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Snowmobile Skis

Add snowmobile-style tracked propulsion to the back of skis
  (+4)
(+4)
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The snowmobile is a pretty solid invention. A couple of steerable skis up front and a single track at the back powered by a fairly powerful engine. For the human occupant, there's a seat, fairing, and some controls. Anyone venturing real distances into the wild still takes skis as a backup and to better access tighter or steeper areas.

Improvement and mass production means that lithium cells, electronic controllers and brushless DC motors are all available to give serious power to anything you like.

So, take a pair of skis, add a miniaturized snowmobile track to the rear of each one powered by a few hundred watts of brushless motors. The tracks would benefit from having each blade on a pivot so that they lay flat while skiing forwards and unfolded when driven backward by the motor to bite the snow. Control is by wireless triggers in the ski-pole handles, just like electric skateboards. A snowboard version is also available for those with piercings/tattoos/strange hats.

bs0u0155, Nov 08 2018

Lift ticket? https://www.gettyim...otography/660880327
We don need no steenkin lift tickets. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 08 2018]

[link]






       Sounds easier to wait until the snow melts. Can these things be Segwified to make it harder to fall over?
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 08 2018
  

       //Segwified to make it harder to fall over?//   

       I see no reason you couldn't build a balancing algorithm in. You'd need traction in both directions, but you could definitely get fore/aft stability. It might be clever to split each track into two, so you can get a little bit of skid-steer directional control.
bs0u0155, Nov 08 2018
  

       // a few hundred watts of brushless motors //   

       Tiny axial-flow gas turbines will give a much better power to weight ratio and the energy density of kerosene is way higher than batteries.   

       You just need to find a way round the FOD ingestion problem.
8th of 7, Nov 08 2018
  

       (+), but I think this dude beat you to it [link].   

       that is a great picture!
theircompetitor, Nov 08 2018
  

       It seems to me that there's a fundamental flaw in ski-slope design, if an invention like this is necessary. They've clearly build things to slope upward, whereas they should have had them sloping downwards so gravity would do the work.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 08 2018
  

       Somebody has to have done this before.   

       (clicks on link)   

       OK, somebody somewhere has to have done this SUCCESSFULLY before.
doctorremulac3, Nov 08 2018
  

       <later>   

       // find a way round the FOD ingestion problem. //   

       Ahhh. Solid-fuel rockets.   

       Yes, that would do it.
8th of 7, Nov 08 2018
  

       //find a way round the FOD ingestion problem//   

       Tighter control of British Jet technology dissemination? More careful guarding? Or just buy top quality British Object Debris which is what runways should be littered with.
bs0u0155, Nov 09 2018
  

       Indeed. The problem with foreign rubbish is that it is, in fact, rubbish.   

       Another woeful deficiency that, despite decades of opportunity, the EU bureaucrats have entirely failed to address. The reason there's no Rubbish Directive is most likely that if there were minimum standards for trash and garbage the governments of several member states would cease to exist.
8th of 7, Nov 09 2018
  

       British rubbish, best in the world. I mean, what is it? Waxed paper from some hearty cheese and pickle sandwiches? Some recycled newspaper with a little vinegar and chip grease residue? Maybe a brown paper bag, a little grease- transparent from a regional pasty. Essentially a mix of carbohydrate and hydrocarbons. Practically fuel for any robust jet engine. It all goes wrong when you start giving consumers miniature pressure vessels for drinks.
bs0u0155, Nov 09 2018
  

       // Practically fuel for any robust jet engine. //   

       ... and definitely fuel for a Gresley A4 Pacific. No FOD problems there, at least, not from anything much smaller than a full-grown Frisian cow. And even then it tends to be loud and messy, but only inconvenient.   

       The "chicken gun" test on a steam locomotive would be amusing ... even a little 0-4-0 saddle-tank shunter would be pretty much indifferent, apart from the smell of cooking chicken wafting from the smokebox.
8th of 7, Nov 09 2018
  
      
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