Rudy Heeman's 'Flying' Hovercraft

New Zealander (he's half Australian) Rudy Heeman has, over 11 years, transformed his hovercraft into a wing in ground effect vehicle, and now it's for sale. Heeman says he's found the ideal flight altitude under the vehicle's 7-meter wingspan to be about 1.5 meters, over flat water or land, where he reached a top speed of about 60 mph in a test.

[fredghusby]

Even today Rudy Heeman are way ahead of others. The combination of a hovercraft and WiG with detachable wings-near-ground is ingenious. Both technologies have some downsides. The combination solves some of them

[totalitaer.]

I love the wings with the zippable cover. Thats a great idea.

[KjetilBalstad]

@ftutbs
This is not a plane, it is based on ground effects for flying. A high wing design would not work as the wings would not generate enought lift. Even if the wings has no aileron it is not unstable, again, thanks to ground effects. If one wing dips the pressure will push it back up. You could go for an hydrofoil, but that is not really comparable to this.

[rogerklinck]

I love it. And I designed and developed products like this as an Engineer for years. Very cool.

[hogey]

I don't know who got there first but universal hovercraft do something very similar called the hoverwing. This Kiwi guy has better wing design though plus extra refinements. I reckon there would be a market for something like this as a commuter-type vehicle for harbour/river cities - The islands off Auckland for example.

[frackcha]

@cosminso1230 oh my pause the video at 1:24, you can see the ducted fan (the round thing behind the passenger) just behind that there are two rudders, if you have the video paused, look at the white thing with the red writing at the top, those two rudders change the direction of airflow, turning the craft....

[Passingthrew]

They actually got the 'plane' up and flying. It was known in the West as the 'Caspian Sea Monster', or something like that. It was not until after the end of the Cold War that details were released. There was a documentary about it on the TV some time back. It was a 'Ground/Wave Effect' aeroplane and was very quick for its size and concept.

[podiodi]

Ahh... to sail above the traffic of the 405...
Where can I get one?

[aybss]

Him: we are landing in the Hudson. Control tower: wait what?

[frackcha]

@cosminso1230 "how does the hovercraft part of this turn? what does it use to turn left and right when it hovers???"

your kidding right??? you can see the rudders clearly at about 1:20...

[alfbittner]

Outstanding Rudie. I've always had this idea of getting my fishing boat in the air. So often we would be 20ks out and the conditiond would change, and it was a slow rough trip home. Are you producing?, what is their fuel capacity, ie distance in the air?, would a moderate sea affect take off and landing?, how much?. Cheers.

[ccccen]

5ft of the ground is good enough the Hover Craft people made this but this one looks more up to date while HC looks like a backyard mechanic invention. where can I get one ?

[Dirksechzehn]

The idea is way older, even Universal Hovercraft is copying. His idea is, as I understand, the quick lightweight conversion of a small hovercraft into a flying thing, so you could transport it on a standard trailer.
But they all suffer from waves, you're lost when you can't start again from your target area.

[foxboy]

is the military going to persuade him to sell it to them??

[highvoltagefeathers]

I'd think it would be dangerous to leave ground effect with no yaw control, seems he has it worked out though.

[johnnyllooddte]

ive been trying to build something like this for years

[Mizuok]

Russia developed a military aircraft like this back in 1960 using the 'ground effect' to hover over the water going up to 300mph, but project was canceled due to lack of funding so this isn't anything new.

[PistonDriven]

Yeah. Genius defined as "Why the f**k didn't I think of

[koff]

fagan7 A family in Illinois says they have a similar hovercraft.

[chestateegold]

it seems a little bit risky, but very cool