A operatable ghost

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sssancheznes said:
its possible... my friend made one in about three months (weekends only) and it carried him and his dog

Made what, a hovercraft or Ghost? I'm not disputing the hovercraft idea, I just don't think that's what you'd want if you're trying to make a Ghost.
 
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Mid7night said:
Made what, a hovercraft or Ghost? I'm not disputing the hovercraft idea, I just don't think that's what you'd want if you're trying to make a Ghost.

a hovercraft... but you could easily turn it into a ghost with cardboard on top... it just won't fly like a ghost... thats why it is called a hover craft ;)
 
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Spartan093 said:
I was thinking of making a scale ghost that u could drive around. I have a whole rig set up n my mind and a bit on paper. the body would be made from cardboard so its light, big leaf blower things to have it hover(one in the front and one in the back behind the seat), smaller leafblowers to steer and move(in the wings). It will probably not work or be impossible to control. A lot of power will be needed to. but if it does work, we will have our own working ghost. tell me what you think :)


1.) In theory thats a good idea but wouldnt work well, i remember back in the 4th grade we had invention day or what ever and one kid made a hover board out of a large peice of circular cut wood and 2 or 3 mini leaf blowers into a sort of plastic cushion giving it lift.

If you try to make this it wouldnt move ver well and would probably look very awkward and weird, because with my friends idea he had a large, flat, and cimetrical (spelling :p) shape and because of this and the fact it was even it gave an even distrabution of lift from the leaf blowers. Where as your idea may not stay level.


2.) If you do try this you would need to have a leaf blower in the back "Seat" area , one in the Middle/engine part, and one in each of the wings to keep a prapotional lift. Now there are a few problems wiht this.

-The first being weight, you would have to use realy light leaf blowers and pluss the add weight of you sitting on it would surely make (if you do use the cushion thing as i explained above) would pop, or it would go no where fast.

-The last problem would be that you would need for the leaf blowers are battery powered = lots of chargeing or fule and fule + cardboard + flame = bad things / hobo heater.


But over all if you do try it i would suggest if you have the time, resorces, and a good plan I say go for it :)
 
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Ok, here's another idea; use a bunch of R/C turbine engines. Of course, this would be REALLY expensive, but I ran some numbers just the same. Check out the attached picture.

What it boils down to is, because of the fuel requirement you'd need at least TEN R/C turbines to even have enough lifting thrust. If you bumped it up to 24, you'd have a thrust/weight ratio of around 1.4:1, which isn't bad. These little engines are only 5 inches in diameter, so you could have two rows of 12 side by side, and it would only be five feet long. But then you'd need a 2x2x2 foot box to hold all the fuel (8 cubic feet of fuel), and that's only enough fuel for 10 minutes! Then to top it off, each engine costs $5,000. So 24 of them would cost $120,000 !!! Nice work if you can get it. :D

~ Mid7night
 
why don't you just make one of those "hover crafts" like you see adds for in the back of a boyscout magazine, and build what looks like a ghost to put over the actual hover part, or maybe use a gokart (yeah i spelled it with a k) as long as it doesn't weigh to much it should still work when you get on, controlling the direction will still be a bit of a problem though. so instead of doing a 3 pad hover craft, use only 1 or 2 (if u put em under the wings but that would look silly) and put a wheel under the back part that you can turn left and right, then put some sort of propulsion (such as a leaf blower engine) on the lil wing parts or connected to a output spot on them(so you dont have a leaf blower shaped wing thing),

depending on how much the operator weighs it should work fine-ish (i dont think there is any way right now that we could make a vehicle that moves like a ghost does and can stop very well, whilst "hovering") the wheel on the back would take off some of the weight maybe leaving less for the front hover pad thingys to lift, but you couldn't drive it on dirt/grass, but i dont thing you can do that if you make it like a hover craft anyway unless it really hovers a few feet off the ground.
 
I was thinking about building a Ghost out of an old bike. You could definately make a functioning hovercraft in a shape of a Ghost, but it wouldn't be worth it to me, because it wouldn't move realistically. If I ever make one out of a bike, I'll be sure to post it.
 
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I would rather go for modding a snowmobile, (I don't know where you live but I hope there's snow there.) It's reletivly Ghost-like and anyone who sees you on it will think it's hovering. If you get a purple one, you could make a realistic one cheaply.
 
Generally hovercraft are symmetrical in shape, either round (typically small one-man craft and hoverboard type contraptions) or rectangular (large hovercrafts). The center of mass is typically as close to the center as possible. With a Ghost, we're talking the person sitting in the back with wings on each side. Without extensive calculations, simulations, and scale models, your craft would probably drag on the ground at the rear, and possibly put enough upward tilt on the nose that it won't move forward. Even if that didn't happen, if you tried to turn the wings would catch on the ground and trip up the vehicle.

It's not necessarily impossible, but a project of this undertaking requires one to account for all possible variables and mistakes beforehand (you can't predict everything, but you must come pretty close). Not to mention the project would most likely require extensive knowledge of physics, aerodynamics, and other fields (such as math).

We don't mean to scare you off from trying this, but no one here wants to see you waste considerable money trying to make something this complicated work.

A much better alternative would be to take some old, scrapped mountain bikes and weld the pieces into a trike (with two-wheels and car-like steering in the front, and a single drive wheel behind the seat), and build a fibreglass shell over that. The body panels would cover up most of the wheels, and if you wanted to get fancy you could add a simple electric motor to power the drive wheel. The advantages would be ease of construction, reduced costs, off-road capabilities (you don't need to be on perfectly flat, smooth ground to make it move), and a more Ghost-like prescence (silent operation vs. loud, obnoxious leaf-blowers).
 
It's beggining to seem alittle to difficult to build a hovering ghost. It would also be too inefficient to work correctly. It would be too slow and hard to control. I suggest a three wheeled go-kart like vehicle that will have the ghost built over. Then make it low to the ground so you don't see the wheels much.

http://nexus404.com/Blog/2007/03/03/canam-spyder/ Something like this but cheaper, home-made, and look like a ghost.

That way it will be fast, controlable, and more fun to use
 
he is how you do it you make a cross from wood. then you add high power leaf blowers with throttle control at the left and right fo the T then one on the read then add a seat and renforce it with steel tubing round if possible and after you got the hover down get thrust i would say a lighter blower in the front then use tubing to get the thrust in the rea then find a body shop to make a fiber glass or carbon fiber (if you could afford it) body and slip it over all ya gotta do is get the hover and thrust right you would have to make it prob lighter than 500 lbs cuz leaf blowers might not have the force to move you more than a foot of the ground plus finding were to add fuel for four engines and the controls are simple your have the hover engines controls your right two handles controling the T engines and the left two will control the rear and thrust engines sounds simple so i might try ti in a few months but my only prob is see is finding powerfull enough hover engines for the lift and one for the thrust, i think it will work
 
maybe it would be easier to build a shell using metal fabrication, and putting that over a mo-ped or one of those powerwheels cars. the electric engine would be weak though. ive seen a life size model of the warthog on a jeep chasis ( i think it was for the halo movie) and i was thinking about building a ghost over an ATV
 
Spartan093 no offence but you'r 15 I personally cannot see this being built with the amount of logic here. Its a big project, this could span out ofer a number of years.
 
Spartan093 said:
I was thinking of making a scale ghost that u could drive around. I have a whole rig set up n my mind and a bit on paper. the body would be made from cardboard so its light, big leaf blower things to have it hover(one in the front and one in the back behind the seat), smaller leafblowers to steer and move(in the wings). It will probably not work or be impossible to control. A lot of power will be needed to. but if it does work, we will have our own working ghost. tell me what you think :)

I see you haven't taken any physics or advanced math courses :p

first of all common since would tell you that card board wouldn't stand a chance supporting the weight of one leaf blower
let alone 4 or 5.

Second, 4 or 5 leaf blowers would not have enough thrust to compensate for half of the weight involved.

Third, it took teems scientists and engineers decades to come up with a hover craft that could float 3in off of the ground (far from the 2-3 feet required to make a ghost look like its flying)

i hate to be a downer but i doubt that you have the resources or the experience it would take to pull this off.

what you could do is get a moped or dirt bike and build a frame and body around that that would look like a ghost. it would still be cool rollen up to your buddy's house in something like that. :D
 
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I skipped a majority of posts but I made a 'hovercraft' in fifth grade from a circular thin piece of wood, trash bags, duck tape and a leafblower I hvered one to two inches off the ground...so theres so idea that is possible to make something bigger and better than that...
 
this looks exactly like the guy who wanted to build a pelican.

I doubt this will ever. ever. ever work.

sorry to burst your bubble, but ill give you $50 if you can compete a full scale ghost that you can sit on and drive around in that also looks good.

Also, your 15, which means there is a 90% chance you couldnt fund this if your life depended on it.

sorry to burst whatever bubble you had, but this isnt going to work.
 
Reading all the comments, i have finally decided to ditch the first idea, and will try some of the ideas that you guys provided thanks for all the responses. :) probably make it like a hover craft like in myth busters, with the plastic cushion
 
ok i have a heuge fascination with just the physics and the workings of hovercrafts...ive built a total of 5
-3 from legos
-2 from wood

i REALLY suggest starting by making a small scale model

you learn alot doing that

you can use leaf blowers but its all in the skirt

what the skit does is basically act kinda like a guess you can say air cushion
when on the skirt will go ( ) like that and balloon out
the way that it "hovers" is the airflow comes in from under the craft filling the skirt and swoops out and under the skirt giving it lift or Hovering
the problem with them is the steering problem- flaps are used to control the steering
easy ways to rig them are a air box in with your air blowing in the box and a pipe system distributing air evenly into the bottom of the craft and depending how hard itsblowing you can use it for propulsion... i havnt had luck with this yet but ive seen it, another is just use another one to push but i suggest the airbox method to bring in the air and then pipeline it to distribute the air

if i can find some pics of mine ill post them but def do your research and modle it
 
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