It's a bit quiet in the EEC this week, most of the usual suspects are off enjoying an early break for the holidays. While I'm in the office and actually doing some work, I'm in a bit of a relaxed mode...it's amazing to me how productive you can be when (a) no one else is around; and (b) you are on your own time and thus not accountable for the amount of progress. My guess is that my brain at least works a bit better when I'm doing something for work that I enjoy enough to spend "my time" on it.
 
Anyway, since I'm in relaxed mode, around lunchtime I called up my Dad and chatted a bit. At some point the conversation turned to the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. A recent episode I watched had a bit about "build your own levitation machine" which basically turned into a competition between the show hosts to see which could build the better personal hovercraft for $500 in "household items". They actually did a reasonable job for the budget (and of course both cheated on the budget).
 
So Dad and I are chatting a bit about this, we both like to build stuff and who knows, a hovercraft could be an interesting "father/son" project or at least an interesting way to break a limb or two. As we are chatting I do a google search on "hovercraft" and quickly come to Universal Hovercraft website. While much of what they have on the site looks pretty cool, the UH-18SPW provoked a bit of a conversation. Both dad and I quickly envisioned one of these going at the rated 50-70 mph and clipping a wing...either the wing would hold and you'd be subjected to the g forces of a very rapid turn or the wing would not hold and you'd be screwed (I feel justified using screwed here as it is also descriptive of what would be happening as the remaining wing continued to provide lift and forward motion dipped and continued). Needless to say, if Dad and I do end up tackling a hovercraft in the future, we'll probably stay away from this model (initially at least). On the referenced web page there is a pretty cool picture (third from the very bottom) that appears to have the UH-18SPW jumping over another hovercraft...I hope that's just a camera angle...or that they at least got some good video.
 
All the thought of hovercraft reminds me of a sign that was at the dropzone, "If you're going to be stupid, you've got to be tough."