How does a hovercraft operate

The main parts of an hovercraft are;

1. Hull: Supports weight of the whole craft

2. Skirt: Holds air under the craft to form an air cushion which is attached around the craft

3. Fans: Pumpes air for the thurst and/or lift of the craft

4. Propellers: Enables the forward motion of the craft

The working principles of hovercraft.

A. Thrust

To push the hovercraft forward an air current is produced by a fan powered by an engine. the fan is called the thrust fan. There are two kinds of hovercraft based on the engines. Hovercraft that uses one engine and two engines.

The one engine hovercraft has a bigger fan and it creates one air current the splits the air for the thrust and cushion as needed. The two engine hovercraft has one fan for thrust and the other one to create air to fill the cushion

B. Hovering

Hovercrafts have fans powered by engines. These fans blow air underneath the hovercraft to cause it to lift off of the ground.

A fan of a given power will create a certain amount of pressure under the craft (P= F/A), so we can see that bigger hovercraft (one with a bigger overall area) can carry more weight than a smaller one with a fan the same size. Depending upon the size of the hovercraft and the power of the engines, hovercrafts can lift from 15 centimeters to over 2 meters into the air.  If you just make a fan push the air under the hovercraft It will not create any pressure because of the leakages, so engineers had to create a tight seal between the ground and a hovercraft, that is why hovercrafts have skirts made of fabric or rubber surrounding their bases. These skirts help to keep the pressurized air from escaping by following the shape of the relief the hovercraft overcoming.

C. Steering For steering, most hovercrafts use rudders, which are positioned right behind the fans that generate thrust. If the rudders move left or right, the air deflects against the rudders and creates a high-pressure area on one side of the rudder. This makes the rudder move into the area of low pressure and therefore turning the hovercraft.