First parking lot test

On this sunny Easter day I got a chance to head out and test the hovercraft in a parking lot.

Thanks to all the help from Jenny, Wim, Amy, Adrian, Ayse, and Lars!

Everything prepared to go in the morning

Adrian came over early and we loaded the hovercraft into the trailer. The upside down hand cart worked well.  The two of us were able to load it without a significant challenge rolling it up the ramp.

A freshly loaded hovercraft

After loading up hovercraft we headed out for the Redwood City Port Boat Launch

The trailer about to leave the driveway carrying the hovercraft. 

Arriving at the Redwood City Port Boat Ramp

The launch permit for the day. 

After a break for brunch we returned and rolled the hovercraft out of the trailer. And tried it out.

We started testing travelling using the docking lines. And it hovered for over a minute. And we crossed the puddle uneventfully! Here's the view from the trailer.

Unfortunately if you listen closely at the end the lift propeller fell off again.

So we found the right wrenches again and disassembled the lift engine again. I had tightened the bolts pretty hard but I guess it could have had more.

Unmounting the engine in the field

The propeller collet after falling off the engine shaft.

There was only a little scuffing on the bottom of the blade this time. It didn't fall all the way off the shaft as it hit the deflector baffle for the skirt.

We got started reassembling the engine and decided to use a larger wrench to make sure the bolts were tighter. However the 15" wrench handle prooved too strong for the collette bolt. See below...

The broken bolt

Unfortunately this brought the test to an end since the other half of the bolt remains in the collet and there's no way to secure the collett securely anymore.

I think I need to find a new mechanism for securing the propeller.