What forms of power would you use to make a vehicle hover?

Question

Blades like a helicopter? Jets? Fans? antigravity?

If you were trying to make a flying car lets say?

let say 2/3 feet

and 2-4 people

So brianW can you give me a more in depth explanation im really interested?

How would you get a 1 and 1/2 ton piece of metal and such to lift purley off magnets?

And how would it be able to stay just 2/3 feet off the ground instead of 1/2 inch or 100 feets?

Answer 1

Anti-gravitational generators and warp drives. UFO's been using 'em for eons. Power derived from matter/anti-matter baryogenesis process.

Answer 2

If I were trying to build something for 'today' or the very near future, I'd say ducted fans. Hovering, such as a hovercraft performs uses a cushion of air under the vehicle. Helicopter blades are great for helicopters, but for 2-3 feet hover ducted fans are just fine. Jet exhaust is too hot, but a fan has a similar amount of thrust available with less heat. The fan would still be powered by a turbine.

If you mean decades from now, then antigravity is obviously a nicer choice.

Answer 3

Air has been used to death! It’s time for a new approach. Everyone knows there is a magnetic field around the Earth, and everyone knows what happens if you place similar poles of magnets together, they repel. I would harness that. First you need to know the orientation of the magnetic field of the point at which your car is at (it changes over the surface of the planet), then you design your hover car around an electromagnet that you can adjust the field. The electro magnet would have to continually adjust as you move. Now that you are hovering, you can take these same principles and use them for propulsion (Like a liner motor on a monorail (which actually hovers over a magnetic track, I’m just removing the track)).

--Additional

Magnets are extremely strong. You must have seen the electromagnets they use at dumps. They can lift cars and whatever with no problem. The same holds true when magnets are repelling each other. Even a refrigerator magnet is extremely difficult to push up against a repelling magnet. With an electro magnet, you can control the magnetic field strength by varying the power applied to the magnet. By controlling the applied power, you can control the height at which you hover. More power = higher hover. However, the more power you apply, the heaver the wires need to be (larger gauge to handle the power). The bigger the wires, the heavier (weight) they are, the more you have to lift. This will limit the practicality to a foot or so.

The larger problem is not so much hovering, but stability. If you have ever played with a superconductor, you know how hard it is to get it to stay balanced and floating. Just like placing two opposing magnets. If you fix one to the ground, and try to push the second down on it, it tends to slide to the side. This is the same problem the military had when designing the aerocar mentioned in "Impavidus's" answer. When their car was floating on the cushion of air, it tends to slide to the side making it hard for even a very experienced pilot to control. Back then they didn't have fly-by-wire, with computers helping the pilot fly. The same thing happened with the first flying wings, too many control surfaces for a pilot to control. But thanks to computers and fly-by-wire, we now have the B2. Such technology now exists, and is necessary for controlling this design. Feel free to e-mail me through my answers profile it you would like to discus it further.

Answer 4

For something that hovers any more than a few inches will need jet turbines.

If you just want to hover a few inches, Your craft should be shaped like a big turbine wheel with the blades angle at about 60° to the left, and then have a massive fan, much the same as a turbine that your craft is shaped like, except have the blades facing 60° to the right. When the blades spin, the shape of your craft will prevent the torque from spinning your craft not just the blades. The US military actually built something like this but abandoned the project because the right technology hasn't yet been invented... :(

Answer 5

How high do you want to hover? A hovercraft for 2-4 people will hover in the 8-12 inch range, using gas engines turning props and a pressurized plenum chamber. The Moller Skycar uses 4 ducted fans and a whole bunch of investor money, and I think they've made it up 20-30 feet. A helicopter - well, you know that one already.

Answer 6

Easy to construct: Blades like helicopters.

Practical to use: Fans powered by electric motors whose batteries are charged by a diesel engine (like trains and submarines)

Future: Magnets. Pave the road with magnetized iron (or metal alloy) and have the cars hover using magnets.

Theoretical: Whatever magic potion Start Trek uses to create gravity (which never fails despite the loss of life support and major damage to the ship) but turn it upside down. I belive that it is possible to assemble such a device (anti gravity), which I believe would be based mostly on chemistry and electronics--not mechanics.

Answer 7

Air to push it off the ground and it would have to be constant and at a certain level to not fly off. Or of course magnetism where the poles push each other off the ground and you hover over a certain distance. anti gravity is still far off, I think. blades need a lot of power and electricity.

Answer 8

magnetics and thrust