Favourite line: Brian Long "what's a hovercraft?"

Observations: I'd read in the "archives" that the pilot episode for scrapheap involved building hovercraft. I was baffled by it, thinking that it was far too complex to build from junk. I was proved wrong!

I'm really looking forward to this weeks episode. I understand the Long brothers. They aren't quite as charismatic and mischevous as Art Attack, but I think like they do! The only unfortunate part of this is that I know who won. I still enjoy the shows tremendously for the technical content, but it is a tiny bit off-putting to know who won in the end!

I was full of questions after the Diving competition, but the hovercraft show seemed to answer my questions. I'm a little surprised that they didn't try to fix the flapping skirt. In Steam Cars, they stopped the race for ten minutes so the Beach Boys could weld their power coupling, and have them both finish.

And how am I going to get my weekly fix when the season is over? At least I'm on my fourth 6 hour tape full of the shows, so I can watch reruns at will!

-- Michael (Canadian P.Eng.) (michael@mks-tech.com), January 22, 2001

Answers

hey i agree "where do we go to get our dose of junk yard wars when the season is over. still i don't think you will figure out my idea on the 4x4 cycle

-- stephen (henneigh@yahoo.com), January 22, 2001.

the hovercraft episode was one that really blew me away, i was so impressed with what each team came up with, that one guy spent something like four hours on that jet engine part and got next to nothing done, oh what a hoot. But they ended up with a heck of a machine, on foam no less and won.

I love it when the teams are running out of time, the team members are covered with dirt and grime and you can see them shaking there heads wondering how the heck they're going to finish.

Anyway I seem to like the more complex challenges. The fireboats, the one where they had to knock down the walls and mobile bridge. The reaper was a good idea but they allowed the one team to do some by hand and I don't think that was right, plus it put too much strain on the equiptment, ten hours wasn't enough time to build something that complex.

The British girl she's just great too, she is always so into it, she's a cuttie. Somehow she makes the show.

-- Richard James Retey (theswampie@cs.com), January 25, 2001.

The hovercraft episode is by far my favorite one, because they look like so much fun to drive! I've tried to convince some of my friends from work that we should build one, but they're a bunch of party poopers. At first I thought the foam platform idea was a bad idea, but it really worked out in the end. And I think that the Longs' skirt was a little bit taller than the skirt on other guys', which probably helped out alot. Lets have more contests like the hovercraft one!

-- Ryan H (Coastcardinal@hotmail.com), February 07, 2001.

What puzzled me was why they put the framework _under_ the skirting. It would've made more sense to have the deck fabric under the framework so the air cushion would be pressing up under the frame instead of having the fabric pulling upwards. They would've had more ground clearance too, might not have wrecked it. :) The chainsaw carved prop was cool though.

-- Gregg Eshelman (gregg1@valint.net), March 01, 2001.