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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1174.PDF
Air-Cushion Vehicles FLIGHT International supplement, 23 April 1964 information to ACV ferries, which will almost certainly be radar-equipped themselves. Western Australian Crop-spraying ACV Sixty-four provisional orders worth a possible £A 100,000 are reported to have been received by the Western Australian company Cooltemp Airconditioning Ltd for a crop-spraying ACV it is now developing. A subsidiary company is being formed to manufacture the machine. The designer, Mr F. J. Rice, claims that the machine could spray crops up to 18in high without damaging them and that most crops will not be higher than 12in at the time when it is most advantageous to spray them. An 88 h.p. engine will give a top speed of about 50-60 m.p.h. Mr Rice is reported to have said that farmers estimate that the hovercraft will reduce spraying costs by about two- thirds over the cost of conventional aerial crop treatment. The machine is 14ft 6in long and 10ft wide and weighs 7501b unladen. It will carry at least 8001b or 80gal of spray and is considered promising as a general farm runabout in addition to its spraying uses. Derby Hovercraft Week Between April 21-25 the National Trades Technical Society is organizing Derby Hovercraft Week, to show in- dustry and the public in general what ACVs can do, how they work and what type of constructional methods and equipment are employed in them. Last Monday, April 21, a Hovercraft Sym- posium was held in the College of Technology, at which a forward-look- ing paper was read by Mr R. A. Shaw, of the Ministry of Aviation. Mr Shaw outlined the general ACV state of the art, and discussed the potential offered by Hovercraft for all kinds of missions; and he showed a BP film on the same topic. Crevasse-crossing Studies The latest report of the Australian Department of Supply's Aeronautical Research Laboratories gives the first hint of Government-financed ACV work in that country. "Following a feasibility study of the performance of hovercraft over water a problem which seemed to need some experimental in- vestigation was that of stability at high hover heights," the report states. "To this end a complete model of the peri- pheral jet type was made; slots were arranged in the base to produce stable hover; initial testing showed that longi- tudinal stability was excellent but the Stability Three big men and one small woman are so disposed on the UnionDynamics Dynacraft light sidewall ACV to show cogently its remarkable stability at rest. Small chance here of seriously rocking the boat! Pictures of the Dynacraftin action appear on pages 54 and 55 model was unstable laterally. Work on a two-dimensional model indicated that the slot system should be modified; incorporation in the complete model of the arrangement so developed produced the desired stability. A study is now in hand on the ability of the model to pass over a simulated crevasse. Initial results show that the GEM should prove very useful in this regard provided forward speed is maintained; if the model is held stationary over the gap and then released it immediately turns in the direction of the gap and the hover height is reduced." SR.N2 Incident Early this month the SR.N2 suffered a minor powerplant fire which caused slight damage to the engine bay. The outbreak was immediately extinguished by the automatic suppression system and hand-operated extinguishers, and the craft returned without difficulty on three engines to the works at Cowes. She had been engaged in a co-operative training exercise with the Interservice Hovercraft Trials Unit in the Solent. Amateur ACV Builder's Problem Mr Martin Stevens, a 20-year-old photographic student of Rodmersham, near Sittingbourne, Kent, has presented the Ministry of Transport with a pro- blem—by filing the first application to Heaviest Entry in the world's first hovercraft races (see pages 49-55), but a non-starter, wasthis craft by Australia Air Cushion Vehicles Development, of Brunswick, Victoria. With an all-up weight of 1,1501b, it has a 23 b.h.p. BSA motor cycle engine for lift and is propelled bya 40 h.p. outboard. The vane at the bow is to assist steering 47
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