x4 ft hovercraft from 3mm plywood. I spent a lot of time on the plenum chamber design. I used a 2 stroke lawnmower motor for the lift motor. Awesome build mate.

I'd love to see more of this. Maybe get a sponsor and create a bigger one which has more stability so you can sit more comfortable

Having a dad looks so fun! This is the part that got me. 🥰

I had done a lot of stuff with hovercrafts and have learned that using impellers for the plenum are better as they generate far more static pressure.

What is this trend of youtube RC makers colabbing to make ride on vehicles?? First RCTestflight and Think Flight, now you guys. It's awesome!

i really like the way you solve problems so quickly and fix it fast

This video inspired me to build my own RC hovercraft and I have to say they are by far the coolest vehicle except maybe ekranoplans

Christopher Cockerell will be smiling down. I’m old enough to remember the mighty SRN4 Super 4s and the ill-fated French N500. With an east wind, you could hear them coming from Calais/Boulogne long before seeing them. Happy memories of visiting my great aunt in 70s Dover. Keep up the good work.

The small racing hovercraft also use rudders, but at least some of the steering comes from the driver shifting their weight from side to side. That may give you a little more control.

Another brilliant colab with DIY Perks done and dusted. Am I the only one now desperately awaiting another colab with Tim Station?

This video demonstrates (over and over) the benefit of weak attachment points. Parts fall off, but they don't break.

Maybe centrifugal blowers would work better to create the pressure underneath? Although they are probably heavier. Awesome work!

Corner thrusters will help to keep the vehicle on track, and will also help to compensate for terrain that isn't completely level. Also some sturdy fan guards and corner bumpers will help to protect the vehicle and nearby personnel. Nicely done job of "hot gluing your way to a better tomorrow." (Yes, you can use that if you like, with attribution) :)

Great! Now fill it with eels.

At 4:49 that was the most quickest advertisement that my whole life saw

I always love it when James says "What's the worst that could happen?" Great build.

Great proof of concept model

I saw where someone had great success with a full under bag setup with strategic silver dollar sized holes. Appeared to have better lift with similar motors. Of course, comparing apples and oranges, but, also easy to try! I'm like your dad with the "always wanted to build a hovercraft" dream.

I like that I am noticing content creators that started with rc are slowly just making vehicles they can get in. No complaints because it's cool, let's be real

Man you make things that might become revolutionary to the world I’m not joking at all

DIY Perks is life.

Li-ion and brushless motor make almost anything possible!

That is amazing how little power was needed to get it to work so well and RC plane parts even though it broke quite a bit

My dad has always wanted one of these finally he can have one!

Awesome video. Id love to see another video trying to go as fast as possible with beefed up rear motors

Incredible, possibly needs a little more development to be a 'practical means of transport', but Christopher Cockerell would be proud.

This chap sounds exactly like ‘diy perks’. Well spoken and we’ll explained. Well done.

Your dad is AWESOME. I too had a really wonderful father. We are lucky people. Damn lucky.

I used to daydream about making this while on a bus in middle-school 15+ years ago, glad to see you making my dreams come true 😁

Those throttles are BEAUTIFUL

To quote Anakin, “It’s working! It’s working!”

Great video! And nice Park City sweatshirt. Thats where I grew up!

for steering you can also put ducted fans on the front sides to push it angled. it's the same assisted steering method the royal canadian coastguard uses on their hovercraft

Slap a portable fusion generator on that puppy and it's Jetsons time. And I thought my solid fuel balsa tissue paper model plane was cool until flamed out on lift off. Nice one guys.

Fantastic work, James! Amazing hovercraft!!! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

This is gonna be more amazing if you make this a series. About making some vehicles from scratch

Your videos are so awesome!! They are so entertaining and fun to watch! It also teaches me things!

Brilliant as always!! Extremely entertaining "big you-tuber style" well edited videos. Thank you, it was a great watch:)

So when is your hoverboard coming out? These turbines should be powerful enough?

That's so cool, amazing work!

lol your dad is awesome!

diferencial thrust XD nice proyect

Nice start to a SEV. A friend of mine use to design hovercrafts or surface effect vehicles to be more correct. Barry warned me to keep the cushion pressure below 10 lbs per square foot that would be about 50 kg per square meter. Oh Berry designed the Sevtech hovercrafts about 30 odd years ago... the bag skirt that he uses is more stable then the finger skirt developed in Britain that you are likely familiar with.

Fantastic! Love it James and Co!

This guy deserves more subs 😍😍

I love hovercraft. I build an RC one from scratch it did not work well but it was fun.

This is AWESOME!

Amazing project! I think the only thing that it really needs is directional thrust, meaning you steer by changing the direction of the motors rather than moving the rudders.

This is fantastic! I've always wanted a hovercraft.

pretty cool, imagine it could go even fast if you just installed 2 more propellers!

Great job! When I was much younger I wanted to build a hovercraft but at that time with internal combustion engines the cost was way too high. Keep up the good work and tweak the machine to get it even better.

That’s how u get freinds or girls easily build something really cool and smart and that’s basicly project air

You need differential thrust for the edfs so that you can ride on slanted surfaces. If the surface is slanted, power down half of the craft and power up the other half to tilt the craft for more straight traveling.

I actually watched the ad because I hadn’t seen it before and it was relevant ish to the video and it’s something I’m interested in

My dad has also pulled the bang move on me, seems it’s universal🤣

If you moved the thrust props to the centre of the craft and installed them in ducts, this would give a much better point from which to use them with reversible, differential thrust to instantly stop, go backwards, and have yaw control. The simple way would just be to make a throttle that lets the props spin backwards to blow air toward the front for stopping, and reversing thrust, and or producing yaw. The tricky way, is to take a page out of the helicopter rotor swash plate, and tilting blades page to allow more control. The rudders would still help provide stability in forward flight, and allow for fine yaw control at faster speeds. This is very cool.

NIce. I think you need to put feet so it doesn't land on the skirt.

Great video! Looks like you all had ton of fun building and riding it together. I wonder if you could use thrust vectoring with your dual prop setup? Do you know about how much thrust they each can produce?

That's great I am jealous

Awesome video!

Nice

Really cool fun project. Would love to see a more refined version of this in the future

I get the feeling the skirt needs a TON more power. It's basically dragging it along, instead of it barely touching the ground. Mind you, I've never built my own hovercraft, but I did have a Tyco hovercraft when I was a kid and I distinctly remember the skirt floating - it'd only drag when the battery got really low.

really cool project!

The youtubers are all making boats. Its like they are competing content against each other. No complaints, its all brilliant material to watch.

Definitely make that 1st test model a toy, it’d be wildly popular and a hit with the kids (even adults). Lots of money too.

Bro you are so underrated!!!

man this brings me back. dad and i found a backpack leafblower on the side of the highway(all smashed up, likely fell off truck) we turned that sucker into a hovercraft. plywood and 6mil plastic

Such a fun project. Really neat seeing how they're made, I might have to try building a small scale RC one at some point.

What fun, i built an r/c one and as you have found out they are almost impossible to steer and seem to love goin sideways , but boy are they fun on snow.

Great build! I love the duct tape engineering! And Thanks for not just 3D printing everything! and actually saying how it’s faster just making it yourself! I still want a printer though lol I highly suggest a gyro it makes hovercraft builds so much easier to fly

That was brilliant man .... thank you

The best thing about ProjectAir, they still care about family, and family wants for a long time.

Dad was the MVP! Dad jokes, "fire and disaster" and hovering with sunglasses which is safer and cooler!

How does Dad get a turn after his dire pronouncements?! This was fun!

I made a 1 man hovercraft when I was 15. Flymower engine. Back in the 70's.

plastic sheeted hoovercrafts will wear through you must stick a sacrifice layer to the bottom of the plastic skirt, thin squares of nylon made from a very thin chopping board work great

That's really cool that your dad helped you build this. He sure got a kick out of driving it! I hope you did make him one for Christmas. It would be funny to race them. I'm actually quite surprised that those trash bags held up to that. Maybe you guys have better ones in the UK or maybe those are the same as the contractor bags we have here. I've never actual bought any of those before so I don't know. I want to buy some eventually because I saw a guy build an entire bushcraft bed out of them and some logs, which seemed cool.

I'm really amazed at your designs - they're mostly capable and work really well! keep up the effort :)

Nice to see Theon Greyjoy joined force.

Jerry rig in a differential thrust to help on turning, build a landing gear that can take the hard landing of cutting off the power suddenly and so it wont just throw you out in the process, rebuild whole steering system to be more robust, maybe carbon fiber plate, but do build in intentional weak point so whole thing wont be destroyed, build cage around the forwards pushing fans that are tied to mounting plate of the motor, again having that whole thing come out if there is collision, the skirt could be made from two used tractor inner tires cut in halfs and connected again with rubber glue for better durability (and shape for the vehicle) and have baffles to first of all added safety so if one spot gets damaged whole skirt wont inflate instantly and secondly so that air wont move so fast from one spot to another allowing you move bit more off from center of gravity. Also those ducted fans should be pushing in directly inside the skirt and skirt having holes inside surface closer to chassis, where exhaust air is directed under neat the vehicle and hence only way to exit is below the skirt increasing your lift. This way you have maximum skirt inflation while utilizing and directing the leaks to lift skirts out of the groun. You should also install closed cell foam inside the skirt. Get desired size (by testing and calculating how much weight certain m3 peace can create buoyancy in water) round rod of it , cut it in half and glue it inside the rubber... ou and test it in shallow water to see if it floats before going into deeper water.. beats having to dive to get your hover craft bottom of the lake. Foam is covered inside, while also acting as mentioned landing gear depending on stiffness of the foam, it keeps frame from contacting the ground, while also lifting the edge of the skirt off the ground, so wear and damage is located below, not on the edge where it connects to frame. Just few things to consider for V2. Might want to reread how hovercrafts actually work and those planning on making RC version not much needs to be redone in the design of it, just add the foam flotation, put some tape on the inner side of skirt to reinforce the material you are using or use say bicycle inner tubes, then cut small holes, say by drilling and increase size or number of holes until it wont burst from over pressure. You can build jerry rid measuring device too from peace of clear tube, mount it into board so skirt tube is above it, make U shape, put water into U shape and mark into hose location of water surface. Join other end to skirt by making humps into edge of the tube and pushing it trough one of the holes. WIth more tape you can increase diameter of the tube. Its impractical to get each size hose to fit just right but inner diameter of the tube should be lose as possible to side of hole witch is closest to current hole size Activate your fan or what ever you use and if water spurts out you have way too small holes creating over pressure and if it does not move at all you might have holes too large. With testing find the right size for say 80% max power of the ducted fan, but at full power there should not be noticeable increase in tube diameter indicating potential to burst if scraped by sharp object, but allows to have extra pressure in required condition acting in heavy bumps as shock absorber instead of hitting chassis to ground, but this requires testing to see what is right for intended capabilities.

this is so impressive

You did my suggestion. Nice.

I did not expect the mark Rober tune to start 😳 nice work though. 👍

Thats fricking cool! Next time I hope that Matt can try as well(:

Must be great growing up in the age of social channels and more advanced/available tech, building projects with friends and family and, learning whilst having such a laugh! You have my sub and bell! Looking forward to seeing more. 👍

It looks nice, If you want longer trial and lower weight, repplace the axial propeller for lifting by radial fan, you will obtain more pressure and consume less power (high pressure low flow = Radial, high flow low pressure = axial).

If you want to level up from driving sliders with servos, consider looking at digital potentiometer chips - they're an awesome alternative to a slider pot :)

A wonderful invention. You are very well. I follow you from Algeria

Amazing video bro