Zero wheels, all awesome - Homebuilt Kiwi 'hovercraft'

Stupefyingly cool. If he hits that price point... Water's not essential, is it, if you have wide open flat lands?

Another link (if it pastes) with video:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Flying-Hovercraft-Inventor-New-Zealand-Mechanic-Rudy-Heeman-Auctions-WIG-Vehicle/Article/201003115563210?f=rss

In what way does this beat out what's already been on the market for years? http://www.hovercraft.com/content/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=53

In what way does this beat out what's already been on the market for years?

$13000 each would be 1/5 the price of the ones you linked to.

I'd love to know how he's figuring his price. A common rule of thumb is that goods have to be manufactured for about 1/4th their final pricetag (though it varies a lot with type of product). A hovercraft contains several inherently pricey components (engines, fan, propeller), and material costs are not trivial for the rest. Getting the labor cost out of fiberglassing, sanding, and finishing is something that boat and aircraft builders have been attempting for many years; I'd guess that he needs to have it down under 40 hours total per unit to break even. Universal Hovercraft estimates 275 hours to build theirs, and it's unlikely that he can cut that in half, much less by a factor of 6 or more, for a comparable machine. But maybe he plans to offer kits just as UH does, in which case I suspect that they'll wind up in the same ballpark. The "military, police, and rescue ONLY" version doesn't really tell us what a civilian / recreational version would cost - but if a quick-build stage 4 kit from UH costs 26kUS$, a wild guess that there are still 150 hours worth of labor, even at $50/hour with overhead has us up around $34k. I can't tell, but the kit PROBABLY doesn't include the engine(s), paint, battery, etc. Under these assumptions, the turnkey recreational version could easily go $50k or more - and it might be nearly as costly as the military one.

To be honest, when I posted, I was looking at the capabilities rather than cost - I'd be the type to buy the plans, scrounge as many items as possible, and build it myself, so not likely I'd spend anything approaching this (I already have two working Subaru engines, for example, that I'm considering for aircraft use).

Have you seen anything that says that the price is in US dollars, or whatever? I can't view all sources from here, but nothing I've seen answers that question for the NZ machine. I doubt that it would make a big difference anyway, so this is more curiosity that actual question.

According to some current conversion web page, $13000 NZD is under $10000 USD. I'm a software guy, so I can only hope he or someone else manages to make the gizmo affordable.

Go look at this, I couldnt see a price any where, but i know there are several builders out there. No limitation to 10 ft height and I bet a darn sight cheaper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aiOiULG8F8&feature=related

You won't see me up in either!

Chas