Battery powered XC skis with air suction for traction?

On Sunday on Glacier Point Road in Yosemite, there was a guy skiing
along and his skis were making strange noises. It was like he was
playing a video game while skiing. He pointed to his skis and said that
they had a powered traction device which created some sort of vacuum on
uphills (for traction) and reversed it for gliding, pushing air out
through ports in the bottom, and that was the source of the annoying noice.

I searched on-line and couldn't find anything about this. One thing
about him was that he was _really_ slow, so whatever the thing on his
skis was, it didn't seem to help with speed. Maybe it was something he
constructed himself.

On Mar 17, 8:57*am, SMS wrote:
On Sunday on Glacier Point Road in Yosemite, there was a guy skiing
along and his skis were making strange noises. It was like he was
playing a video game while skiing. He pointed to his skis and said that
they had a powered traction device which created some sort of vacuum on
uphills (for traction) and reversed it for gliding, pushing air out
through ports in the bottom, and that was the source of the annoying noice.

I searched on-line and couldn't find anything about this. One thing
about him was that he was _really_ slow, so whatever the thing on his
skis was, it didn't seem to help with speed. Maybe it was something he
constructed himself.

Did he show his battery pack? I would guess one would need a decent
battery (say, 10 A-H at 12V?) to provide enough power to ski for any
substantial periods of time (more than an hour).

On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:57:39 -0700, SMS
wrote:

On Sunday on Glacier Point Road in Yosemite, there was a guy skiing
along and his skis were making strange noises. It was like he was
playing a video game while skiing. He pointed to his skis and said that
they had a powered traction device which created some sort of vacuum on
uphills (for traction) and reversed it for gliding, pushing air out
through ports in the bottom, and that was the source of the annoying noice.

I searched on-line and couldn't find anything about this. One thing
about him was that he was _really_ slow, so whatever the thing on his
skis was, it didn't seem to help with speed. Maybe it was something he
constructed himself.

Sounds like they finally made a Cat Ski for snow.

On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:57:39 -0700, SMS wrote:

On Sunday on Glacier Point Road in Yosemite, there was a guy skiing
along and his skis were making strange noises. It was like he was
playing a video game while skiing. He pointed to his skis and said that
they had a powered traction device which created some sort of vacuum on
uphills (for traction) and reversed it for gliding, pushing air out
through ports in the bottom, and that was the source of the annoying noice.

I searched on-line and couldn't find anything about this. One thing
about him was that he was _really_ slow, so whatever the thing on his
skis was, it didn't seem to help with speed. Maybe it was something he
constructed himself.

Was it this guy, by chance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOYnO...eature=related

Ben

Crazy idea. I've got some sketches to use just the hoovercraft effect for skating. Glad someone else made it, and is skiing slowly with it now.
I wanted to make it work without external power, though.