Q Has the hover principle been applied to
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road vehicles? The traction resistance of a trailer supported on an air cushion would be considerably less than the resistance of a wheeled trailer, which might well offset the disadvantage of providing power for the air-lift system,
A The hover principle has been applied
experimentally to an indivisible-load vehicle to spread the load when it is negotiating a bridge and thus obviate the high unit loading produced by a wheeled vehicle. And it has been applied to a Land-Rover to reduce the load on the wheels and thereby facilitate travel over rough ground or levelled scrubland. It has been advocated for applications to larger vehicles to enable them to be driven over paths that have been cut through forests and so on in developing countries but as far as is known there are no practical examples of such applications.
A full-lift hover system would not be suitable for trailers operating on public highways because the vehicle would lack lateral stability, which is essential when cornering and when the outfit is travelling in a high cross wind.