New Idea

[thething84]

I Got some old twin Motors from one of those really cheap polystyrene wings which i scavanged after the thing wouldn't fly. but anyway. back to my idea. :p I am gonna build a really simple wedge front style boat. And mount the motor's at the back to push the boat forward using two aircraft propellers. I did build one already. But stupidly :eek: not thinking about how low the boat would sit in the water and how low the propellers would sit. therfore they were half in the water. Anyways. This time i am gonna build it slightly differently so the motors sit higher. the battery in the fron to help balloence the front out.
Please give me any feedback you have 9on this idea. and any ideas you have which may make it slightly better.
Cheers James

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

What you are describing is an air boat, or a "swamp Boat"
They are popular in the Everglades in the Southern United States
Dumas actually made a couple of kits

Dumas Swamp Buggy (http://www.dumasproducts.com/cgi-bin/dumas.storefront/413b8cb00bc5f382271d40d4096806e0/Product/View/1502)

Dumas Big Swamp Buggy (http://www.dumasproducts.com/cgi-bin/dumas.storefront/413b8cb00bc5f382271d40d4096806e0/Product/View/1505)

Check out these guys also.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_246/tt.htm

Umi

Here are a standard tourist sites of airboat tours.
http://www.bcairboats.com/

And a manufacturer
http://www.air-boat.com/

[Tony Oliver]

You could also try having them 'inline' - one tractor and one pusher as in the Cessna twin (210?). That would solve any problem with fore/aft balance too. One prop would need to be reversed (keep the convex part of the props to the front).

[Ron Olson]

You're too late ofr that one. I saw one about a year ago and the guy had a video of it. It didn't do too bad for what it was! He mounted the pod on a piece of pink foam. If it's too small, cut a larger one in a few minutes.

[P. Tritle]

84, If you run tandem motors, you will want to run a higher pitch prop on the rear than on the front. The reason is, that the air the rear prop is running in is already accelerated, so in effect, the rear prop will offer very little "push" if both props are the same pitch.
I discovered this quite by accident. I converted the Dumas Do335 to electric R/C using an IPS drive on both ends, with 8-6 props on both motors. When the bottom rudder came off in flight, it knocked the rear prop off, turning the model into a single engine airplane. Funny thing is, the model was a ways away, and I thought what had come off was a landing gear door, so I didn't pay any attention to it. You can imagine how sirprized I was when I discovered that it actually was flying on one motor. There was absolutely no difference in the performance on one motor than two!
For what it's worth, PAT