Troop Carriers To Ride On Air Pillows

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27795, 21 October 1955, Page 16

Troop Carriers To Ride On Air Pillows

[U.S. Information Service]

WASHINGTON. The Teracruiser, a big troop and cargo carrier 25 feet long and 12 feet wide which glides over the ground on eight giant air pillows, recently was unveiled by the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company of Clintonville, Wisconsin. The new vehicle was designed and built by the company in co-operation with the Army Ordnance Corps, Detroit Arsenal, and has been turned over to the Army Transportation Corps for further tests. The company claims the Teracruiser has industrial as well as military possibilities, particularly in the oil industry, for transporting heavy drilling rigs over marshy or rocky terrain. The Teracruiser is said to be the first vehicle manufactured expressly to use the new, extremely low-pressure pneumatic tyre bags developed by Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. The 20-ton vehicle, which has a load capacity of 7 to 10 tons, ?s

equipped with eight of the tyre bags, each 3.5 feet in diameter, 5 feet long, and inflated with only 3 to 51b of air pressure per square inch compared with 26 to 321 b for regular motorcar tyres. These soft, fat bags cushion the vehicle, which has no springs, and permit it to travel over rocky terrain, sand, snow, marsh, ice and swampland, the company says. The driver, through a central air pressure device, can inflate or deflate the individual tyre bags while moving. The carrier is equipped with a 340horsepower Continental engine and has a maximum speed of about 25 miles an hour. The company says high speeds are not considered important for this vehicle because of the adverse terrain on which it is designed to travel. . . , , The cab section is pressurised and insulated to permit operation in temperatures below zero. The motor is within the cab section so it can be disconnected and removed through a roof panel.