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Hi, folks,
A few weeks ago, Elroy Davis unveiled his
Cam-XT Hovercar. The Cam-XT uses minifig seats as fins, a great trick that he
showed us all a year earlier on his Hover
Sleds.
The Cam-XT reminded me how cool I thought those Hover Sleds were, when I first
saw them. So I finally built one. I gave it to my son to play with, and he
promptly broke the tail off. This got me thinking that I should build a more
rugged version, in which the tail attaches to the model by more than a single
stud.
Once I decided to make one change, I ended up making lots. Here’s the final
result...
...and, if you care to read my ramblings, here’s some commentary. (I don’t do
MOCPages, not yet at least, so comments go here on Lugnet.)
As I said, my first objective was to design a more secure tail. Next, I looked
at those big jet engines and said, “Hover sled? Look at those engines!
‘Sled’ sounds too gentle. I bet that engines that size could give the driver
serious whiplash.” Off to the WWW went John the Nerd, who soon discovered that
jet engines producing as little as 400 Newtons (about 100 pounds) of thrust
exist today, and they’re only about as big as your arm. Handwaving, I would
estimate that the engines on the Hover Sled could each generate about 1800 N of
thrust. Vrroomm!
I decided to make the seat back higher, so that the model at least gave the
illusion of supporting the minifig’s back and head. I also decided that the
main deck needed to be beefed up. I added a few greebles to the underside, and
changed the handlebars. Finally, I changed the cowling piece from a Bionicle
face to a shoulder armor piece, which looks more aerodynamic.
When I make a model this small, I can never make just one. As you can see, I
made four. My son is having a good time with these. Why is the guy on the
white bike wearing the fancy shirt and a headset? I don’t know, my kid put him
there. Is he taking a phone call while he drives? Shame, shame! Or maybe
not... I can justify it, read on...
I made two variations of the bike: a standard model, and the law-enforcement
model. Notice that the civilians are wearing no protective gear? I envision
the standard model as being a “dumbed-down” version of the one driven by the
cops. The civilian bike has the same engines as the cop’s bike, for
responsiveness at low speeds. But the civilian bike is equipped with
Segway-like safety features, and hazard-avoidance radar.
This would make it safe for even a klutz to ride, but its speed cannot exceed
120 km/hr. And it would be safe to take a phone call while you’re moving.
The police bike has a bigger power pack (those bulges under the tail). It’s
armed -- laser cannons protrude through the openings in the front cowling.
Importantly, it has none of the nanny features found on the civilian bike. The
police bike can hit 190 km/hr -- but you do have to actually know how to drive.
So, the main difference between the civilian bike and the police bike is just
software. I imagine that there would be a black market for firmware upgrades
that defeat the safety features on the civilian bikes...
PLMKWYT!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Hover sleds revisited
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| (...) Very cool! I like how you used the shoulder armor for the cowls. That was one of the things that I was not happy with on my original design. Some of the masks looked like cowls, others just looked like masks. I'll have to try one with the (...) (19 years ago, 17-Feb-05, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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