Air Cushion Craft Development. First Revision

Download or read book Air Cushion Craft Development. First Revision written by Peter J. Mantle and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A technical summary is given of the development of air cushion craft from their inception to the present day. The designation 'air cushion craft' encompasses any craft that relies on a cushion of air for a significant part of its support and operates in close proximity to the surface. The technical summary covers both aerostatic craft known as air cushion vehicles (ACV) and surface effect ships (SES) as well as aerodynamic craft such as wing-in-ground effect vehicles (WIG). Other variants are included in the review. Where possible, the various available theories empirical laws, and experimental data have been brought together and expressed in unified form. Emphasis has been given to reducing the data and analysis to their simplest forms for easy understanding and isolation of fundamental parameters. In the interest of historical accuracy, care has been taken to cite the original work on any particular theory or piece of data. To make this report readily available, in some instances it has been necessary to avoid the use of classified or proprietary data but this has not been hampered the citing of original work. Currently operational craft, those still in their construction jigs, or in some cases those still on the drawing board are assessed and compared to the basic theories to give a measure of the state-of-the-art.