Foam Test-Mighty Mini Hovercraft

I have wanted to build a hovercraft for a while now and the otherday I finally got the chance to. It was one of the best decisions I have made in a while. 

Here is a quick run video and electronics list. 

Build Difficulty

 If you have built any FT style planes before you could build this. 

Pilot Experience Required

 Minimal, if you can drive a RC car you can operate this.

 All Materials Used

• 2 sheets Adams foam board
• Power pack A
• Plywood, or paint stick
• 9 gram servo
• FT mighty mini control horn, any control horn will work
• Pushrod
• Mighty mini firewalls

I do not have any plans for this at the moment but if you guys are interested I will try my best to make some, I am still learning doublecad at the moment. 

The motors are, 2, emax 1806-2280kv motors. (From a power pack A)

The motors are paired with 2 BLHeli, 12 amp ESC's. (Also from power pack A)

The hovercraft also has a Gopro mount on the frount of it for some on board footage. 

I later added a spoiler to the frount to keep it from flipping over at higher speeds. 

The wood support is made from 3/32 birch plywood, you could use a paint stick instead. 

For the tail I took a lot of inspiration from Peter Sripol's hovercraft.

The hovercraft uses all types of 3s Li-Pos since weight isn't really a problem when you are going over snow and ice, its a whole different world on normal, dry concrete. 

I have a mini, mini powerpod on top of the layered foam board for the tail, and there is no thrust angle. 

I used a 9 gram servo for the steering servo, and had some issues with the push-rod getting in the way of the prop but I just lowered the rudder to fix the issue. 

The second half of the vlog shows the build in some time lapses, it also has some more run footage in the snow. 

The first half of the vlog is about prototyping a forward swept flying wing, I am hoping to have more videos and an article out on the, finished, full size version of the Invader. 

Overall I'd say that this was a success, I now have a good GoPro platform to use for ground shoots and maybe water too if I ever am brave enough, and something to do in the winter months ahead. If I were to do this again I would probably use packing tape, or duct tape, to secure the skirt to the craft, I had some problems with the blue painters tape falling off. Just keep in mind that it will be harder to change out the skirt in the future. If you are going to run this on snow, or water if you're brave enough, definitely install the frount "spoiler" to keep the frount end down, on snow this cratft can definitely pick up some speed. I would love to get some red bottom emax motors and some better ESCs so I could run a 4s setup, I don't know if it could handle the power though, but I'm sure that it would be a blast! If you decide to build one and do this please at least put a run video up on YouTube. 

I hope that you guys liked the article, and if you'd want to support me with more projects in the future, please visit my patreon page at...

www.patreon.com/foamtest