WesWorld

...track down some English-language information on Toivo Kaario.

Mr. Kaario, from what I've been able to track down via Wiki, may well have been the first person to come up with the modern form of the hovercraft (lift fans, pressure-containing skirt, etc), but was unable to secure funding to work on the concept in the early 1930s - and of course had world events overtake and interfere with his efforts afterwards.

Obviously, this is of interest to me for technical development purposes, but I'd like to know more before I start trying to have Nordmark develop the things.

I don't know anything about this Toivo Kaario chap, but my quick research led me to a Russian engineer who built some working hovercraft for the Soviet Navy in the late 1930s.

...I do believe I still have some money in my 1944 Russian budget...

Oh yeah.

From what I can make out of the Google translated version of his Finnish wiki page is that he developed a Wing-in-Ground Effect (WIG) vehicle rather than a hovercraft. At the link below there is a picture of Mr. Kaario on one of his prototypes (the last post on that page). The main difference is that he was using solid sidewalls rather than an enclosed rubber skirt. The wiki page mentions this difference too. I'd say for the snowy wastes of Nordmark it has promise, a equal to the aerosled concept the Soviets had.

http://slotblog.net/topic/44192-aeromobi…dable-aircraft/


I'm fairly sure Soviet designers were working on WIG at this time in basic form and one engineer developed an air cushion undercarriage for rough surfaces but it seems no practical steps to combine the two were made until after the war.

You're right that the sketches of that and later prototypes look very WIG-ish, but the air cycle for the prototype in the photograph is very hovercraft-y - look through here: http://io9.com/an-illustrated-history-of…craft-998911698

I'd surmise that, at this stage of development, the conceptual separation between 'wing in ground effect' and pressure-chamber hovercraft had not yet precipitated out. Certainly hovercraft and widgets would both be suitable for the role Nordmark is interested in, of a fast attack craft that's immune to the threat of interdiction by sea ice.

Based on what I'm seeing of both designs, I'm not very confident that the designs could operate over sea ice. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I would certainly be reticent to do so, as the ice would damage the hull (particularly when crossing pressure ridges).

Well, I was looking for an excuse to explain why their entry into the history books had been delayed for five-to-ten years to the 'present day'. Needing to work out how to put together a double-walled flexible skirt to solve the clearance problem would be an ideal one; OTL it seems to've taken four years to go from the SR-N1 to working ferry service, so the timing from Kaario's initial one-man demonstrator to a field-ready design (eight years, at least) is nicely conservative.

What size craft have you in mind?
It seems most of these early WIG/hovercraft-thingys are two-man affairs at their biggest and are lightly loaded with not even a proper cockpit in most cases let alone armament. The USSR's aerosleds seem to have carried more men and weapons but they of course are sleds and not suspended in the air!

The other factor is Mr. Kaario might be a genius tinkering in his woodshed but without industrial backing and a big firm with engineering know-how and government funds, no progress is ever going to replicate what Britain did in the 50s in a similar timescale. If you write in Nordmark's Air Force/ Navy throwing some funds at this and getting either SAAB or Sopwith behind this then I'd feel more comfortable about it.

Quoted from "Hood"

The other factor is Mr. Kaario might be a genius tinkering in his woodshed but without industrial backing and a big firm with engineering know-how and government funds, no progress is ever going to replicate what Britain did in the 50s in a similar timescale. If you write in Nordmark's Air Force/ Navy throwing some funds at this and getting either SAAB or Sopwith behind this then I'd feel more comfortable about it.

That is the intention, yes - that Mr. Kaario managed to put together a demonstrator capable of interesting the NN in, say, 1939, and that they've been spending the last six years or so devoting serious resources to the problem. My preferred 'news format' is excerpting decades later history books, so I'm even comfortable presenting it - I just wanted to get all my ducks in a line, first, both in terms of historical plausibility and intra-player politics.

As for the intended craft, what I have in mind is basically a two-man cockpit, about ten tons of payload, a lust for speed, and a raving deathwish. In summertime, that payload would come in an under-belly 'bomb bay', while in the winter you'd see that bay filled with an ammunition pallet and a well-bundled madman would climb up on top to man the Bofors 40mm mount.

(The summer 'variant', of course, would retain the mounting point, but unship the gun to save weight for the fish.)

Finding a less cold alternative to a gibbering loon with an autocannon would motivate Nordmark to start looking into surface-to-surface rockets, but that'd be in the future.

Maybe this kind of Loon!

Mother Russia says: "Mine!"