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Here's the story...
Of the maiden voyage...
Of a Vanguard heading out into the swamp....
(to be sung to the theme from Gilligan's Island.....
oh never mind, it was a dumb idea!!!)
I have been working feverishly for the last two or three weeks to get the craft ready for the long memorial day weekend. I planned
on taking a couple extra days off of work so I could have plenty of time to test and enjoy what I have been working on for so long.
Of course when Saturday, May 27 rolled around I still wasn't ready to go hovering. So I continued working hard through the day,
that night and into the next day. Sunday, just after lunch I reached a point where the craft was actually operational. I had all the
gauges I needed except the Tach, the steering system seemed to work fine, the engine started and ran like a champ and I had
decent seating arrangements made. I figured I could touch up the paint and tend to a few other details during the next few weeks while I make any of the adjustments that I found the craft needed during testing.
 So after deciding that it was time to learn to fly, the wife and I packed our things and headed to our
property in central Florida to spend the rest of our extra long weekend. We have some real nice neighbors with very large pastures that offered to let us try our first flights in. I thought it might easier
to learn how the craft would respond on the ground before heading onto a body of water. Besides, I had hoped to launch into our canal later and I thought I should get a little maneuvering experience
since it can be a little tight in places.
Monday, May 29
It rained real hard off and on all day. We finally got some of that wet stuff that everyone has been waiting so long for. The
problem is that it only rained 1.50 inches and that's no where near enough to make any changes here. It was enough to knock down some of the dust so we could play with the craft on land a little.
Tuesday, May 30
Well, the pasture sure was fun! I learned that any little slope causes you to slide downhill real fast, and believe me, there is definitely not much level ground out there! So it was "Watch out for the trees.", "Don't hit the
fence!", "Hey, the cows just got in the way!", "There's a rock over there!" and then there was the grass and dirt that was getting kicked up and blown all over us! WOW! What a ride it was. We
were sliding a little sidewards a couple times when we came down off cushion and it tended to make for a rather abrupt stop! When we had had enough and tried to get out through the gate, a
half dozen cows ended up blocking our path. They kept looking at us funny as I kept inching our way towards them, trying to encourage them to let us get by. I wonder what they thought of this
thing that was causing such a stir in their normally tranquil life of constant grazing?
Now it was the time for the real test. We went into our neighbor's backyard and slid the craft down into the canal. This was the
same place he launches his airboat so I figured it should be a breeze, even though there was little if any water. Well we started
out just fine until after a hundred yards we had to make a turn and there was 5 foot grass growing in the bend. Well, of course  we got hung up so I had to get out and push the craft over just a little. To get the craft to move I
had the engine on a high idle to keep a little air under the skirt and the hull off the ground. I was leaning on the bow and asked the wife to idle it back down and then Uh Oh! She goosed it instead
and I ended up standing in the slimy swamp muck up to my knees! At least I still had my shoes on when I climbed back into the craft but oooooh, what an awful mess! Okay, lets get on with it.
We got around the corner, and started going along quite nicely until the grass started getting tall. We went as far as we could and finally had to turn around when we reached the main canal. The
grass was between 4 and 5 feet tall in places. We did quite well as long as the grass was only 1 to 2 feet tall. If we had
momentum, we could keep moving but the grass really slowed us down and we stopped pretty quick when it got much taller than two feet.
Well back up on land again. (Not that we really left it, as dry as the canal is right now!) We had another place on the canal that
we knew we could launch from that was quite a bit further along, so we walked down there to check it out and the grass seemed pretty short for quite a long way. We half flew and half pulled the craft through the woods until we
got to our second launching site in the canal. Well, it sure looked good once we got there. We fired up the craft and started on our way. Some 4X4s had actually driven down through this section
of the canal so we thought it couldn't be to bad. Well their ruts (which were pretty deep in a few places) knocked us off cushion if I was crossing them at an angle and going to slow. So I kept
things moving and we went a little over a quarter mile, but again, we ran into real tall grass. If you look at the hi-res pictures carefully, you can see the path where I made it through the shorter grass
and knocked it down a little. The grass seemed to be growing wherever there was still lots of moisture and wherever there was
quite a bit of sunlight getting down to the canal bed. Well, back we went, although this time we felt much better for the distance
that we had covered. I do know that once we get some rain, and the airboats start going through the canal again, the grass will
get knocked down and I will be make it without any trouble at all. We've just had such a dry year that the water levels are the
lowest they've been in almost a hundred years. Well, we took a break after we got back to our launch site and decided that the
only real way we were going to go hovering this weekend was to find a boat ramp and launch into the river in a more traditional
way. We did find that the craft still tended to blow a lot of debris forward. It seemed to be reduced if we put our weight way
forward but that was a little bit of an awkward position to sit in. It was the beginning of my first suspicions of a skirt trim problem.
Wednesday, May 31
It was off to the boat ramp at the river! We decided that since the water levels are so low that the actual ramp was to steep and  to short to use. We decided to launch in the sand next to the ramp where it wasn't nearly as steep
backing into the water. The trailer worked out real well. Most of you haven't heard about my trailer, its a converted hobie cat trailer that I built a 7.5' X 15' planked deck on. I used 1X4 pressured
treated deck planks but I did end up covering it with a skin of thin plywood. When the planks finished drying out they had to much gap between them for the craft to hover over. Since adding the
plywood it has ended up being perfect for launching the craft although I do want to add a winch and hinged sides to it. After the first launch (YES!!! It does float! And I didn't forget to put in the drain
plugs!) I pulled it over to the side and got ready for my first try over the water. I fired up the engine and let it warm up, probably
longer than I needed to but naturally I was a little nervous about venturing out over water for the first time. The beach was nicely
sloped so when I increased the rpm and the craft started to lift, she slid off sidewards into the water very nicely. As I started to pull away I seemed to be having a very difficult time getting the craft to turn out away from the
shore. Suddenly I realized I had forgotten to pull the ruder stop blocks I had made to limit the rudder movement when I trailered it. Oh great, now I'm out in deeper water, can't get back to shore
and I'm not keen on the idea of swimming in waters known for live gators! I shut down the engine and climbed onto the rear deck. I was very impressed that it continued to float very high even with
my weight on it. That was a very good feeling. Well, I couldn't reach around the prop guard far enough to get to the stop blocks but the wind had turned us back towards shore so I climbed back
in and fired up the engine and was able to get back onto the shore. Out came the blocks, and off we went again.
I made a nice gentle turn out into the river and off to the right. I then proceeded to center myself up in the middle. I inched up
the throttle and and we started going forward. It seemed like a very long time before we got "over the hump" but I thought maybe
the skirt needed a little time to drain out all the water (again, I later came to realize this might be a sign of a skirt problem).
Anyway, we were cruising along pretty good, we were making about 18 mph at cruise and 24 mph full throttle according to my
GPS. Now instead of getting dirt and grass coming at us, we started getting sprayed with much more water than we were
supposed to get, at least according to the manufacturer. Now I began to realize that there may be a big problem somewhere. If
I eased in on the bow skirt dump ports and leaned way forward the spray almost went away completely. I got to thinking, it
seemed like I had to trim away an awful lot of the bowskirt when I first did the skirt trim according to the plans and videos. But
then I also got to thinking that I had to adjust the rear skirt splitter bar and I may have left the skirt flap a little to long when I
attached it to the bar. So maybe the rear skirt is "sagging" to far to the rear causing the skirt to act as an anchor and also
lowering the stern and causing the bow to run a little to high. Well, we're on the water now, it floats, it gets on hover and it moves, so we're here to stay and have fun for awhile.
 After about 15 minutes of running down the river we came back to the ramp to gives things a good
check out. Everything still seemed tight, we were relatively dry, and we had a couple of cold sodas. Off we went again! This time we went up the river to try and find our canal from the other
end. We started out and there is definitely a problem with the skirt, or the engine sure is missing a lot of power! I could hardly get up over the hump and if there was a little headwind I needed to use
a very shallow spot in the river to get up enough speed to get over the hump. If you followed my construction, you know I added three extra fan blades to help with the gross capacity of the craft. I
think they are robbing me of more horspower than I expected and keeping my engine rpms down to low to build up enough
thrust. Well, we eventually made it about 4 miles up the river before we got stopped by an impass. The river is so low that in
certain places the water must be flowing underground since there was no visible water, just wet dirt. The problem was, the wild
hogs had visited one of these places before we did and it looked like a giant rototiller had gone through. It was worse than the
4X4 ruts we saw earlier and there was absolutely no way to get through! We had gone through another spot just before we got to
the "hog wash" that was very narrow and required me to dump a lot of bow skirt air and plow in the nose to maintain good
steering control. You can see in the picture that it was almost like driving through a maze trying not to run into the rocks and
cypress roots along the shore. We did take a short break there to look at the beauty of the place. I must admit, if we had any real problems there would have been quite a wait before some help would have come along. Along
the way we got to see eight gators from about 3 feet long to 7 feet long. When we came up on one of them, he decided to take off in the same direction as we were going. We ended up kind of
chasing him for about 75 feet before he dove off to the side. It was very interesting to see how fast he can swim and then change course! It created a much greater respect for those guys, you can
bet on it! We also saw lot of turtles, Ospreys diving for fish and lots of other wild Florida sites and sounds. It was really great afternoon. We checked out a side canal that led into a reasonable
sized lake but the wind had picked up and there was no way we were going to get up a good hover out there. So we came back
down the canal and headed back to the boat ramp. It was a great day, even though the craft did not perform as well as I had
hoped. But that is what the testing is all about, right? Next time will be much better after I make some of the improvements.
When we got back I beached the craft to the wondering eyes of some people that had shown up to fish from the dock while we
were gone. Thank goodness the aproach and landing on the shore went like I had been doing it forever! Chalk one up for  beginners luck. Well, it was time to load the craft and pull on out. Our extra days were almost
gone and we still had to go pack up camp before going home. Loading the craft back on the trailer went pretty well except the first attempt loadng it back on the trailer, the trailer sunk into some
muck and it had to be moved over before I could get the craft loaded onto it. Once it was loaded, it was up to the pavement for tiedown and off to camp to get ready to go home. Overall, I would consider the weekend a success. Maybe it is
better that I did have some of these problems so that I have a better understanding of the dynamics of how the craft works and what it takes to make it run more
efficiently. I think that with a little rear skirt adjustment, removal of a few fan blades and maybe adding an inch back onto the bottom of the bow skirt, the craft will perform as designed and to my
expectations. I think the modified Sevtec Vanguard was the best choice I could have made for my first air cushion vehicle.
If anyone actually reads through this whole story and still wants more information on my experience and trip, please feel free to send email to me, Phil Stockman at phil@ttt-ranch.net. I hope everyone gets as much fun and enjoyment out of their craft as I
have had, and will continue to have, with mine.
Happy Hovering to all!
As I make my modifications and conduct more tests, I will continue to
write and update these pages. Check back every so
often for additional changes.
Thank you. |
