How can you possibly know this? The video says nothing about landspeeders.
It does, however, explicitly use the word “hover.”
Not only that, the actual Aerofexwebsite has this to say:
It’s a hovercraft. Just like all the other hovercraft we’ve mentioned.
And it doesn’t exist yet. The site says they plan to offer one for sale in 2017. Maybe.
The promises they make on their website are pure Molleresque bullshit. 2 people flying 45mph at 12’. “easy, safe, affordable”. How about none of the above?
So in your mind if it not star wars clone running on anti-gravity, some kind of magnetism ,some thing exotic or magic it is hovercraft not a landspeeders?
Even if fan , airintake or jet work really well and replaced all cars by next year on the road and no engineering problems and off the ground and no skirt it is hovercraft not a landspeeders.
To me a landspeeders is some thing off the ground and no skirt no matter propulsion system. If you want to make it even more real have fan , air intake or jet at the back. But that may not be possible yet or may be ever.
To me a landspeeders is some thing off the ground and no skirt. Sure it will not be 100% like in the movies but it a lot closer than one close to the ground with a skirt.
The first video clip , I posted looked a lot more closer to landspeeders than the one you posted.Sure it will not be a 100% like the in star wars.
But some members above said landspeeders even with fan , airintake or jets have problems.
Also do you know prototypes are are always crude. And in 50 years with improving technology the fan , airintake or jet will get smaller and not so notable looking even more star wars like.
It saying 5,000 per vehicle so it not too costly.
The site says $85,000. Options like airbags are extra. The airbags won’t do you much good unless they completely enclose you- crashes with these things wouldn’t be pretty. I recommend a sturdy flight suit so as to make it easier for the people picking up body parts.
Never, ever invest in or pur a deposit on a new aircraft until you’ve seen the final version flying in full scale, with test pilots, and demonstrating the envelope it claims to have.
This could simply be a variation on the ‘info-kit’ scam: Come up with some nice renderings and some quasi-accurate technical specifications that are little more than guesses, then offer an ‘info-kit’ for $30, and for the really serious, an ‘engineering report’ for $200. The futuristic craft always winds up being delayed for just a little while. Eventually, you realize that there is no serious aircraft development going on, and that the company’s real product is the ‘info-kit’.
Not saying that’s what this one is. It actually looks more plausible and even useful than a lot of the other disappointments like the Moller Skycar or the SoloTrek XV.
It’s not a hovercraft. Technically, I’d call it a ducted fan ground effects vehicle. Like a hovercraft, it won’t be able to stop worth a damn, so it would be an inherently dangerous vehicle - especially if it’s used for sporting activities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing… If it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Yeah, as I said earlier, they’re doing an update on Stanley Hiller’s ducted fan vehicles. I’m sure that calling it a hovercraft makes business sense because it’s a more easily understood and marketable term.
Hiller was heavily publicized in the popular science magazines, the same way they ran a zillion stories about flying cars and personal helicopters. You have to read to the end of the articles to get at some of the caveats, and go beyond them to do more research to find out why they never got into regular use.
Hiller was never thinking about personal use; he developed his craft for military uses. The Army liked it, but it had a serious flaw. If one engine stopped the thing fell out of the sky. He put in a third engine but that made it so heavy that the intuitive movement no longer worked.
Others have tried to expand on this with two separate fans - or more.
Michael Moshier and Robert Bulaga
The Granddaddy of 'em all, artist’s conception of civilian version of Hiller on Popular Science cover
Why haven’t you heard of these? Because they don’t work? Yes, that’s the obvious answer. The less obvious answer is that if they were actually useful, somebody might find a way to make them work. But they just aren’t useful.
Where would you use them? Everywhere, you might say. Think about it, though. A true ground effect vehicle needs long vistas of fairly flat terrain. Water is good for this; land is not. We solve the problem on land by building flatness into the terrain - roads, trails, paths. Those are expensive but also extensive. Pretty much anywhere you might want to go is already connected by a road, and the ground vehicles we’ve already perfected can take you almost anywhere and in comfort. If you need something more rugged we have things called all terrain vehicles or off-road vehicles that are also good for protecting you, obviously useful when away from civilization. The one terrain where a good above ground vehicle might get you places where roads don’t exist is a desert. There might be a small, specialized market there. Environmentalists are already driven crazy by the damage to ecosystems vehicles make. I’d hate to be an engineer trying to make a case for chewing up the ground with two giant fans.
The military has other needs and doesn’t care that much about conservation. Hiller originally built his craft for military reconnaissance, to hop over obstacles and get a view of or a gun to places where ground troops couldn’t go. The military has been working on this for over 50 years, in fact, and has never gotten it to work. The balance between trade-offs is always wrong. If it’s light, it’s unsafe. If it’s safe, it’s too bulky. If it has large gas tanks for range, it’s too heavy for speed. If the tanks are tiny, it can’t stay in the air long enough. You can hide behind a camel in a dust storm; you can’t fly and your equipment needs to be dust proof. Every bit of protection has a cost, just like a space capsule.
The same problems soar for civilians, and new ones appear. Doing everything is very expensive; doing too little doesn’t sell. Flying is restricted and takes training and licensing. People are freaked by tiny unmanned drones; what if you have humans buzzing your windows? It’s a security nightmare.
Hovercraft are a solution without a problem. There can’t be a mass market for them in our current world. A few could be built as a rich person’s toy but even they would be very limited in where they could use them. Where’s the market? Identify that and half your problems are over. But nobody has.
That’ll come down once the XP-38 comes out.
Why are these vehicles so dangerous? It not like it is a flying car or jet pack really off the ground.If it is only 2 to 4 feet of the ground how can you get hurt.
Unless you fall down into the fan blades.
It’s dangerous because it’s a hard-to-control vehicle moving at 45 MPH.
One problem with hover craft is unwanted lateral movement and going up and down steep slopes. You want friction sometimes!
They are dangerous for many reasons. One is that they can’t manoever very well, so if something gets in your path there’s little you can do about it. Also, any time you are going fast at low speed in any kind of flying vehicle, you are taking a risk if the equipment fails. A hovercraft with a skirt isn’t as bad, because there is one engine and if power is lost it settles a bit more gracefully. An open dual - ducted-fan design will ruin your whole day if one of the fans quits. How would you like to be on that thing when the nose dives hard into the ground at 45 mph?
This is the problem with other VTOL vehicles like the Moller Skycar and the SoloTrek (among their MANY problems). They have no passive safety. A helicopter can auto-rotate if the engine fails. An airplane can glide to a safe landing. But lose a fan at low altitude, and you’d better hope you have an ejection seat - which you don’t because they aren’t available to civilians. So you’d probably just die.
So with fans or air intakes being so crude today it is safety problem and other than than it be dangerous hobby Moller Skycar or landspeeders at present day technology level we will never see Moller Skycar or landspeeders replace automobiles on the road. I would love to own Moller Skycar or landspeeders but one that works and safer.
You said at the present day technology level landspeeders are not good at maneuvering can you elaborate on that.
Is it possible to rearrange the configuration of the fan or air intake to make it better at maneuvering?
If the fans or air intake get stronger ,more powerful and better leading to lighter fans or air intake or it being smaller would this technology have any chance to work.
I’m sure fans ,air intake and jets are better today than 50 years ago.
You can’t manoever well because you are floating on air, with no physical contact with the ground. Changing direction is hard because the inertia of the vehicle overwhelms the fan’s ability to counteract it.
Certainly you could change that situation with a sufficiently powerful engine, but you’ll never get the kind of manoeverability a vehicle has when it has four wheels planted on a solid surface. And powerful engines raise cost, weight, and fuel consumption.
These vehicles are basically large air hockey pucks which push air around to change direction. They will never turn on a dime.
So engines have not really changed much in the past 50 years? Not any more powerful or fuel efficient than 50 years ago?
Why is it helicopters and planes don’t have hard time maneuvering but Moller Skycar or landspeeders do? They are all of the ground? Or is the engines in the helicopters and planes more powerful.
Helicopters and planes need a lot of room to move. The problem with your land speeder is that it flies in the danger zone. It’s down amongst all of the obstacles. To make it reasonably safe it would have to be able to fly at least 500 feet off the ground, but then it would just be a helicopter.
Low to the ground is also where the worst of the turbulence is. You wouldn’t be able to fly your land speeder on a windy day.
So why does fan or air intake cause that problem but not if it was running on anti-gravity or magnetism? But we don’t know how to do that yet.
Could be the fan or air intake we have is too crude?
You better not. Womp Rats have been a protected species ever since Beggar’s Canyon became an Imperial Wildlife Preserve.
If it was running on anti-gravity or magnetism it would be susceptible to wind and turbulence as well (unless it had anti-wind with the anti-grav). You must remember that the star wars landspeeder is a fictional machine set in a fictional universe, there is no reason to believe it would be practical in real life.
Okay but some members here said landspeeders have hard time maneuvering.Is that because air dynamics problem with the wind or problem with fan or air intake.
You said helicopters and planes need a lot of room to move.So a landspeeders on road will need big lane and a lot of room to move .
So is that because of a air dynamics problem with the wind of why helicopters , planes and landspeeders need a lot of room to move or problem with fan or air intake.The fan or air intake is not powerful enough.
