Building a Jet Train

Thanks to the Ecclesborne Valley Railway for their help shooting this video!

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DISCLAIMER: This video is purely for entertainment value. Personal use of video content is at your own risk. Recreations of experiments, activities and projects are the sole legal responsibility of the person(s) involved in replicating them. I can not be liable for any information or misinformation, wrongful use, damage to personal property, death or any circumstances that result from replication of any projects seen. Be safe!

[rexcadral]

You really need to build out a full "oval" track so you can really let this thing off the chain. I think you could make the track more economical by using PVC "trim board", which is inherently flexible, and comes in sizes that are very similar to what you cut your plywood down to. the PVC trim board also bends into gentle curves without complaint. It's often used as a "roadbed" for garden railroads.

[SolarWebsite]

0:34 "powered by fans"

So.... A bit like Patreon? ☺️

[kerrmapolice]

4:16 A few years later hunting oscillation was pretty much solved by British Rail Engineering Limited, who developed the yaw damper (looks like a piston between the train and the bogie). This dampens the oscillations enough that they're not an issue, which enabled the development of high speed trains in Japan, France, Germany and (unsuccessfully) the UK.

[reffmatt]

Enlarge the gap in the middle of the train so it’s adaptable to life sized tracks!! Maybe you can find an inactive train track to test out!

[acidxero]

I certainly don't mean to neg, but I find it interesting that you spent the entire first part of the video addressing the genius of the tapered train wheels that allow them to go around corners, then use the inherent speed limit as a motivator to find a less limited design.. and go to a design that is right back to square one when it comes to being able to go around corners ^_^

You know the lift fans will lift it, you KNOW the jet engine has plenty of thrust to push it.. I guess I'm just not certain what you accomplish with this, outside of a great bit of fun. Which is a perfectly justifiable reason! I love your content, I'm always super excited to see what you've conjured up. I just have this desire to see you do.. more. Please don't take this as anything more (or less?) than constructive criticism <3

[CodeLeeCarter]

Do you know what would have made this really cool? Making the Jet Train run on a single rail of an old railway track.
You could have opened her up and possibly made an airspeed record for a model Jet Train, a little more engineering involved, but maybe something to think about?? cool video, thanks mate.

[philip_fletcher]

The 'cone shaped' railway wheels and the shape of beer barrels have a common origin story. Barrels used to be moved in breweries, manufacturing plants and deliveries on parallel tracks (sound familiar?) and the shape of the barrel ensured they stayed on those tracks at all times. I believe the shape of the railroad wheel was derived from the knowledge gained from moving beer!

[MortenBN]

You should just use an abandoned rail track as a base for your tracks and make them either clamp-on, or magnetically snap-on the rail track. Way more stable and flat than a tripod every x meters.
Also, please do a high-cut filter on the audio with the jet-engine. It is painfully loud in the high frequencies. Currently have 8 random dogs barking outside my front door. :P

[kenbb]

I'd really like to see this go down a longer track at high speed. Also, it wouldn't be a ProjectAir project if the vehicle didn't crash or explode at some point.

[Glydaire]

4:58 There's 2 details that can make a big difference for a practical momentum curtain craft.

The outer jet being angled in at approx 45 degrees makes a more effective curtain. The inner jet is for stability and massively increases the stable hover height you can get. The "hover pad" maybe isn't the best application for momentum curtain as you don't have enough area inside the curtain to begin with.

An "open plenum" works well as a flat plate with a perimeter lip. A small feed of air to the middle will get you a low but very stable hover without the added complexity of the jet nozzles. For a smooth test track I'd wager it's better.

[ihmusic]

Since you've already established that the train can hover over any surface, I don't think you need to build a longer complete "track" per-se, but rather just find a mostly flat bit of roadway and place your central rail on that surface. Securing that rail to the ground without impeding your train will be a bit of a challenge, of course, but something I think you could figure out! ;)

[michiganengineer]

As others have pointed out, the weak point with this iteration of your model (and I suspect the original design) is turning radius. You could get a tighter turning radius if the lifting pads were individually shorter front to back and the train "car" was articulated (side to side) between the lift points.

[DoctorMandible]

Making it compatible with existing tracks would be much more exciting. It should be possible since tracks have a bulbous shape. Wrap the air cushion around each rail so the pressure remains downward, not shear.

[williamyamm]

Hello from France, great video.
The French Aérotrain was developed in the 60s until the early 80s by the French engineer Jean Bertin.
He built several prototypes.
It reached 515km/h (318 miles/h) in 1981.
Finally the project was abandoned and replaced by the French TGV high speed train.
TGV means "Train à Grande Vitesse" which means "High Speed Train".

[johntate]

Another great project! It would be interesting to see if you could angle the four turbo fans such that you could use one rail of an existing rail track instead of having to build a custom track. If you can get a Harrier to hover by ducting the jet exhaust 90 degrees, perhaps you could use a similar approach to directing the bulk of the ducted fans to the top of the rail with secondary thrust applied to the sides of the rail for stabilization. You would just have to ensure that with the train sitting on the track, the bottom clears all the spikes that hold the track in place.

[Dan_Kornfeld]

Brilliant upload, good fun! The real trick will be getting the train to ride on a curved track. Either the train will have to be short in length, riding on a large turning radius track, or the train will have to be segmented into “cars” to be able to flex on a curved track. Amazing possibilities!
Keep doing what you do 👍‼️

[koosnaamloos]

It would be fun to see this thing fitted to an actual train track

[adeyemia]

This is my first time watching your videos and I am absolutely blown away. Subscribed right away.
I love you guys.

[BartJBols]

Guys, using a U or W shape for a rail instead of a T would probably increase your lifting efficiency, as air blown down would curve around back up the U or W and push the craft twice instead of losing the pressure from the sides.

[davethedog]

RTV31 still exists and is on display in Peterborough. You can just rock and see it on a bit of track. Amazing that nobody seems to know anything about it and it’s just sitting there.