This one guy had a dream that we've all had at one point or another: to see flying cars become a reality.
More or less, humanity has failed in this regard to properly achieve such a lofty aim, but then again,
some will still keep trying in order to achieve the future, today. This is one of those stories:
Delorean Hovercraft Project by Matthew Riese -- Kickstarter
Said guy (Matthew Riese) has put years of effort, planning, and design into his pet project here, but the thing is, making a flying car is anything but cheap. So what he is asking from any willing and kind random folks like us is a little booster capital of funds to help his project become a bona-fide American reality. There is only two weeks left in the donation drive, so here is hope (and four dollars!) that I can finally state that I helped usher in the dawn of jetsetting commuter-sedan traffic. To learn more about his ultimate goal, click the link/article above, or continue reading the synopsis below (also, video!):
author's comments:
Welcome to my project!
It's the year 2010, a new decade is upon us, and the question everyone is asking is, "Where is my flying car, already?!" What I'm building isn't a car, and it doesn't "fly", exactly, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I'm building a hovercraft that looks exactly like a Delorean. If you're like me, when you saw the flying Delorean in Back to the Future, you thought, "I want one of those!" I think this dream has been brewing since I thought that as a kid, and a few years ago I decided to just build one.
click to show
I started building two years ago and finished what I am calling a "rough draft" version just 4 months later. As you can see from my video, it looked like a Delorean and it did hover, but it was actually quite rickety and unsafe. So for the past 20 months I've been re-building it from the ground up. It is coming along nicely and should be sturdy, safe, and professional looking when finished. But now I'm totally out of money with about 3 months of work left to do, and I'm hoping you would be generous enough to help me finish it! My goal is to raise $5,500 for construction materials and labor costs.
When it is done, the craft will be able to hover on anything flat (asphalt, sand, water, etc), but it will be mostly driven on the San Francisco Bay. The hovercraft is registered with the DMV in California as a boat (it is not street legal). The top speed should be around 45 mph, which is pretty impressive for a vehicle with no breaks (it's not touching the ground, remember!). If you have never seen a hovercraft, the basic concept is that a fan pushes air underneath the middle of the craft and a "skirt" (basically a flexible inner-tube around the perimeter of the craft) traps that high-pressure air under the craft, which lifts it off the ground. Some air is escaping under the skirt at all points at all times, so in theory, even the skirt isn't actually touching the ground/water (in reality the skirt drags on the ground occasionally). A second fan pushes air behind the craft, driving it forward. Rudders behind this thrust fan turn the craft.
Just in case you were wondering, the craft will not be able to reach 88 mph and so I won't be installing a flux capacitor. Of course, if it was a real time machine I wouldn't be asking you for money, I would be just winning a lot of horse-racing bets!
Thanks for checking out my project!
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kickstarter.]