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Jim
03-11-2008, 10:20 PM
My friend just sent over three pictures and said "Look at what I have in my yard". Looks like a Lycoming making all the noise back there.

Hillbilly
03-12-2008, 05:34 AM
What the heck is it?

JohnW
03-12-2008, 08:30 AM
Man, that HAS TO BE an "Ice Boat", doesn't it? A cross between a Sail-Sled and a Swamp Buggy (?).That's one fullblown Kid Killer if I ever saw one! I'm impressed. vroom-vroom (Buh-WHAAA! WHAAA!)

Stephen
03-12-2008, 08:49 AM
Where's the "N"?

Bultaco Jim
03-12-2008, 10:35 AM
There were a few seconds there, where every one of us wanted one just like it. .......It's because we're very sick puppies.

Hillbilly
03-12-2008, 03:13 PM
Holy crap, I see the skis on it now...this morning I thought them was trailer rails...Thats a motorized disaster :o

JohnW
03-12-2008, 07:57 PM
hahahahah! Okay, guess "us Northerners" have a different outlook on machines! See, I'd have to put this kind of machine slightly UNDER the "motorized disaster" classification. One "sport" that was very popular up here when I was an impressionable youth involved driving SPIKES up from the inside of motorcycle tires and racing them on the frozen lakes around here in one-third or one-quarter mile "tracks". You ain't lived 'till you seen Harley Knuckleheads dukin' it out wheel to wheel -kinda like the Roman Chariot races, get my meaning?. I mean, you HAD to have the fenders OFF, ya know? No game for the squeamish, that! Now THAT was a "motorized disaster". I guess "insurance" may have been the downfall that killed that "sport".

By comparison, a toy such as this with closable doors, most likely safety harnesses of some sort, what APPEARS to be at least one location to attach a "windshield wiper" and undoubtedly some source of creature comfort in the form of a defroster/heater (possibly satellite radio as well???)...would seem downright "civilized" to someone growing up watching full-blown lunatics wearing leather skullcaps, logger boots and wool mittens speeding around rubber pylons at 80mph on a lake riding unfaired two-wheeled racing machines (ya think?). I admit...I WATCHED it, but I never DID it.

I DO have to question the possibility of the "tricycle effect" (anybody remember "Laugh-In"?) and ask why the "cockpit" is shaped like a helicopter's? You WANT IT to roll over if/when you crash it? Sounds EXPENSIVE. I'd be thinking more like "outriggers" (errr, sponsons???) like on the Ford Bronco test vehicle you used to see in the news when they were testing SUVs (was that Late 80s or Early 90s?).

One other thing comes to my mind...the time a couple dozen Februarys ago when I dropped in (flying, with the cabin heat knob pulled all the way "out") on the lake to visit with some friends of mine doing the ice-fishing thing. Just about a hundred feet from where I wanted to stop (near their shanty), the bottom fell out from under my Vagabond! I was going JUST fast enough to not have damaged the fuselage or tailwheel (Federal tailski), but the tooth-jarring BOUNCE was like dropping one in from ten feet on asphalt. That was when I learned that on medium to large lakes, the wind can "pile up" the ice into -in this case- four foot (could be more, could be less) "cliffs". The light was "flat" that day, I despite yellow RayBans, I did not see anything but what appeared to be "frozen lake with about eight inches of fresh snow on it", I deny any prior knowledge of this possibility and it was my extreme GOOD fortune that I approached this "phenomena" from the "high side" as opposed to the reciprocal possibility! If a man was to land straight AT one of these things, I shudder to consider the consequences. Changed my whole perspective on "landing on the lake on skiis". On that outing, I truly "cheated death again".

Seriously. I AM impressed, and would actually like to see first hand what that Puppy would do!

Gilbert Pierce
03-12-2008, 09:18 PM
I wonder if you could get it going fast enough down a grassy slope to plane it on water. It would be a real cool "prop ski". I'll bet the Jet Ski crown would give you a wide berth.

Jim
03-12-2008, 10:47 PM
Hi again,

Just couldn't resist going up for a look. The front ski that's used to steer is removed for mounting the front strut to the trailer. We found a data plate that says it's a Polaris, serial #0007 the net says from around the late 60s.

I can imagine the cost at that time for a Lycoming was quite a bit. The net says it 's probably a 0235. The interior had no speedometer, just engine monitoring gages. There's a stereo right behind the seat on the hat shelf. Notice the skis are wood and very generously sized for a sled.

The Stromberg carburator is what's mounted up high, the tubing has it using carb heat all the time. Had an oil pan like I'd never seen before, looked like it could also have been used to mount the engine down to a flat surface without carb interferenc.

Hillbilly
03-13-2008, 05:34 AM
Hmm, very interesting...Due to the disconcerting lack of a brake pedal (or rudders) , no air bag, no "Oh SH!T" handles and I did not notice any harnesses, ropes or seat belts. Only a curiously placed concrete block (which I assume is for the passenger to persuade the operator to stop and let him out). Getting me in that snowblowing cure for constipation would be a lot like putting a mad housecat in a small box (near impossible), In the event that you succeeded and the restraints held, I predict I'd start screaming as soon as the starter engaged....-Hillbilly

Bultaco Jim
03-13-2008, 11:31 AM
It's a machine to audition for the " Darwin Awards "

Glen Geller
03-13-2008, 06:40 PM
The concrete block is a cabin pre-heater:
1) Procure a suitable concrete block. The bigger, the better. But no too big.
2) Distract wife with credit card; place concrete block in hot oven for ~1 hour.
3) Remove concrete bloclock from oven. Scream. Put on oven mitts, resume removing concrete block from oven.
4) Place concrete block in blanket and wrapit up sorta half-ass.
5) Somehow open kitchen door, garage door and trunk of car while carrying poorly wrapped, 500 F concrete block.
6) Drive to airport. D'oh, wife still has credit card. This hobby is expensive!
7) By now you have learned to open all the appropriate doors before lifting the poorly wraped wrapped concrete block, put it in the deathmobile and close door.
8) Perform thorough two minute preflight inspection (behind the shed, in the trees, brrr, that's cold outside!)
9) Enter toasy warm deathmobile cabin, and get ready for fun!

Frankenpacer
03-31-2008, 11:48 AM
Oil pan looks to be from an O-290G. I had one just like it.

Jim
04-01-2008, 09:22 PM
Just got this, sort of an update.

........Guy that owns the one in my yard is also building one up with a Rolls Royce Merlin V12 Is going to attempt the snowplane speed record. Is hoping to get 206 MPH out of it. This one will do about 170. He has a handful of em. Polaris made a total of 23 of em but many others made em too.

j-

http://www.greenwaterreport.com/reports ... -03-13.htm (http://www.greenwaterreport.com/reports/2005/2005-03-13.htm)

http://images.google.com/images?client= ... a=N&tab=wi (http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=snowplane&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi)

........Frankenpacer wrote;

"Oil pan looks to be from an O-290G."

I've never seen a ground power Lycoming, your insight makes a lot of sense to me.

Bultaco Jim
04-01-2008, 10:58 PM
This all makes sense to me; these Northern types. The last party (only) that I went to in Minnesota, they took me down to the basement where they were holding Belt-Sander races. ( souped-up, racing stripes, lots of beer.)

Frank Green
04-02-2008, 07:08 AM
If you all are interested, you can buy a new version that is made for use on the Saint Lawerence river in winter. For those with enough bucks for a island mansion, getting there is difficult due to the open water/ ice you have to cross in Winter. So there is a company up there that builds a variation of a Florida airboat but uses a Fiberglass pointed nose boat that will slide on the snow and ice and float on the open water. When I was young and dumb I used to drag race 4X4s on frozen lakes. As John says back in the good old days. I had a 60 CJ5 with a 327 Chevy. We had 3 classes, no studs (fun) stock studs(ho hum) and unlimited (wild) Drill holes thru the tires and insert bolts with pointed ends. Don't stand behind. Seat belts? You don't want no stinkin seat belts. You go thru you really don't want to be strapped in. We're a little weird up north here in winter. Must be cause we don't get enough blood flow to the brains in winter.

JohnW
04-02-2008, 07:59 AM
Weird, Frank? Whachoomean, weird? What's weird about that?

Frank Green
04-02-2008, 08:40 AM
Okay how about Cooool!!!

andya
04-02-2008, 09:40 AM
Cool or COLD,, A pic from a friend that lives in the area of the Thousand Islands on the "River"....

[attachment=0:281wueor]0217roundisland.jpg[/attachment:281wueor]

Frank Green
04-02-2008, 11:12 AM
A calm day on the river.

Jim
12-18-2008, 04:12 PM
Looks noisy.

Glen Geller
12-18-2008, 11:57 PM
Looks noisy.
A perfect mechanism for turning dollars into decibels.