this file is for entertainment and
educational
purposes only
Donar originates from the German God
Thôr - the Teutonic God
of thunder; counterpart of Norse Thor - as well as a stylish
hovercraft.
The hovercraft Donar was developed
in the late 90's and had outstanding
optical appearance combined with some new technology.
Most hovercraft enthusiast were looking with a jealous eye on the craft
which, unfortunately, disappeared soon after we got just a
glimpse
of it.
Till early 2001, most of us did not
know much about the Hovercraft DONAR
as it was developed by a team of German-British Aircraft
engineers
and naval architects.
Components were build by several subcontract companies all over
Europe
like Neuform-composites
from where the variable pitch prop is coming ( as well as you
could
see a short image of the craft) and molds for a serial production were
stored in the beautiful Switzerland..
With spring 2001 Kurse International
- ( an E-Bay affiliate company
) acted as an agent to sell the whole Donar hovercraft design as
well as the all related patents to this beautiful hovercraft named
Donar.
The list of assets at offer was
(1) All rights to manufacture and to commercialize the
DONAR Hovercraft
in any quantity
(2) All rights to sub-license the production to any
licensee (i.e. Asia)
(3) All rights to commercialize its design (licensing to
film-, computer-gaming-,
toy -industry)
(4) All existing drawings, documentation, layer-plan of the
composite structure,
bill of material etc.
(5) The license to use any valid patents in possession of
the seller for
the purpose of producing and commercializing the DONAR Hovercraft (no
further
royalties apply). Which consited of following patents which
were applied for and partially granted in Germany, the United
States
and some other countries of interest.
Hovercraft Control-System, Germany P42 19 826.7
Hovercraft Trim-System, Germany P42 19 828.31
Brake and Control-Arrangement for Hovercraft P42 19 87.51
Skirt-Trim-System for Hovercraft, P42 19 830.5
(6) The operational prototype DONAR 001 (at the time of
auction maintained
in a Dutch Marina near Amsterdam), in as is condition. Which referred
to
a fully functional craft which was built for testing purposes
and,
as such, was not yet fully sound insulated and had only four of six
seats
installed.
(7) The existing set of production molds (at that
time stored in
Switzerland). This comprised more than 200 elements manufactured to
highest
quality standards. For the preparation of the serial production,
modification of the molds may be required and few additional
molds
may be needed to facilitate the serial production. The buyer would have
been responsible for all costs to transport the molds from the
warehouse
in Switzerland to the buyer's location.)
So now
you might want to know what was the original asking price for this
auction ....?
Before we mention that, please be informed that the Hovercraft Donar
required a capital in excess of US $ 3 million according to the
original file posted on e-bay where a copy is most likely
available.
But whatever the price was / is / might be - it is a quite
impressive craft as you can see from the following clip which was
posted on youtube
in
According to the original file most of this money went into
the set
of production molds, the key to a successful production of DONAR.
Substantial
time and expertise have been invested in producing the hovercraft to
the
extraordinary precision standards as applied in the Aircraft industry.
Their excellent quality ensured serial production in high numbers.
Hence,
only minor investment would have been necessary for the preparation of
the serial production, for optimizing details of the design and
arrangements
of the shop-floor to optimize the production-process.
The asking price was US $ 2.3 million which did not find a
buyer within
the short time frame of a standard e-bay auction.
Normally we should say case closed - another dream which went into
ashes - but the Hovercraft Donar had some appealing design criterias
which
were at that time interesting for us at 4wings and a lot of other
Hovercraft
interested people.
Hovercraft
Donar had the
following overall dimensions :
Data retrieved from several enthusiast sources and past e-bay posting
Length mm/ft.in
7630/25.0
Width mm/ft.in.
3280/10.9
Height mm/ft.in
1820/5.12
Hover height mm/ft.in
400/1.4
Total weight kg/lbs
2150/4740
Empty Weight kg/lbs
1500/3306
Payload kg/lbs
650/1433
Average fuel cons. gal.ph/ltr./h
approx. 8/30
max. range km/mls
up to 700/440
Fuel capacity ltr/gal
250/66
Engine : BMW M70, 12 cylinder ps/kW
300/220
Controls: negative V-rudder
hydr. 2
air-brake-flaps
hydr. 2
Thrust propeller: Diameter mm
1000 / Number of blades 8
The hovercraft Donar had the innovative feature of of a unique
negative
V rudder in the thrust air stream. These V rudder in each thrust
duct of the craft allow for both banking and breaking
actions.
Another feature were two massive air breaks which could be deployed
individually or in tandem to provide high speed turning and braking
forces.
Variable pitch propellers in each of the two ducts allow flexible
control
of forward, reverse and differential thrust.
Since it has all these outstanding
features - where is it?
After the auction ended the traces of the craft disappeared
and within
a year a german web site ( http://www.air-cushion-craft.com/Donar/donar.html
) claimed to be the owner of the Hovercraft Donar, Wotan and Airrider
series.
Unfortunately the Airrider crafts were ended when Koeniger Maschienebau
closed the production several years ago. .
We posted the e-bay file on our server to provide the
technical
information for educational purpose only.
Over the next two years the US and the EU investors tried to locate
the where abouts of the Donar and even if we shared our information we
could not find any legal owner of the craft till late 2003.
November 2003, we received an email from
another
gentleman claiming to be the owner of Donar and he wishes for us to
delete
the file from our site. We asked him to edit the existing file.
unfortunately,
that was not acceptable for him as we are being threatened by his
lawyer.
We all must agree that the hovercraft
community
needs to work with and not against each other.
As a result, you see the modification
of
the content and no Donar pictures on this page. But there are still
several
images of this beautiful craft Donar on the web. If you are interested,
you may search in hovercraft news groups.
We all have been watching the ashes of the
Phoenix
for the last three years.......perhaps we will finally see the Phoenix
rising again.
Our apology and best wishes to all Donar
fans.
Michael - 4wings.com
PS.:all
the provided data is fact .... even if it may sound like fiction.
