Landshark

An anonymous reader writes "This has got to be, or will be when they actually make one, the coolest amphibious vehicle around. It's a cross between a motorcycle and a jet ski, and it seats three. It can travel at 200 mph on land and 50 mph on water. Just what you need to get you from point A to point B."

Comments

Don't try it !!

[maharg]

If you drive into the water at 200MPH it will get messy

it has to be said

[cr@ckwhore]

(knock knock on the door)

"Who is it?"

(mumbles)

"Who?"

"Unicef"

"Oh, why didn't you say that before!"

(landshark attacks woman who opens the door)

Is It Safe? [apologies to Dustin Hoffmann]

[gowen]

It can travel at 200 mph on land and 50 mph on water. Just what you need to get you from point A to point B."

As long as you don't mind various parts of your body being scattered at points C, D, E and F, and your luggage being at point Z.

It's just a dolphin

[p3d0]

Lady: Who is it?

Landshark: Plumber.

Lady: I didn't hire a plumber. Who is it!?

Landshark: Flowers.

Lady: What... for who

Landshark: Plumber

Lady: ... you're.. that crazy shark aren't you?

Landshark: No maam, I am just a dolphin.. will you let me in please?

Lady: A dolphin! Ok!

Should be pretty neat!

[llamalicious]

Reading that last line on Landshark's homepage, I can only think of the next round of Darwin awards and wonder if should inform Mr. Baker of his nomination. ;)

Here's the google cache if you need it

Durability?

[TamMan2000]

The combined drive system is really clever, but I wonder how it will hold up... The impeller is mounted on the drive wheel, the wheel moves over the uneven surface of the road, and adsorbs shocks from all the bumps, so what I want to know is: how the heck are you going to build impeller seals that will hold up to that and still hold a tight tolerance?

Re:But WHY?

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Poor guy. I bet you never used to draw outside the lines as a child and your apples were always colored red and the sky blue.

"TEEACHER! Johnny colored his apple purple!!!"

Fantasy Propulsion

[jvl001]

I don't see how a centrifugal compressor will drive this thing the way it's been illustrated. Normally a centrifugal compressor takes axial flow and turns it into radial flow. According to the website they are using it to take in water upstream of the hub and blast it out a slot at the rear. They way this thing appears to be designed they are wasting an incredible amount of energy just spinning the flow around inside the rear wheel. I hate to think what cavitation will do to this thing.

Note to landshark guys: It aint a turbine unless you're extracting power from the flow. In your case it's just a centrigual pump. Mount a forward pointing scoop that directs flow down the axis of the pump, then collect _all_ the radial flow and direct it out the exit.

PS. You are driving this thing with the equivalent of the guts of an air-raid siren. How appropriate.

World's fastest clay model

[ahaile]

Notice how there are no real pictures of this thing on the site? That's because the fine print says that it currently exists only as a "1/3rd scale clay model." The history page goes right up to the point (over a year ago) when they were trying to turn that model into a working ... 1/3rd model. Huh, I'll bet I know why the history stops there.

Most revealing line from the history: "Oct 2000, work put on hold as promised investment fails to materialise." That's because the investors realized this guy is smoking crack for all kinds of reasons.

Hey, I gotta clay model that'll do 60 mph on water and 240 on land. Really, honestly. It'll be roling off the lot just as soon as I get the funding. Can I get linked by Slashdot too?

I'm your token skeptic

[Matey-O]

I'd rtfa but the bugger's slashdotted.

be that as it may, it's _extremely_ difficult to make a vechicle do 200mph sustained. You can do it one of two ways:

a)Serious Cubic Horsepower

b)Serious Aerodynamic design

If you choose 'a' above, be prepared to generate 600+ hp, also be prepared to protect your occupant when the vehicle loses directonal stability.

If you choose 'b' above, you may be able to get along with significantly less hp (400-500), but be prepared to spend cubic dollars renting a wind tunnel, or hardware/software to perform a lot of number crunching.

Remember, HP goes up with the _cube_ of speed change. If your car does 150mph with a 215hp motor (Turbo Neon, this month's Road n track) and you want it to go 1.33 times faster, it'll take 1.33^3*215hp or 505hp to make 200 mph...

An additional datapoint: My vette has done 168mph with 350 crank hp (automatic, nevada, coupla thousand feet above sealevel, so figure some hp loss there.) So a .29 Cd vehicle, with a TON of aero work can do this pretty calmly. Take that exact same envelope to 195 or so and it's aerodynamics are no longer adequate to task, it's gets pretty hairy handling. (and takes 575 hp...more than the neon because it punches a bigger hole in the air, and there are differences in driveline efficency and gearing)

You go ahead, I'll watch from a safe distance. ;)

Intake Won't Work

[snatchitup]

I doubt top speed will be 50. I've owned Jet Skis, and one thing you learn about is cavitation, and something call the Scoop Grate.

Basically, the stock setup that came with my KW-650SX goes barely 40Mph. But it was because at 40Mph, not enough water is going through the impeller. So, with the simple addition of an after market scoop grate, I added about 3Mph (All it did was lower the scoop about 1/4 an inch. I got another 2Mph out of a stainless steel prop, and anouth 2Mph out of a new ride plain.

Pulling in water as it passes alog the side of a wheel just won't work.

It's a really cool design though to have the wheels sucking in water to pump out, but he really needs to redesign. Basically, you need to scoop the water in.

Also, since it's a fairly heavy thing, it can actually go faster on water that 50Mph because of the added stability. My stand-up jet-ski weighs about 260lbs and at 46Mpg its a not a pleasure cruise, but on a heavier 550lbs waverunner it is a pleasure to cruise at even 50Mph.

Rethink the water intake to something more direct and it'll go more like 75-95 on water. Horseopower isn't the issue, fluid dynamics is.