Here are a couple of renders of the progress I've made on my hover platform. These are only basic textures not the final ones (I have to make up a camoflage texture). As always feel free to comment. mike

Next render.

And a detail of the engine. I still need to add the controls and the spark plugs, but I happy with the way it's rendering so far.

How do you control this thing. Can I get an optional seat. I hate to stand for long peroids of time. Nice looking engine! How easy is it to fall into the spinning blades.

Thats really coming along nicely, great engin!

Wow, really really nice!

Yeah, don't forget the screens above and below the blades. Maybe 3/4 inch mesh, expanded metal. If the blade rotates counter-clockwise when viewed from above, the platform will also try to rotate. They prevent this in hovercrafts by having complementary fans, but I don't know how to prevent it in a one-blade system without a small stabilizer blade, like a helicopter.

Looks really sweet to me! Keep it up. -Kix

Two contra rotating fans would do the trick. Two fans turning in opposite directions on the same shaft would negate the torque effect (if you want total reality, I wouldn't bother personally!).

Actually looking at the patent paper again (on the web) and at the picture of the actual machine, I see it does have counter rotating blades. Since this isn't an accurate model (just aloosely based on the real platform) I'm going to leave that off for now (see the attached photo for the real platform in flight). As to controlling it, the actuall craft was controlled by leaning into the direction of travel. The blades acted as a gyroscope to keep it from tilting over. THe only real controls were a throttle to adjust the speed of the fan for rise and desent. I've taken several liberties, such as a 4 cylinder motor opposed to a two cylinder motor, and moving the gas tank behind the pilot, assuming it would be used in combat this seems slightly more protected that the orginal. There weren't any screens on the original but that seems like a reasonable add-on if the machine was ever put into production. mike mike

Attached Link: Hiller Flying Platform

Mmm. The model is great! The idea is good fun too! But I do not think something like this ever flew for real. Your photo looks suspiciously like a retouche/illustratin job. The platform has too deep blacks, according to the rest of the photo, there is less noise in the platform, it is sharper then anything else in the picture, the perspecive seems a little off and there is a strange repeating black dot on the left and right of the picture. And the cables that supported the thing are gone. This probably seemed like a good idea in 1960, but I guess reality kept rearing it's ugly head. The closest humanity has come to this was the hoovercraft (maybe based on these experiments?) Nice idea to revamp this fun part of aviation history!

My memory -- faulty as it likely is! -- was that it was only flown once off the tether, and for a very short hop indeed. It turned out to be very unstable and quite a bit dangerous to be on. Come to think, tho, that's the sort of thing extreme athletes seem to be getting into nowadays.

Attached Link: http://www.millenniumjet.com/

Admittedly this is a meant to be a device from "an avenue untravelled". I'm just positing what would a production version look like if it had been practical. Personal flight is one of those things that's fun to dream about. Attached is the next project on my list the Solotrek, another "failed" personal flight rig. Although in this case it seems to be re-emerging under the name of the "springtail" by a new company, see the link. If that works out it's on to jet/rocket packs. mike

I want one of those for christmas! Brilliant toys, what a blast!