Poster aerotrain i80-250

The Aérotrain is a vehicle moving on a cushion of air, and guided by a special inverted T-shaped track, necessarily forming a clean site.

It can be propelled by a propeller (aviation engine), a turbine, a turbojet or a linear electric motor, and is supported by an air cushion, which allows it to move without contact with the track, and therefore without friction with the latter. Its operating principle also borrows from the monorail technique.

It is a French invention, by the engineer Jean Bertin, who unfortunately never experienced commercial exploitation, the project being put aside for the promotion of the TGV of the SNCF.

Several prototypes were built, which broke speed records. The I80-250, shown here, is an interurban Aerotrain model on air cushion and propelled by a ducted propeller. In 1969, an 18 km experimental track was built between Ruan, north of Artenay and Saran, in the Loiret department. The I80 could have moved there at a speed of 250 km / h (see up to 400 km / h)