Dying throws of my first hover

This is my first attempt at building a hovrcraft. It all came from the tip and given time, it all went back there too!!!! The squirrel cage fan is the type that is used in air conditioning a big building. They are mostly made of pressed steel. The fins are just a tight fit and pressed into the main frame. I asked around to find out what sort of a rev limit these things had and couldn't get a real answer. Orignally I'd put an 8Hp Briggs & Stratton motor on it but I couldn't it get out past half throttle. So I fitted a 250cc motorbike engine on it thinking I could use the gears and get higher revs in a higher gear but not over load the engine. It hovered well but when I split the air for thrust it wouldn't go foward so I changed into top gear and gave it some more throttle. That's when I found this fan has a rev limit. The little fins all came out of their press fit groves and landed in the bottom of the barrel. I still don't know what the rev limit is, but it's less than the output of the 250cc engine. And it was lots of fun.

Enjoy my little blog and please leave a comment PS If you happen to know the revs per minute of these type of fans please pass it on