Invention Of Land Shark

Amphibious vehicles are nothing new, but one that is capable of 257km/h on land and 80km/h on water certainly is - the Land Shark, with its revolutionary centrifugal turbine propulsion system, was invented in 1997 by David Baker.

Looking as though it was just driven out of a James Bond movie, the Land Shark is a revolutionary three-wheeled amphibious vehicle invented by David Baker (England) that will have many potential uses in leisure, fire-fighting, rescue operations, policing and the military - once a full-size model is built. On entering the water the front mudguards of the Land Shark swing out and down through 180 degrees to sit beneath the wheels and act as hydroplanes, while the single rear wheel acts as a turbine pump. One side of the rear wheel draws the water into a centrifugal turbine; the water is then pushed through to a pressure collector on the other side and forced out of the vehicle via a rear-facing nozzle.It was the realization that such a wheel / pump could work that inspired Baker to invent the Land Shark after he noticed a motorbike with an aluminum rear wheel; 'The center of the spokes resembled a propeller. If you had dropped the back wheel of the motorcycle into the water, it would have pumped water straight through the middle of the wheel.'

Inspired by this thought, Baker went on to invent a lightweight, three-seater vehicle that has been described as a cross between a car, a motorbike-and-sidecar, a jet boat and a hydrofoil. He filed a patent in 1997 and managed to attract the interest of Britain's Defense Evaluation Research Agency (DERA), which joined the project late that year. Land Shark Ltd was incorporated in 1998 to bring the invention to fruition, and that autumn Lotus Engineering Ltd (England) joined the Land Shark Project as consultants, later agreeing to design and built the first prototype.

Baker asserts that the biggest advantage of the Land Shark over earlier amphibious vehicles is that: "Most have been adapted from standard road car designs and this has always added to the cost and complexity of the finished vehicle - due to the addition of a second drive system for use in water." The Land Shark, on the other hand, has a single system that drives the ingenious rear wheel, which doubles as a centrifugal turbine.

Source - The Book of Inventions by Ian Harrison