Airboat from Hell being considered

CTHIPPO - I think you made a typo - perhaps "love" and maybe "live" or perhaps "love to live". I would love to live long enough to be proven wrong on this point as I think the resolution to this dilema is at the crux of our problem.
In any case can someone explain to me the crux of the issues behind the formula of the so called maximum hull speed - even though its not a law but an observed rule - 1.5 (or so) times the square root of the waterline length etc. (roughly) Speed being governed by length not weight etc. "Why is it so ???" as someone or other said. What has length go to do with it ??

 

at slow speeds a hull can be seen to have a number of small ripples along its water line, go faster and the number of those ripples gets smaller and the size of those ripples gets bigger. At hull speed there are only two ripples left, a bow wave and a stern wave. Go faster than that and you have to climb up onto the bow wave, its called planing as apposed to displacement. Climbing up onto the bow wave requires the boat to be going uphill, takes a lot of power. Length determines hull speed, which is the point were you get a lot less efficient.

 

You're right, it should be "I'd love to be wrong". The reason for that is that if I'm wrong then there is a whole new field of hydrodynamics out there that science has missed.

 

Finally...... I think you are right and I think we have missed it.
We have spent far too much time refining, re - designing, polishing, mathematically explaining, graphing etc. our buggy whip that we have come to believe that the buggy whip is the only way to make the thing go faster.
I think there is an answer and I am looking for someone to help me to verify my thinking. Most reputable, experienced, qualified, professional designers do not accept such a possibilty - especially when the purported solution comes from a non experienced, non qualified non professional designer with no runs on the board - who, now, does not even own a boat, has sailed only once and very obviously has no deep understanding of buggy whip design concepts.
How do I get committed, professional buggy whip designers to accept the possibility that there just may be another way ? To abandon their commitment financially and intellectually to the possibility that it all may now be out of date.
What happened to all those old sailing masters who spent all of their lives learning about the wind, sails, ropes and the tides ? Did they actively support the design and introduction of steam driven ships ??? I wonder.....
Was it a sailing ship builder who built the first steamship ?????
So far, most serious designers I have come accross have refused to even discuss or contemplate that they all may face the same fate some day.
I will now get off my little box, take my tablets and have a lie down and wait for your replies.

 

OK, so show me a theory of how it could be done

 

Unless you can convince me that you have the resources for the joint development and ability to capitalise on such a design I have to decline your invitation. Perhaps you know of someone who has ?
This was the reason for my response to the MHOLT design. To perhaps flush out someone sufficiently open minded to the possibility of such a design and with whom I could collaborate on its development.
Do you fit the bill or have ties with someone who has.
I've tried all of the usual suspects. AUSTAL and INCAT will not sign a confidetiality agreement. I think they have too much invested in their current designs.
I don't think the Maritime College has any real interest in protecting the commercial interests of any inventor.
Perhaps with justification, other parties I've contacted first want to know what the idea is and then they are willing to talk further.
I will contnue to keep looking howewver and this effort is just another haystack along my journey.
Anyone out there with the needle. ????? or show me where and how to find it.

 

Nope, I'm just a guy who likes boats.

Basically, until you get a patent on it you have no protection, and you can't patent a law of nature, which is what we would be talking about here.

 

mholt, you asked if anyone had done this ?

Sort of.....

I've been kicking an R/C wing-in-ground-effect project around the shop for a while and just wanted to comment on how similar my plan is to the one you posted. The effective beam on mine is quite a bit wider (it IS a wing after all) but the fuselage and power arrangement are almost identical. I've got the wing skeleton and the fuselage almost ready for finishing, though I think I'm going to make a couple more changes yet....

I started off wanting to build a hydrofoil using the same power setup and curved lifting foils, but it morphed into a WIG configuration instead, though I haven't thrown away the curved foil idea yet.

When I started building it, I looked to iceboats for the layout - lightweight monocoque fuselage with a big footprint and three points of contact. My concern with 'your' design would be from the front float tripping on a wave or digging into a turn and rolling the whole works because the rear floats aren't far enough apart to be stable.

I first thought about a steering hydrofoil up front. That would also keep the front end from coming up when air gets under it at speed without having to lose lift by providing downforce. After thinking about the roll that causes with my bow-mounted trolling motor, I figured the steering foil would behave similarly.

Power-to-weight is paramount in getting this thing to fly (as always, lol) so instead of using the twin Astro Cobalt 05 motors I was going to use (upgraded from a single), I think now I'm going to sacrifice my weedwhacker's motor to swing a bigger single prop but I haven't done the math yet to see if there's a net gain.

But there again, I'm seeing it (and building it) through an amateur eye so this thing may not fly at all.....but I'm still gonna run it up the flagpole and see.

Do it ! Get yourself some foam and start cutting already.

 

CTHIPPO first. Its the peculiar application of the laws nature that we are looking at I think. I will agree that while we are looking in a particular direction we will only see what we are looking at. The laws of nature we are looking at will not change - only our perceptions and application of them. I am not seeking to change these as obviously they are not changeable. This is very well documented and its this vast documentation really that current designers cant jump over and are mesmirised by. I am seeking to change the direction we are looking at. At present, everyone is looking one way. History is full of people who invented things and thus changed this direction. Most of the time however it has been others who, once having perceived this new direction have taken advantage of these insights and have hugely benefited. I am trying to avoid this situation. The mere Registration of a patent will not provide me with any financial benefits and any real protection. It is its subsequent exploitation and further development where the true benfits lie. I am trying to position myself for this future development. Registration of a patent will only point the way and as yet I'm not ready positioned to exploit this direction.
DEADEYE. I think I have been down your route. What you are really trying to achieve I think is a plane that can ake off from water. This route has been well trodden and usually leads to the same dead end. The power you need to achieve this result is, at present, not worth the effort. Roughly I think its about 3 to 4 times the power you will need to keep air borne - if you manage it. That is for a real flying boat. WIGS will need a lot less but the design needed to achieve this is too unstable for real flight. Lift off speed, height above water, wing span, load etc. are too critically ballanced for sustained and manouverable flight. You cannot climb, change speed or manouver without problems. You will need to reach higher speed to enable take off or the ability to re configure your wind shape etc. once you have taken off at low speed. Does this make sense ?

 

I won't say too much more on it because I don't want to hijack mholt's thread and that's not why I brought it up...

I am most definitely looking for a WIG configuration rather than a floatplane/seaplane (BTDT). It's all about teaching this old dog some new tricks: the anhedral, AOI and maybe even sweep will be adjustable so I can tune them simply to see what happens.
My idea was borne of reading about the Russian projects and rekindled when I saw *these plans*

It's mostly about building what is essentially a watercraft that's immune to wave action, which I see as a big weakness in the drawing the OP put up.
Something that long and that narrow sitting right on the surface seems like trying to race a dragster on a logging road.

@mholt:
Have you started it yet ?
How about now ?.....

 

Guys, Sorry to have barged into your haystack, and perhaps rudely, fossicked around looking for my needle.
Obviously a wrong haystack. I will now go look for another to fossick around in.
Regards

 

Water is a Newtonian fluid. The impact forces from jumping into water from 100' up are almost all due to acceleration of the water, not viscous effects. The forces are dependent on the density of the water and have very little to do with viscosity.

 

OK, cool. learn something new every day!

 

Don't you mean resistance to acceleration,--- which is why you can stand on water if your traveling at around 40MPH.

Even on one foot,--which is actually only the heel and the arch of the foot, not the toes.

Something I used to do a lot of at one time.

 

Water skiing barefoot and boats planing have little to nothing to do with viscosity and whether the water is Newtonian or Non-Newtonian.