Taking Rubber Off the Road

Think of this. A normal car can produce easily .7 G of lateral force in a turn. Very handy when trying to avoid a potential accident. Same with braking.

Can you imagine how much thrust would be required to do the same thing to overcome the momentum of a hovercraft? Let's just say that your spec for the hovercraft is to stop from 60 mph to 0 in six seconds. That is the same thrust you need to go from zero to 60 in six seconds. Even a jet can't do that!

"eliminating rolling resistance could dramatically alter vehicle efficiency and use of fuel."

I think you are missing something. True -- as far as forward movement is concerned, you have less friction and so require less fuel. But your hovercraft requires movement in another direction - up. How much energy does it take to life a vehicle and hold it up in the air? Compare that to a car which requires zero energy in that direction.

If you would like to stop, you could lower the vehicle onto the road using a traditional set of wheels and brakes.

Requiring even more fuel...to lift and lower-under-control the weight of the wheels and brakes...?

Maybe a thrust reverser is a better starting point?

Very doubtful that Festo company's efforts has any connection whatsoever to private, roadway using motor vehicles (as opposed to government/military applications), nevertheless...

..seems the topic starter leads us up (or should I say down?) a blind alley with this one: because, in loosely using the word, vehicle, it implies that it is (primarily) cars (and trucks) which are the types of vehicles against which the Vector's merits should be compared; a comparison which renders the topic a bit pointless since the only possible "dramatic alteration" of vehicle and fuel-use efficiency must needs be an alteration towards decreased vehicle efficiency (meaning the vehicle is "efficient" only in so far as it stays at or near its point of departure), and decreased fuel efficiency (in that more fuel must, inescapably, be consumed to go ever shorter distances). Said another way, the only benefit of any Festo sponsored "breakthrough" in steering of hover craft cannot accrue to automobiles, per se, unless that breakthrough (or this discussion) leads to a change of the laws of physics. Another fallacy in attempting to relate the hovercraft improvement to road vehicles derives from the fact that it is resistance (not the lack thereof) that makes it possible for a motor vehicle to move persons and goods quickly between distant points--something that a hovercraft, by its very nature (and no matter how maneuverable), is unable to do...because it does not have the benefit of rolling resistance to propel it in the direction of travel.

As to the reduction of rolling resistance in a paved-road, point-to-other-point transportation paradigm, any quest for reduced rolling resistance has long since been solved: steel wheels on steel rails...as in railroad trains. So what benefit could come of better steering (of a hovercraft) if the steering innovation is to be used where the steered vehicle is worst fit to be used to begin with? None. Does this mean the quest for better hovercraft maneuverability has no possible applicability to road vehicles? No, but it does require that the topic must center, not on hovercraft attributes vs. automobile attributes, but on roads vs. no roads. Thus the question becomes: how might a more maneuverable hovercraft (fleet), operated (as by design intention) over any terrain or (liquified/ crystallized) water surface (including paved terrain so long as...no cars to interfere with its movements, or it with them), be used to obtain a net reduction of inefficiencies (of wasted costs) caused by rolling resistance in automobile fleets? The most obvious...would be the potential for reduction of distance travelled to get from one point to another: whether enough distance could be eliminated from an average (roadway) excursion by the hovercraft's striking out across country--enough to offset the automobile's inheritently greater motion efficency and fuel economy. Another point of comparison might entail the cost of infrastructure acquisition, development and maintenance itself: whether it might be possible to (1) eliminate existing roadway infrastructure &or (2) avoid outlays for development of new roadway infrastructure; and whether or not, on balance, any "savings" realized by doing so--and any $benefit of the alternative use of the "reclaimed" road real estate--would more than offset decreased mileage efficiency of any hovercraft fleet that might replace an automobile fleet.

Having said all that, I now envision one application in which the (slightly modified) Vector, with its improved steering and floating on its cushion of air, could provide a useful augmentation to the automobile fleet: as a parking lot vehicle. For instance, (since turning radius is eliminated) the entire surface of a (much smaller) parking lot could be used--you'd simply exit from the top of your Vector and walk across the tops of (walkways provided on) other vehicles to exit the lot. When closed to normal traffic and parking, parking lots could become all-weather family entertainment arenas where, for a gate admission, Vectors could enter and just hover about gleefully, or even engage in bumpercraft contests with other Vectors. Just like bumpercars at the midway, but no one to pull the plug just when the fun got started.

I feel so let down by your article. The original poster was looking for the positive and fun parts of hovercrafts. Pointing out the advances and the hopes. You have done just what the Old World did to Galileo. Everyone knows that the practicalities outweigh the dreams right now. The same thing happened 100+ years ago when the automobile was in the early stages. Nay sayers be damned. I will only look to the possiblities and see the hopes of the technology. Someday the peices will come together and cars will fly.

Sorry to disappoint; but read the essay again and you might find it's chock full of fun. Why, there's even a "how to play with your hovercraft" how-to guide. One might find the parallel you've drawn between religious and scientific doctrine rather curious: as if, when the horseless carriage was in its infancy, its developers had touted it as a way of no longer needing to build roads. I would venture to say that Galileo was attempting to have his contemporaries open their minds to a new way of perceiving reality, not to an old way of perceiving unreality. Granted that cars will someday fly--they already do. Perhaps the hover craft--which essentially flies without wings--will be the transition vehicle? And, when flying cars replace the hover craft, even more paved roads will need to be built to accommodate all (reconnoitering) pathways that flying cars could take? How then would this (freedom from rolling resistance) lead to a reduction of resource consumption? So you see, then, that the essay was only intended to suggest a paradigm (a fun paradigm, even) in which dream fulfillment might be served by the impracticalities of hovercraft, and not in spite of them.

Has anyone here tried to build this?

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA414124.html?industryid=43664

Should be cool to make it solar.

couldn't open it without accepting magazine solicitations. What was it?

That looks like fun.

Enabling technologies guys! Everyday, as we move forward, new components, materials, designs, are making the distance between concept to reality shorter and shorter. I especially like the idea of thrust vector control (I do agree that this idea and application has been around for a while now - remember those retro-rockets).

Imagine using this same thrust vector system on a regular car, when a car takes a turn at high speed, centrifugal force would tend to 'push' it away from the centre of it's turning radius. Now, have a few thrusters to negate this force, you would actually be half flying this car. What happens is, you are taking part(if not all) of the gripping force away from the tires! Now, move a little forward, place one or two more of these thrusters at the front of car, and if you need to stop like a Viper does, this same thrusters would neutralize large chunk of the decelaration force- and away from the tires too.

Jazzy, I agree with you, some infos on flying cars at my site, check this out: VTOL