Handsome doesn't mean rational: Soviet hovercraft

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the post-war years, people loved to dream about the future, and these fantasies were very daring. Moreover, they often tried to implement ambitious and unique projects that were supposed to be the first step towards a bright technological future. One of them can rightly be considered the development of a real "airplane car" - an air cushion vehicle. Only time has shown that mankind hastened somewhat with such projects - after all, an unusual appearance turned out to be almost the only advantage of a flying car.

After the end of World War II, the American military industry received a second wind - the government began to actively fund various developments aimed at further gaining the upper hand on a potential battlefield. One of the most striking and memorable projects of that period is the 1959 Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car concept, which not so much drives as … flies. And without wheels.

Interestingly, the manufacturer of such an unusual machine, Curtiss-Wrigh, specialized in aviation technology. However, this government order was an exception. The concept of the future car was really promising: it was planned to create a universal vehicle that should be able to drive equally quickly and successfully both on land and on water. And that actually meant the creation of a hovercraft. The engineers at Curtiss-Wright faced a difficult task: to master practically new technology, despite the fact that they had previously been engaged in traditional aircraft.

Nevertheless, the experience in the production of aviation technology helped the developers to create a unique concept. Thus, two Lycoming aircraft engines were used as the "heart" of a flying car, which were located under the hood and under the trunk lid, that is, on both sides of the passenger compartment. The motors, in turn, set in motion two powerful fans - it was they who lifted the car about 38 centimeters from the ground, while the maximum weight that they could withstand was 450 kg.

The history of the creation of the design of a unique car is interesting. The fact is that military projects often did not provide for any aesthetic design of the external appearance of the equipment, however, in this case, the Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car was an exception.

The reason for this decision was the desire of developers in the future to expand the boundaries of the implementation of their concept and bring the car to the civilian market. Therefore, the design of the body and interior of the car was given to the Studebaker-Packard company for development. The result of their work was a body with a transforming roof in the typical American style of that time.

The flying car was controlled as follows: the driver rotated the steering wheel, adjusting additional air nozzles with it in terms of the direction and strength of the air flows - in this way the car could be turned and even slowed down.

The mass of the Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car was 1200 kg - a rather low weight of the car for those times, and it accelerated to 60 km / h, both on land and on water, which was a great success in the middle of the 20th century.

It would seem that the ambitious concept had a lot of potential: already in 1960, the first two Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car were delivered to the US Army for testing. However, in reality, everything was not so rosy - after a few months, the military refused to further introduce the car into the fleet of the armed forces.

The reason was the lack of functionality of the car: it really perfectly "flew" over the ground and on the water, but only if they were even - overcoming most of the relief irregularities became an impossible task for the car.

However, the developers did not give up: they decided to implement their plans to reorient the Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car to the civilian market. They even set about building a smaller version of the machine called the Bee. But this idea remained only on paper. In this case, the high cost of the finished car became a problem: only the cost of the car was more than 10 thousand dollars, and they thought to sell it for all 15 thousand: and for this money, according to Novate.ru, in those days it was possible to buy two Cadillacs of the highest class, and the most expensive of his models.

In addition to the fabulous price and all the same attractive design, as such, the Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car Bee had no advantages: the car's functionality still left much to be desired. Therefore, after a while the project was finally closed.

Today, most of them do not remember the unique concept, and practically no prototypes have survived to this day. One of the surviving copies of the Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car Bee can be seen on display at the Army Transport Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia.